Signs of the season

Having some radio silence was good for me. And now it's over, and that's good for me, too.

I made the first batch of Christmas cookies yesterday, and the dough is chilling for the second batch this morning. I will not be baking one type of cookies a day every day until Christmas. Of course not! Some days will be bread or candy! (Seriously, no. Not daily.)

Also there are newspaper articles about the generic books you can buy people you claim to care about but don't actually know. I love that. "For the fantasy reader on your list --" No. Just, no. This suggestion never, ever wins. This year the one I saw was a slipjacketed edition of The Hobbit with a history of The Hobbit included in the volume. Some percentage of fantasy readers will love this. Most will look at it and go, "Oh...another Hobbit...that isn't as nice as our leatherbound one or as historical as our first-edition and the cover isn't as good as that one edition we keep because we like the cover, and...um...thanks, random relative." We live in the age of wishlists now! You can buy your loved ones things they actually want, and not presents that say, "Hello, I have put you into a narrow category that fits you like a cat in a wetsuit, merry Christmas!" (I don't know why these articles annoy me so much, because I have exactly zero friends or relations who do anything like this to me. Maybe it's because no one in my life does this to me, so I have high standards. Hmm.)

Other, happier signs of the season: my very favorite weather guy, Paul Douglas The Weather Guy, is snarking in the newspaper. He does this every year. He asks the people who are complaining to him about the cold to find themselves on the map, and then he asks if they're surprised. The day of the year I love Paul Douglas The Weather Guy most is March 29, but after that it's the really cold day when he snarks. Best Weather Guy Ever.

And when I walked the dog yesterday, I should have worn tights under my jeans, but I had The Good Hot Chocolate when I got home, so all was well. Yay, restorative properties of The Good Hot Chocolate! It's too bad there's not enough of this stuff to apply in a thin layer to, say, disease or poverty or war. Because its properties are quite astounding.

Oh, and one more along the winter holiday lines: it's that time of year again! Time for me to bellow at a Hungarian man over the phone and wind up with sausages and spice pastes and many good things! Otto was right: I do need chestnut puree, and I am calling him back. "No we got none of that too bad for you bye!" Yay Ottoday!

Five random things, doing what they do

1. My Onion horoscope for the week, copied and pasted rather than retyped because I just could not make myself replicate those mistakes any other way:

Your meticulous attention to detail willl once again ruin an other-wise fun and pleasureable pasttime.

Yeah, you know what? Guilty as charged, but shut up, Onion horoscope.

(I've never had a horoscope of which I said, "That's uncanny," before, and I'm not all that pleased that it's this one. Okay, a little bitterly amused.)

2. And speaking of bitter, I have had a nonstop craving for dark green leafy things -- bitter greens, mostly -- since before World Fantasy. We're going on six weeks of this now. I understand that I am not permitted to subsist on spinach, but -- waaaant. It has not yet gotten to the point where I am trying to gnaw my mother's curly fern, but this is one heck of a craving. It's not as though I have been neglecting the bitter greens in this interval, either. I just don't think I should have to have them for lunch and dinner.

3. You know that thing where you solve the last problem? Yah. I have finally managed to avoid having to cross out a hundred and one sentences reading, "He walked across the room to the window," from my rough draft. Sound the horns, bang the drums!...and use the bright green pen to write, "Huh? When did she get here?" and, "Place him earlier in scene," half a dozen times. The problem with excessive stage direction is the excessive part.

4. I finished making the pepparkakor, down to the bit where I wrote markgritter's and Robin's names in frosting on their train cookies. It occurs to me that this is four years in a row I've done this for Robin. He is five years old. From his perspective, Christmas always comes with a train cookie Auntie mrissa wrote your name on in frosting, all the Christmases he remembers and most of the ones he can't. There goes my carefully constructed uncaring tough-guy exterior. (No, I totally had one of those! Really! It was around here somewhere...perhaps behind the sofa with Squiddie....)

5. The movie The Manhattan Project: this is awesome! Why had I never seen this movie before? It's not about the Manhattan Project at all, but it is about implausible uses of nuclear technology, and I am filled with the love that generally fills me when I watch '80s geek movies. I mean, it's no Real Genius. And you can drive trucks through the plot holes, as is generally the case with '80s geek movies. But the things they get right are worth getting right, and oh, the great fun!

(Obligatory Former Physicist PSA: people. If you are working with powerful lasers, wear your eye protection. Seriously. It does you no good hanging around your neck looking just as geeky as it does on your face. It is there for a reason. Use it. Also do not wear your contact lenses to Orgo lab. You know how there's that standard thing where you hear your mother's voice in your head saying, "Get plenty of liquids, and keep your feet warm," when you have a cold? Certain organic volatiles trigger my father's voice in my head saying, "Take your lenses out before lab! I really mean it! This is serious stuff; do you know what it could do to your eyes?" And then he told me. So. Also do get plenty of liquids and keep your feet warm when you have a cold; my mom was right. It's just not as relevant to the immediate situation.)

Talking to Otto's assistant

"I mark it down for you! Okay! I mark it down for you! What next? Okay! I mark that down too!"

"Now I read your numbers in my good English accent, okay? Okay? I speak five languages, they all sound like Hungarian, so what does it matter, okay?"

"You come to California, you come see us! It is much warmer here, okay? Today maybe eighty degrees! Maybe more! You come see us!"

"I will get this to you today, okay? Only maybe one hundred fifty orders before yours, I get it out today, you will have it by Mikulas, okay? You maybe want the chocolate for Mikulas, for the little ones, maybe the big ones, too, okay? We get it to you. No problem. Because I like you. You come see us next time you here, okay?"

Okay!

ETA: I almost forgot my prize piece of Hungarian-on-the-phone wrangling: we were having trouble with the street name. "Ess as in son," I tried, and he said, "Eff as in Frank?" "Ess as in sunrise." "I do not know this word." "Ess as in syrup? Or sour?" "What? What are these words?" (He had successfully marked down and repeated back to me "sour cherry syrup.") Finally I had a brainstorm: "Esh!" "Oh, you say esh! Esh as in Shamuel!" "Yes! Esh as in Samuel!" "You should have said!" Oh. I should have said. Well, now I know.