My own Christmas miracle

FINALLY. I caught a green light at Meridian and Fall Creek Parkway! Merry Christmas to me.
(Oh, and to the rest of you, too.)

Say it ain't so

My mom, calling me way too early this morning, reports she can no longer find Salerno Butter Cookies on store shelves. Listen closely and you just might hear my mournful wails.

Stuff me with filling

This past weekend I went to my mom's for the annual ravioli-making festivities. Give or take a year or two when I was unable to make it home, I've been making ravioli every year for ... as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, we made them in my grandma's basement. After grandma died, my mom insisted we continue the tradition (umm, we TOLD her that we were going to continue the tradition and that we would be making ravioli at her house.)
Last year about this time, my mom's house was on the market and she didn't want to make ravioli there because we would create too much of a mess. She lost that battle.
This year, she didn't want to make ravioli at her house because it's brand-spankin' new and we would get too much flour on the hardwood floors. You guessed it. She lost the battle again.

So, here we have the highlights from Raviolipalooza 2008:

Mom instucting Meg to get more "manly" while mixing the filling.

If it weren't for the 18 raw eggs, I could've eaten the entire bowl.

An arm made of dough.

I am the queen of ravioli filling spreading.

Best part about this photo is that Meg and I are screwing around while Col labors in the background to get all the semolina off the floor.

A very tiny rant

Can someone (anyone) please tell me why -- in 11 months -- I have never (ever) caught a green light going northbound at the intersection of Meridian and Fall Creek Parkway?
Never. Not one single time.

Is there such a thing as a butt sling?

Late last week while I was at work, I twisted as I stood up from my desk and immediately felt a twinge. I said to my co-worker: I think I just pulled a muscle in my ass. I was only half-kidding. Yesterday, the dull ache bothered me all day. It was my day off and I did absolutely nothing. The furthest I walked was from my living room couch to my bathroom. Today, I rationalized and allowed myself to go get a massage. As I walked down the block to the salon/spa, I was hit with shooting pain across my lower back and down the side of my leg. And again. And again. When I got in the door and sat down to wait for the massage therapist, I realized that sitting wasn't much more comfortable than walking. And then I had an hour of bliss. I was even feeling semi-cured as I walked home. Well, that lasted all of about 20 minutes and now I'm in the land of the dull ache again. I'm really looking forward to putting ice on my ass, as the massage therapist suggested. Good thing I'm not being taped for a reality TV show.
So, yes, it's official. I'm old and I broke my butt. The only potential bright spot I can think of (and it's not so bright considering I'd be in pain for the next week) is that I won't be forced back into the crawlspace to look for mice when I go to my mom's this weekend (scroll down for that story if you haven't read it yet.)
So, Col, if my butt's still broken, the crawlspace job is ALL yours. Love ya, sis.

Post(erior) script: OK. Two people have pointed out to me that I didn't make it clear what kind of massage I was gettin'. There was no skin on skin butt massaging going on here. There was butt kneading going on, and there were three layers of blanket between massager and massagee. Jeez. You people have dirty minds.

Poetic justice?

Wouldn't it be somethin' if these two bright shining stars of Illinois politics ended up sharing a prison cell?

A toast ...

... to my friends who lost their jobs today. It was too sad a day at The Indy Star for words.

Home, sweet home

Proving that karma gets ya every time ...
My sister and I consulted the day before I was to drive home for the weekend and she came up with the perfect plan: Wait until mom leaves the house and then we will put up the Christmas tree for her. At first I was really irritated. How dare Col so blatantly go after mom brownie points? Why didn't I come up with the idea first? Then my sister shared her pure evil, twisted genius logic: Umm, Kathleen, would you rather put the tree up while mom is home or while mom is NOT home? Duh. We had evil intentions, but we'd win the brownie points anyway.
First sign that our plan would not go well: My mom, supposed to be leaving the house to go see a play, had gotten the date wrong. OK, fine. We'd still put the tree up, but we'd lock my mom in her walk-in closet for the duration. (OK, not really, but you get the point.)
And then I had to open my big, dumb mouth. (Surely I was attempting to win *extra* brownie points.) I suggested to Col that we go into the crawlspace and try to solve the mystery of the missing d-CON. My mom had put some of the mouse poison in the garage closet above the crawlspace. Lo and behold, she checked it sometime last week and discovered the box was completely empty. And when we opened the closet door Sunday, there were tufts of insulation everywhere. Not a good sign.
So, fully equipped with a broom, dustpan, garbage bags and flashlights, we made our way down into the crawlspace. It smelled like death down there. Mouse death. I shined the flashlight across to the other side and saw two corpses. Don't come complaining to me that this picture is out of focus. Give me a break. I was in the depths of hell with dead mice, people ...

And if that wasn't enough, there was poop everywhere. I mean everywhere. On the floor, in the insulation, on the ledges ...

Oh, and there was a third dead mouse. The only good thing about the experience was that I somehow persuaded Col to pick up all three of the dead bodies. I figured she has kids and a dog so she's used to this kind of thing. (Not so much the dead bodies part, mind you. I was thinking more of the poop cleaning.)

The fun didn't end in the crawlspace. (Oh, did I mention that we were down there exposing ourselves to the hantavirus for an hour and a half???)

Of course, my mom would not let us step foot in the house with our infected clothes and shoes. She made us strip in the garage and gave us some really fashionable digs ...

The pants were about four inches too short on me and Col got stuck with the pink and white sweatshirt and grandma's pants. And we both got some really lovely sandals to wear.
All of this put us in the perfect mood to put up the Christmas tree. We weren't able to lock mom in her closet, so she was there to instruct us *how* to put up a tree -- you know, because we've never done it before ...

And what happened to the poor angel on top of the tree pretty much summed up the day ...

I love my family. (And I love that my mom is so computer illiterate that she will never find this blog post.)