Impressive channeling, Calli!

And don't tell anyone, but my plan is no books by white men.

♥

The sushi restaurant was playing Christmas carols sung by a mediocre children's chorus, and I was sure I would lose the LDB game. Instead, I had to listen to 12 Days of Christmas.

They did have a few of the less common carols, like The Holly and the Ivy.

So, I grew up with "dount invite folks to the shower who aren't invited to the wedding/reception". So, would it be tacky to invite them?

I grew up with the opposite - an invite to the shower was to honor/appease those who weren't invited to the "small, intimate wedding".

(Anyone who thought they were your bestest most favorite and finds out they're not, thus has the opportunity to punish you with a shitty gift that you have to thank them for. Ideally, you'll keep it until their daughter has a shower and re-gift it to her. Maybe I'm too Southern.)

Someone needs to hose Seth Abramson down. Dude, you're getting *way* ahead of yourself.

lol I follow him, he's always in a lather. TELL US MORE SETH

Do I need to ignore history as well as the news?

The news makes me angry because I feel like we can still do something. History just makes me cry. Humans, as a species, are terrible.

My family has agreed that we aren't shopping retail this year. We'll find second-hand treasures and make stuff. Silly gifts are good too. One Christmas morning my sister and I chased each other around with tiny Nerf guns as the kids watched us in awe and mortification.

Man, I bought some mango at the store a couple of months ago, and it was amazingly good. None of the subsequent mangoes have been like that, but I keep buying them, like Charlie Brown and the football. Except Lucy's holding a mango.

I was supposed to go to a party tonight, but Mac is having someone over and we're running late and and, so I sent apologies and waste staying home.

The power cord to my Mac broke. I knew it was coming, but thought I had a bit w time. So now I am on my ereader.

My recent online shopping has mostly been for me. (In my defense, Ulta has a really good deal today on the foundation I wear.) But I should really get to Christmas shopping for the rest of the family. (Tim's is finished, only because I happened to see things he would love and bought them right then so I wouldn't forget. And the drawing of Kato that I had commissioned for him is AMAZING and I cried. And I'll share a link to it on Christmas, because the artist is fine with customers sharing her work on social media.)

We seriously bought Mr. Murderbiscuit a Christmas tree today. Because we know there is NO damn way we can put up the real tree in the living room. He would tear it down and break all the breakable ornaments in 5 nanoseconds. So we're putting a small tree with lights and ornaments in the bedroom, from which he is banned.

But we were at Aldi today and found this kitschy tree for $10: [link] We got it in blue, because they were out of silver. We're going to put it up in the living room and see what he does. There will be video.

I also resisted buying egg nog earlier, and now I regret it.

Right now, in our fridge, we have egg nog made with Alton Brown's recipe (made by my BiL). It is AMAZEBALLS.

I went to the mall today, thinking it was still early enough in the season to be safe and that early-ish on a Saturday would be clear. However, today was Bath And Body Works one-day candle sale, which explained everyone hauling around giant BBW shopping bags. Mega-kudos to the shop girls maintaining an apparently legitimate cheerful and helpful spirit. That's some stone professionalism there.

I'd have wandered more, but my hips betrayed me and told me to come home. I was sitting in a cushy chair in the concourse, contemplating the crowds and the walk back to my car, when the helpfully weird part of my mind said, "We're deep behind enemy lines, but they haven't spotted us yet. Try to blend in, use the terrain, head for the LZ where your evac's waiting." The girl glued to her phone across from me stared at me in near fear when I burst out laughing at myself.