Papers Due (Updated, With a List of Things to Do)

4 down, 0 to go.

To do:

• Write something to have fobbed by Thursday night.
• Write our Christmas letter. (By the way, if you didn't get a Christmas letter from us last year and you would like one this year, email me your address. Theric complained last year that my posting the Christmas letter on my blog made the print version anticlimactic, so I'm going to have to figure out something to make snail mail worth the wait--maybe I'll just post teasers here.)
• Get together with Tolkien Boy (standing in for SkyeJ) to have our family picture taken.
• Spend countless hours, as is the tradition, trying to get the letter and envelopes to print.
  
• Get a tree.
• Decorate the tree.
• Teach high school kids how to use a college library.
• Buy presents.
• Read the library books I've had checked out but didn't have time to read during the quarter.
• Make gingerbread houses.
• Teach S-Boogie not to use our toothbrushes to spread lotion on her face.
• Teach Little Dude that life is not so horrible when you have a full tummy.
• Get trained in how to judge high school kids who want to be college kids.
• Sell lots and lots of fancy dishes and pink scented soap.
• Make cookies and deliver them to our friends.
• Write each of the 12 Fobs of Christmas.
• Breathe.
  

(Fobsvithe) On Sincerity

If I were a more sincere person, I would not be nice to people to their faces, then say rude things about them on my blog (or elsewhere)--I would be rude to them to their faces. Until I'm ready to live that higher law, though, I'm going to try harder not to say mean things about people behind their backs, even if I secretly think those things.

King Peasant of the Hill

This morning I rode my bike up the very steep hill for the second time. I figured a Saturday morning when the hill is untrafficked and I'm underdressed for the cold weather would be a prime opportunity. I dropped to first gear and rode up the sidewalk so as not to get in the way of cars driving up, and kept going even when I wanted to get off the bike and walk. It wasn't too horribly bad.

It's been half an hour now and I can almost breathe again and the nauseous feeling is beginning to fade.

Pride

Napoleon Dynamite can have his nunchuk skills. After a couple months of working at Fobanna's, I've come to take pride in my giftwrapping skills. Fobanna herself will tell customers that I do a better job than she does. (Never mind the fact that she hasn't ever said a sincere word to a customer, to my knowledge.)

I don't take pride, however, in the gender stereotypes Fobanna promotes. She frequently tells me how glad she is that I work here so I can do things like turn the stereo on, and that obviously I don't know how to clean the wax out of a votive holder because that's a woman thing. Tonight she was talking to a customer who was looking for something to bring to a work party gift exchange.

Fobanna: Are your coworkers women or men?
Customer: Well, I work at a pilate studio, so all the men I work with are gay.
Fobanna: Oh, then we don't have to worry--anything in the store will be perfect!

Because attraction to men and love for pink scented soaps and fancy flatware are intrinsically linked.

Papers Due This Weekend

2 down, 2 to go.

The True Meaning of Self-Control:

When you're having a piece of chocolate pecan pie before bed, and you don't have a glass of milk with it because you know you'll want that milk with your cereal in the morning, and the 3-minute trip to the grocery store to get more isn't worth the effort.

The Secret Equation of Happiness

Sleepy Baby=Sleepy Mommy + Sleepy Daddy=Parental Ability to Deal with Difficult Toddler During the Day=Happy Fob Family

Today will not be a Happy Fob Family day.