I'm clearly a shoe person (in college I had a sort of imelda rep and at one point, I moved ~100 pairs of shoes in plastic boxes, labelled from one apartment to the next). But I'm becoming a bag person. I bought this one today (see what I mean about pink giraffe pattern). Though GOOD GOD I paid less than 1/10th what the bag retails for.

I am not a shoe buying person. However, it seems that I do love to have a shoe-buying friend who has overflowing closets.

I worry that I won't wear them enough to be worth buying. Which is odd because some of my least rational purchases have been some of the best.

So I am becoming a reform shoe person.

I have a gigantic family and a budget in the red, so the only non-relatives getting a gift from me are my Secret Santa recipient here, the design firm (run by a couple of decade-old friends) that's currently killing itself for my company, and my best friend's family. I got cards for a few other old friends, but everyone else is going to have to settle for an exhausted "Happy Christmukkah!" in their general direction.

Mom just called to say she is praying for a Christmas miracle. Because the Joshua Tree Fire Dept missed her street when the fire trucks went by carolling.

Of course at the start of her phone call she thought that there must have been a terrible accident with many deaths because of the sirens. Now she's pissed at missing the singing.

My wuwu and a half mom is praying for carols.

Thing is? Technology prevails. It's worked for me for 16 years with the neicelet and 9 with the nephlet. There is always a new toy.

Well, I'm not usually gadget-prone, and my brother is. (Nephew was playing with a calendar by trying to use it as a keyboard, if that's any indication.) So that's a battle I'll lose eventually. But I still have a beanbag chair and an adorable dragon puppet, so I think I can retain coolness superiority for a while yet.

I am totally gonna steal "nephlet," by the way.

I give my boss a little present, because although she is insane, I like her and she's been very good to me. And I used to intend to give out cards with, like a teeny bag of candy, but I don't actually do it, and that's why when the apocalypse happens I'll survive by creating a bonfire of holiday cards and eating the candy stockpile. And then dying of tooth decay.

Backsent, Strega.

so , I was Buff diving and found this somewhat appropriate seasonal gem:

Erin: I think seasonally-available manufactured food is a good thing. I mean, now that produce out of season is no big deal (thanks, Chile!) how else will we mark the passing of the seasons? For instance, now we are in the Cadbury Cream Eggs, Cadbury Mini-eggs and Girl Scout Cookies season. Then there will be the months of patriotic M&Ms, Popsicles, and Back-to-School SnakPaks, followed by Really Cheap Pumpkin Pie Filling in Cans Month, rolling around to Ginormous Candy Cane and Santas with Crispy Rice season.

I thought we had already narrowed the seasons down to Mallomars and Not Mallomars?

Henh! I just got a syllabus in my e-mail for my next class. What is odd is that know that we have easy access to syllabi, profs feel perfectly comfortable with requesting homework due on the first day of class, since we know what we need to do.

Ugh.

Well, last semester it was all bitching about dante. This semester, I'm moving on to Cervantes.

Do people at your job gift and card each other?

In an office of ~15, we did Secret Santas (I got coffee and Ghirardelli chocolate!), but I've also gotten 4 cards (one of them *mailed* to my home -- WTF?) from co-workers.

One of those cards had -- I swear to you -- "Happy Holidays" crossed out and "Merry Christmas" written in. Dude, if the phrase is *that* important to you, just BUY cards that say "Merry Christmas" in the first place! (But I didn't snark at him, because he also gave out homemade cookies with the cards, and -- yum.)

I gave nothing, other than my Secret Santa gift. But nobody at work expects anything from me. If I'm *not* surly, they consider that a gift.