Christmas!

We had a beautifully rainy Christmas this year. It was quite good, and the day and the splendor that is Christmas was all quite smashing.

So, the Christmas update begins with The Cat being invited in the house. This is the first time The Cat has come inside. Mother is allergic to cats, so The Cat needs to generally stay outside, but in the Christmas spirit we let her wander around the living room for a bit. The Cat, not Mother. Mother can wander around the living room as much as she likes, and she often likes to wander quite a bit.


Also, Mother scored some sweet drawing materials. If I were to try and describe her reaction to this gift, I may say she was quite excited.


So, that sums up Christmas morning. It was a lot of fun, a bit overwhelming, and quite ground breaking. The next photos are of the Christmas table, and as I am obsessed with table settings, there are a lot of photos.


You may notice Mother in the previous photo, working hard on our holiday meal. The funny thing is she was in charge of two dishes, both which magically didn't make it to the table. One was found after dinner in the fridge, and the other was remembered by Father the next afternoon and was discovered in the oven.




We were running short on time as I was making the place cards, so I wasn't able to gussy them up with anything like a white snowflake stamp with glitter. Instead, I decided to write "Merry Christmas" on the inside of the cards. That lasted for one or two cards, then I started changing it up.
I thought mine was brilliant.

P.S., I really love how reflective everything on the table was. I love that I can see the stemware on the plates. So cool.

Another cool thing was the pickle bouquet:


And the crowning glory of the meal was this delicious cake that from far away looks like it's covered in shaggy white fur.


We had the standard peeps at dinner, but we also had a bonus! The Malletts came! Woot woot!

I like this picture because it shows our tree, which I love (the star is great) and it also reminds me that I was at the back of the line (you can't see the line) and that I was incredibly hungry and I had to wait and wait and wait and wait. It also reminded me that while I was waiting I would try and get Grandma situated, but that was a lot more hassle than I thought it might be. No surprise there. I should have seen it coming.


And Mike taking a buddy shot with the crazy cake with white chocolate shavings.


Merry merry merry Christmas.

I've got something to say

This morning while eating pancakes I finally recognized a fact I have known for quite some time: I don't like real maple syrup.

I'm not sure if that makes me crazy or not.

I opted for Safeway original syrup (ingredients: corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, water, 2% maple syrup, and some other stuff) over Spring Tree 100% pure all natural maple syrup Grade A dark amber.

I have tried other 100% maple syrups and have felt "meh" about them as well.


So what's the deal? Why am I a fan of the corn syrup?

Look, I was there!

Jamie and Jesse got married today in the Los Angeles Temple and I had the opportunity of attending.

This picture is so you would know how gorgeous the day was.

And in these pictures I'm pretending to be part of their families. First Jesse's family, then Jamie's.



I think I blend pretty well into those group shots.

There were 21 weddings this morning, and bunches of people all around. I was very glad that Jamie isn't a primper and was able to come out of the temple before the two other wedding parties that were already waiting. Suckers.

Christmas Eve!

Quick update:

Christmas Eve was most excellent.

As tradition goes, the extended family gets together for food, fun and merriment. So, we got all gussied up (we looked fierce) and went on over to the Aunt and Uncle's house. The thing about Cohen Christmas Eves is that everyone usually forgets that we aren't actually eating dinner there, but instead will snack on hour'dourves, with the crowning glory as the macaroni shrimp salad which is mayo based, which means I've never been smitten by it. So, usually our eating is a bit off as we don't actually have dinner. BUT, this year I remembered the food situation and had a tamale at home. Wicka wicka!

We ate and opened presents and we all made out pretty good and were very happy, although if you based our happiness on the excitement level shown (screaming) Laura would have been declared "happiest".

This year we even sang songs around the piano, which should explain the pictures. Oh, and of course, what is Christmas Eve without Zobal the Rottweiler? Zobal has a crush on me, so he followed me around all night, but it was okay because I have a crush on him too.


Tomorrow is Christmas and I am soooooooooooooooo excited. For reals man, I probably won't be able to sleep tonight.

Also, according to Zobal's pack leader, that is suppose to be a bow tie, but it keeps moving all around his neck.

How to be cool

How to be a cool 8th grader:

1) Call all the seventh graders "Sevies"

2) Giggle with your friends about everything

3) Have a cell phone

4) Have unlimited texting

5) Have a "signature" for your texts. Appropriate names include "Suma" "The Tornado" "White Pony" and "Hugs"

6) Forward all those lame forward things with picture and sound to your 24-year-old cousin

7) Have a crush


I don't know if it should worry me or not, but according to this list, I would make a pretty awesome 8th grader.

An Announcement

The other day Mother and Father gathered Mary and I and announced they were going to get a dog.


Say what?!

This is the best day of my life!

They have decided on a German Short Hair Pointer.


We have been discussing names, and as it seems the name Severus has been thrown out the window, Father is really pushing for the names Amber or Ginger.


Tonight at dinner Grandma says, "If I'm going to have anymore great granddaughters, I think their names should be Amber or Ginger."

We told her Father wanted to name the dog that, and Grandma was absolutely appalled.

Work out jungle gym things

Over Thanksgiving I met up with some old A-Town High friends and took a walk around the lake. It was a gorgeous day.

Not only did we see this bird standing in the middle of the lake and also standing on the bottom of the lake-we really need rain-but we also found some new exercise jungle gym thingies.

Here I am, trying it out. There were two of these around the lake and I had no idea when they were built. Where have I been? Why haven't I been using these things? What are they called?


I think we should probably all work out on this thing when those other Cohens get here for Christmas.

Longs

Tonight I pulled up to Longs and found a man waving. It wasn't a small wave, it was a landing-planes kind of wave. I step out of my car and suddenly I hear sirens and lights. The man wasn't landing a plane. He was landing a fire truck.


The EMTs that stepped out of the truck didn't seem to be in much of a hurry, but I let them into the store first so I wouldn't be in the way. After they passed, I noticed they went right, and my business was to the left. As I was wondering around I thought: What kind of a blogger would I be if I didn't even have a story to go with this picture? And what kind of looky-loo would I be if I didn't go look or loo?

So I wondered over and I didn't see much but a man on the floor and some professionals trying to revive him. So, after feeling a bit guilty for being so lame and looky-looing, I started to leave the aisle when I found calendars! It was great! I even found one that wasn't lame, and I decided to purchase it! Wicka wicka woot! I was so excited. It was like there was a purpose to my looky-looing afterall.

This experience also reminded me of the time I was working at the Cal Poly Bookstore during first week of classes and someone passed out right in front of my register and I didn't manage to notice it.

(Also, I noticed while I was retrieving this photo that my phone labels pictures by the date they were taken. Brilliant no? If only I had figured that out earlier....)

I'm so ashamed.

So, with the beautiful Christmas season comes not so beautiful Hallmark movies. For some reason, both my mother and Mary love the Hallmark channel. I will be minding my own business, walking around the house, and BAM! A Hallmark movie is on.

Those movies are pretty good at sucking me in.

Last week I found myself watching one. I didn't watch all of it. I watched a little over the last half.

While I was watching it I felt incredibly repulsed but was still drawn in by the pathetic story.

I felt so pathetic and worthless and disgusting. When the movie was over, I felt like I needed to punish myself for partaking of such low entertainment.

I hate those movies, I hate them.

I just got back from a Chinese food lunch with Mary (and also watching "A Baby Changes Everything" thanks, Brandon) and I just wanted to share the message in my fortune cookie:

"You will have a bright future."


Lucky me.

"My son is 24. And you are 24? Oh, perfect."

My coworker has a complicated back story.

Mostly what it comes down to is that she has two sons who are both 24 but not twins.

In case you didn't know, I'm 24.

This coworker has spoken of her children every once in a while, and she is always talking about how great they are.

Apparently, one of her sons came into the office about two months ago. We were not introduced, but my coworker talked me up to him later. Then she told me all about him and how sweet he is. He really is a wonderful guy, apparently. She went on and on and on about how great he is and what he likes to do, and do I like to do those things too?

I found out he lives in Grover Beach, which is too far from Atascadero, so it would never work out. I kind of mentioned that to her, and she kind of dropped the subject.

About a week ago, my coworker was talking about how her son was coming to get her for lunch. I was in the break room, and I hear my coworker answer her phone. She said, "Oh, I'm not going out there, you should come in here. (pause) I know, but you should come in and see where I work. (Pause) Okay, just come straight to the back. Okay, bye."

Well, I overhear this and then I hear him approach her desk, and they are chatting, and then suddenly she is in the break room introducing me to her son.

This was a different son. I remembered what the first one looked like, and this one was different. We made some small talk, a few jokes, and then they went to lunch.

By the time they got back I was working again, and suddenly my coworker comes into the room I was in and she just sits down. I ask her where she went to lunch and if she had a nice time.

And then she starts talking about this son, and how surprised he was to find out I had my degree, and I just seemed so cool and I would be fun to hang out with, and he doesn't drink either, and he is really just a great guy, and maybe he'll call me up and we can do something sometime.

Whoa.

We had to stop our conversation then because she was called away, but today we picked it up again. I was on my lunch, reading a book. The thing about reading a book is that I am reading not because I have nothing else to do, but because I want to read the book. So, my nose is buried in my book, my coworker comes in the room and she says, "So if (son's name) calls you up and asks you to go fishing, what would you say?"

So what did I do? What would you do in this situation?

I paused.

First off, I'm reading. She caught me totally unawares! Second, I didn't know what to say, so I said, "Uhhh...."

And she says, "You're mean!!"

Trying to recover I say something like, "Well, I'll have to check my social calendar you know,"

And she said, "Oh, yes, I know, you and all your little boyfriends," and I nodded. "Exactly," I said. I usually work in the daytime, but in the nighttime go out and do something, so I change my clothes in the bathroom at work, and she always sees me going out. So, she thinks I have a life.

And then she says, "Well, it never hurts to have a new friend you know. People can always get new friends and nothing is wrong with that. They are nice to have around, new friends."

And she's right. So I agreed that new friends are nice to have.

So I wonder: Is he going to call me up on the work line and ask me out? Are my other coworkers going to love it when it happens? Yes.

Did my coworker get my cell number from the list and give it to her son? I don't know.

I don't know if these sons actually want to get to know me or if my coworker is the one that wants us to get together. If I tell my coworker, "Hey, yeah, it would be fun to get to know your boys better," what does that mean? That she will call them and give them the thumbs up? I don't know.

I am not particularly interested in being set up, but my coworker is really interested in my meeting her sons. So, right now I am thinking that the next time she brings it up, I'll say, "Sure, have them call me."

If anything, I will have a good story to tell.

Thanksgiving! Woot woot!

Okay, so maybe I'm over-doing the "woot." I don't know.


Thanksgiving morning started in a great rush of confusion, excitement and happiness. For the first time in the memory of my existence our TV was tuned into the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Usually the TV shows only football. I have tried to switch it a few times in my youth, but was always denied. So, the appearance of the Parade was a true Thanksgiving miracle.

In this wonder and awe I looked at the table.

There was food on it. Breakfast food.

Father got it in his head that we were to partake of a wonderful Thanksgiving breakfast this year. It was simply marvelous, and a tradition I hope will continue. Or, I hope that it will turn into a tradition. Yeah, that's better.

Mom was so excited about the morning-time feast that she urged me to take a picture of it and blog about it.

Apparently, she didn't mean take a picture of her.

I'm not generally a huge fan of whipped cream, but I have found that I usually get the desired amount if I make it the shape of my first initial.
Please notice the amount of butter on the left waffle. Even as I am looking at it right now, I'm a bit creeped out. Sorry about that. I should have edited that.

Later, after some Apples to Apples, Father brought in the turkey. It was huge. We ate maybe 1/16th of that bird.

All the turkey and the consequent leftovers reminded me of my time in Idaho where I would meet guys who had entire elks in their freezers and plan on living on it for the year. That thought also led me to remember how I firmly decided that I would never be a wife of an Elk Man. Imagine having to cook with elk for an entire year. And those guys don't think it's a meal if there isn't any meat present. Crazy. And, that last bit reminded me of the time some of those Elk Men invited me over for chili. Sure, it had the standard "chili" stuff, but it also had elk from Idaho, deer from Colorado, and wild boar from Texas. There may have been some sort of fowl in there, but I can't remember. I'm only assuming there might have been some because those Elk Men had the most precious birding dog ever.


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I'm obsessed with table decorations. I don't know how it happened, or why it happened, but all I know is that I love setting a pretty table. Thankfully, Mom and Mary are on board with my judgment, and Mom is willing to be the financial backer for most of my table decorating endeavors.






I hope you noticed the turkeys on the candles.

Apples to Apples

At Thanksgiving this year we played Apples to Apples.

Any time we needed to get a card from Grandma or give her a card we had to explain the rules all over again. Thankfully the rules are simple.

Mom had the green card "flirtatious."

Grandma had submitted "Michael Jackson" and was very upset when "Mirrors" won instead of hers. She kept trying to fight for it, but really the only way it would have won was if the green card actually said, "Incredibly disgusting and creepy."

Go Greyhounds!

On Friday I attended an Atascadero High School CIF football game. It was great. As I sat there overlooking the sea of orange, I was overwhelmed by a flood of memories and had to do some breathing excises to get back to normal. The crisp night air was refreshing, and I could imagine myself in a polyester band uniform and Brandon on the field, being the super hott star player that he was.

I love that they are still selling "game ball tickets," I love that the "Four" tradition is alive and well, I love the camaraderie of the fans as they all sit on bright orange bleachers, I love the fear of accidentally dropping anything under the bleachers, and I love that for some reason there are a million cheerleaders. (I didn't think they usually allowed that many. Therefore, the picture above is of the amazing amount of cheerleaders, so please take note.The picture also doesn't quite capture the orangey-ness that is an Atascadero High School football game, so use your imagination.) Unfortunately those cheerleaders did not do my favorite "Go Bananas," or "Sack that Quarterback: Defense, make contact!" I'm still upset by it, really.