what a cranky girl really wants for Christmas, at the end of the work day

1) People to stop asking me stupid questions and look up the answers themselves. (Many questions aren't stupid. But some are. For example: Don't call me to ask for the phone number at which you just reached me. I am not kidding.)

2) People who don't need me to print out paper copies of electronic files. I weep for the trees' worth of paper that end up in my recycling bin for things that are glanced at, once.

3) People who answer their emails in a timely fashion, say, within two days.

4) People who read my WHOLE email message and answer BOTH of my questions the first time before hitting "reply." (When is the meeting? Where is it?)

5) People who read my blog to have a fabulous holiday season filled with non-irritating good stuff.

See, even cranky girls are people who need people. :)

Giving thanks

After a long weekend with my family in Omaha, and safe travel back, and a winter snowstorm that's icing the streets and keeping my office quiet...I have more things to be grateful for than I was able to properly give thanks for on the assigned holiday.

Rather than generate a long list of people, places, things, and circumstances that I am so happy about, I'm thinking right now about how to be thankful. I still do the things I was taught when I was little--writing thank-you notes, saying "thank you," and such--but much of the time these things feel like empty gestures. Office work and frequent phone usage leave me saying "Thank you" probably a hundred times a day to people who don't really deserve my thanks. I don't really need to say "Thank you" to the person who calls to leave a message and gives me a phone number, but that's my usual conclusion to such a call. I bet the checker at King Soopers isn't really thankful I went through her line instead of someone else's. I'm sure the job candidates who meet with our deans don't really feel like writing thank-you notes for brief, hurried interviews full of platitudes and generalities, especially when they don't get offered a position. We do these things because we ought to, not because they're backed by feeling. It's not bad to do the things we ought to do, but it does mean the trappings of thanks sometimes seem to get in the way of actual gratitude. They are drained of meaning by the time I get around to people who really deserve my expressions of thankfulness.

My folks just welcomed me, my husband, and a sometimes-cranky two-year-old into their house for four days, fed us, drove uptown, downtown, and all around with us, and did their best to enjoy our company. My sister and her husband are splitting jobs and working crazy hours but they made time so we could hang out with my nephews and have a good visit. My super-patient husband drove most of the time for eight hours, each way, so I could spend time with my family. I feel like these people deserve more than the same words I'd give to a caller or to an interviewer or out of bored politeness. Yet I don't want to escalate to some superlative expressions of extreme gratitude. I'd like to reclaim "Thank you" for use in only those situations where genuine gratitude exists, but it may be too late to start.

I'd like to find the language to separate the "manners are the grease that keeps the social wheel turning" situations from the "I want to express strong feelings for all you've done/mean to me" situations. I don't mind giving thanks freely in situations where politeness is called for, but it would be really nice to have better words reserved for true thankfulness.

Level 39

For those of my readers who play World of Warcraft, you know that attaining level 40 brings a host of benefits including a mount, new skills and talents, ability to wear new armor, entry to new realms, and so forth. In the levels immediately preceding 40, though, the sheer repetitive nature of the quests and tasks at hand causes a fair number of players to drop out of the game.

My in-game character is currently level 39, and this seems rather a potent metaphor for my life on several levels. The "game's" been a bit hard to stick with in recent weeks; repetitive tasks and assignments are getting me down, and I'm hungry for some novelty, some new challenges. The weather here is finally turning convincingly toward winter, and I've been on a (so far fruitless) hunt for some "new armor" in the form of appropriate holiday and winter work clothes. Even the "entry to new realms" parallel holds, as I'm looking forward to my sister-in-law's Paris wedding. I keep grinding away toward the holidays, knowing that new ventures are just ahead, but from my current vantage point it feels like I'm going to be "level 39" forever.

I've been loath to blog because I don't want to spread my current ennui, and I am in hope that I'll have more exciting news to share soon from various upcoming travels. I haven't dropped off the face of the earth; I'm just patiently awaiting change, since running after it like a crazy person hasn't been extremely productive.

what a week! When's Christmas?

It's been one thing after another this week. A combination of colds, flu, and general malaise has plagued the household, although I did get the pleasure of staying home with the bug on her birthday. Too bad she had serious sniffles. She would basically hack up half a lung and then look at me and say, "I coughing." Yup, I noticed. Matt was also under the weather Wednesday and I'm sliding toward a head cold myself, so here's a brief update of a mainly mucus-filled week.

The bug has spent hours playing with her birthday presents especially new kitchen implements which she has decided to hand-wash as many times as I will let her near the sink. I was worried about OCD at first, but she really loves the bubbles in the dishwater. She has finally stopped sounding like she's got a two-pack-a-day habit and may resume nasal clarity by the weekend.

Matt's work trip has been postponed slightly once again. Now he'll get to spend Thanksgiving with us and with his in-laws, but he may not be here for Christmas. Who knows? We'll figure out a way to celebrate across the miles regardless.

I've decided I'm getting a Christmas tree this year at long last. Still thinking about what height/ kind/ appearance I'm going for, but it will be a fake. I like leaving the real ones in the forest, though I'm not above getting some pine for the fireplace because I love the smell. I've fallen prey to the Christmas-starts-after-Halloween marketing season this year because I'm so jazzed about getting a tree. I still won't put it up until the weekend after Thanksgiving.

I know I have readers who haven't crawled out of the woodwork to post yet, so I'm choosing a really polarizing set of questions in hopes you all will speak up:

When does the Christmas season start and end in your house? How do you keep the joy of Christmas in your families in spite of the seasonal consumerism? What's your fave holiday tradition? And for the snarky Grinches: How do you keep sane when surrounded by enforced holiday spirit? (Want to see if I can get my spousal grinch to comment as he's NEVER posted yet...)

All Hallows Eve

We trick-or-treated at a grand total of three houses on Halloween, but the ballerina-fairy-princess had a blast handing out candy at our house:

That's Thomas the Train in her hands, by the way, not some strange form of blueberry candy. Grandma Charlotte got her a train set for her birthday and she's been a little engine-obsessed ever since.

A Fall moment of Zen...