OMGOMGOMG

It's here... It's Christmas morning... holy Christ! (literally)
Obviously since I'm still a child I haven't slept a wink and am anxiously counting down the hours until my sister arrives this morning for present time.

This Christmas I asked for a goat. I'm not 100% sure there's a goat down there, but I did leave some local eggnog and a sampler of cookies for the big guy and I'm feeling good about it.

Goats bleat. Did you know that? Every hour on the hour since midnight I've gone to the top of the stairs and strained my ears to hear for the bleating of Amalthea or Christopher (I would have said Amalthea AND Christopher, but I wasn't particularly nice this year. Not naughty, just not nice, but I'm not pushing for anything huge.)

"But Anthony..." (right now, I'm doing your internal comments) "But Anthony, what would you do with a goat?"

I would love it, brush it's hair, shear it and spin its fibers into yarn, milk it and make goat cheese/butter/yogurt, play with it, walk it, take pics of it...

Ok... 4 more hours... I can't tell if I heard bleating or the cratering of a reindeer against the roof... back to working on the boyfriend knitting project.

Ugg

** 2AM UPDATE**

The knitting gods do not look kindly upon me this Christmas Eve Eve (the penultimate day before Christmas).

Project fail... unravel... restart... need food... can't

Crunch Time

I wasn't in the Christmas spirit. I think I maxed out my holiday enjoyment over Hanukkah (and what a fantastic Hanukkah it was!) I realized about three days ago that I'm not excited for Christmas. Maybe it's because I was so behind on gift-buying? that I haven't yet written a Season's Greetings card? or that I'm just scrooging out this year. Why the broken-down sleigh in my heart?

Today I figured it out. It's the freaking dancing Santa at work over which the children crap their pants. They walk up to the desk, push that flippin' button (which also pushes my button), and Santa proceeds to dance, twirl a lasso, and sing a Christmas edition of "Rawhide." As a pescetarian, I take offense. My ears bleed as I sing along to:
"Rolling, Rolling Rolling
Keep them reindeer rolling
Rolling rolling rolling toniiiiiight..."

I cured my Christmas woes last night by finishing my father's shopping for my mother. This way she gets something that will match (Tony is colorblind) and I get the miles on my credit card. My sister and I went to the mall- which still had the same amount of highschoolers as any given Friday. WTF are you all doing here on a school night? It is crunch time, you're just wasted space right now.

So we made our final purchases for Ellen. We also picked up a candle for my sister and a scarf for me as a kickback from Tony for such a wonderful job we did. We already wrapped everything (including the kickbacks) and watched Love Actually. I'm now 'all teams go' for Christmas.

Son of a Bitch!

I'm 8 rows into the knit part gift for my boyfriend and I planned on having it finished by tomorrow. It's like I'm back in college and I'm just sitting down to the 8-page research paper in Spanish that is due in 13 hours. I lit a zen candle, I filled my nalgene, I've got plenty of hand lotion (Nanny keeps the heat high and my skin is brittle.... mmmmmmmm brittle....) and a week's worth of NPR podcasts up on which to catch.

I also have plenty of snacks... oh wait... I need to fast for 12 hours to have blood drawn tomorrow... dammit!

Ok- late night with no food... this might be for the best... I can do it. Just think of Santa. Just think of Santa. Just think of Santa.

*****

I guess instead of eating I'll just look at all the pretty yarn I purchased this week. I freaking love yarn stores. My guess at this is that I'm an attention whore and LYS owners in suburbia are always shocked when a guy walks into their store and commence their inquiry into everything about me. Y-Chromosome discount? No?


The rust Blue Sky Alpaca skinny cotton and the brown tweed Inca alpaca classic will become socks and the black and gray Rowan big wool is to become the 14 pattern on ravelry... time to pick just the right buttons... perhaps the singing Santa's button will 'fall off the truck' as my Italian relatives would say *wink*

This week in money

The recession is over? Blow me. I've been doing Christmas shopping little by little every weekend and have only had to wait in line once, my stocks are all in the red, the foreclosure rate continues to go up, and, oh yeah, I'm still underemployed (and living at home.)

Not only has this week been another testament to the horrid streak of post-college fail, but I am having roommate trouble.

"Roommate trouble? Anthony, you live at home! Those aren't your roommates, they're your parents!"

Well, back in August, my grandmother moved in with us. She's 96, Irish-Catholic, and hard of hearing. She believes in stockinged-feet, not traveling after dark, and that Obama is a Muslim (and that that would be a bad thing.)
Obviously she knows not of my love life, despite asking my mother if I'm gay on the grounds that I sport an earring. Ellen's only response was, "Oh mom, all the kids have earrings these days."
Well played, Ellen... we have a will to think about!

Nanny likes things in a very particular way. She likes to have her tea with the bag still steeping, a mid-afternoon cookie, and she hates $20 bills. She thinks that the People's Republic of China is printing $20 bills and sending their citizens here to spend spend spend. You can tell if your bill is fake if it has the two-toned print on it. Ask her. She'll tell you.
She sent me to the bank for $500. She doesn't leave the house. Obviously this money is going right up her nose. The awful part about this task was that she had a list of what she would like:

• 6 $50 = $300
• 15 $10 = $150
• 10 $5 = $50

She has a Bank of America ATM card and I do all my banking through Sovereign. How was I supposed to pull this off when everybody knows that ATMs give out $20 bills?
I went to the BOA ATM in Franklin then drove back to Norfolk to go to my bank and told them the story (I left the part out about the Chinese treasury notes). I got her everything on her list. I also got a kickback of one of the fivers (score!) which, just like the rest of the $495, went right up my nose.

Jewish Winter Holidays

Happy Hanukkah!

I hope you all are enjoying the festival of lights. As I was working Friday night, I set my alarm for sunset time (according to the Boston Globe) so that I could know the INSTANT the celebration started. I have big plans for my first post-baccalaureate Hanukkah and NOBODY is going to ruin them come Hell (in which Jewish people don't believe) or high water (which Moses could part- so I guess I'm all set!)

I brought my Goodwill-purchased menorah- $2.99- to my boyfriend's where we made a traditional kosher-dairy meal. I made a porcini mushroom soup to serve with lox over latkes with a horseradish whipped cream. We lit the first candle of the menorah while I butchered the blessing that I had memorized from a Barenaked Ladies song. His fan was on, so the candles burned down in about 20 minutes, just enough time to eat, in which the delicious meal was consumed quickly resulting with me lying on the floor from oil overload. The remainder of the weekend was filled with frying and sauteeing everything under the umbrella of Hanukkah celebration... fine by me.

I'm not Jewish. Neither is he. BUT, I did ask him to alert me the instant my overenthusiasm for Jewish holidays borders insincerity.

Jesus Christ and LYS

I’m rocking the unemployment underemployment beard. With this comes a small pile of dirty mugs in my bedroom, a sleep schedule that would make a college student feel guilty, and more time than money. This led me to the interesting equation of finding a balance between a need to feel productive, have some sort of creative outlet, and save money all at the same time. This is why I began knitting again.

While knitting is not any difference in cost than other artistic avenues I could have taken, the finished product is much more comfortable than trying to wear my new oil pastel piece as a scarf. In this economy, I would say I’m doing an okay job looking for inexpensive, but knitable yarn. I do maintain a healthy level of uppitance in selection that allows me to still avoid synthetics- “absolute fiber swill” and anything ugly- “I would rather discuss Tiger Woods than be caught with that on my needles”

The problem that comes with knitting is the inclusion of web2.0 into the culture of the needle. I have been sucked into scouring the Norfolk Public Library page for checkoutable fodder. I have stumbled upon many knitblogs and online knitzines. There's even a facebook-type site for knitters called Ravelry. Without hesitation I joined. Not only am I spending non-working time knitting, I'm spending it thinking and clicking about knitting.

What this really means: I need a freaking full-time job.

I'm Not Kidding

Many people lament grocery shopping. I am not one of these people. I will tucker out almost anyone while I drag him or her through the aisles of the local A&P. I wasn’t kidding when I told you that I LOVE GROCERY STORES. It’s almost a fetish. Grocery shopping with me is akin to clothes shopping with a 14-year-old girl carrying daddy’s credit card with two hours to go until the cinema will let her back in to see the vampires for the 5th time this month.

Things that make me warm inside: weekend farmer’s markets, kitchen gadgetry, cast-iron cookware, strolling down every aisle of a grocery store and examining every product and imagining what could be done with it.

Things that make me the opposite of warm inside: frozen, pre-prepared foods, canned soups, meat, the aforementioned 14-year-old girl.

*****

Young people often ask me, “Anthony, where should I go for the best grocery store experience?” After I back out of their H1N1 sphere of influence, I tell them to take their time to take it all in and they can enjoy any grocery store. However, if they must know…

My top 5 grocery stores are:

5. Whole Foods - Dedham, MA… the naturals, the organics, the hypocrisy of damming the man while shopping in his store…

4. Trader Joe’s - Natick, MA… who knew goat cheese could be so affordable?

3. Wegmann’s - Woodbridge, VA… terrible customer service, but this place is the size of a small European country and I think they pump oxygen into the aisles so you stay longer. Feels very much like a casino.

2. Giant - Fredericksburg, VA (@Park and Shop)… the nurembourg rally of mullets and manners

1. Elmwood Thomson - Richmond, VA… vegan, soy, corn, and gluten free mac’n’cheese and the best best best feeling of approval when you tell the cashier you don’t need a bag.

How many posts need I before I’m contacted about a book deal to profile America’s grocerias? Add 1 to the tally.

Better. Best

I’m not as good at tennis as I claim to be.

I’ve cheated on more than one occasion at board games with friends.

I don’t know from where this need to always win came, but I know that I can not allow myself to play Yahtzee with anyone on whom I’m trying to make a good impression. Or Monopoly. Or Uno. Don’t worry, I think Scattergories is sacred and deserves a clean existence.

In my time of unemplo… underemployment, I have decided to pick up the sticks again. The winter months are coming and I (and my countless admirers) will need protection from the harsh blow of the New English winter.

I cranked out a couple amateur scarves last month. It’s amazing how fast one can knit when using 15’s. Naturally I took the aforementioned competitive nature and put it to the knitting test. What can’t I make for myself? After finding a pretty sensible hattern (figure it out) on about.com and buying some extremely pedestrian yarn to test it out, I realized, I’m invincible with double pointed needles.

Grocery Stores and Fancy Things

Whilst still in my days of college, a friend and I came to the realization that our three favorite things were: grocery stores, fancy things, and each other.

My fourth favorite thing? Jewish Holidays.