Just like everyone else.

Apparently I'm in an unoriginal mood today because, despite the blog world stuffed with "This is how our Christmas looked, felt, tasted and sounded", I still feel the need to offer up my own holiday summary.

So, sorry for piling on. If you're bored of holiday wrap-ups, you can skip this post and I won't hate you too intensely. Though you will miss out seeing how Bubba topped himself in the gift-giving department and watching my dog kill a duck.

Yeah. I thought you'd stick around.

As you already know, we don't do Christmas like normal people. This is due to a few things, specifically that we don't celebrate Christmas given that we're a Jew/Heathen household and also because Bubba is the world's most enthusiastic scrooge. If the Boy Scouts had offered a badge for it, he'd still be wearing it to this day, transferring it from one winter coat to another.

But, even non-Christmas havers like ourselves still enjoy an excuse to taunt one another with gifts, eat fattening crap that we can't justify at other times of the year, get drunk, make fun of our neighbors' holiday decorations and then go skiing.


Which is, I'm sure, exactly what everyone else is doing on Christmas.

And even though you've seen these exact pictures from everyone's Look At MY Holiday posts, please enjoy Christmas At My House.

For starters, we do Christmas-like things on Christmas Eve. This is because we always go skiing on Christmas day while you Christmas-Havers are sitting around a big ham wondering who tracked fireplace soot through the living room.

This year, we farted around the house doing whatever came into our pea brains (so, no different from most other days) and then decided it was time for Christmas Tacos. So named because they are eaten near Christmastime not because they're made from reindeer or mistletoe or spiral cut ham. And because it is our routine, we made for the bikes.

Living in California, good taquerias are very close by, and so to justify the eating of these things, we ride our bikes there like we're seven year olds.

I first went to put my bike socks on and then, as I was standing in the garage NOT LOOKING AROUND as I had been instructed for weeks lest I lay eyes upon my gift from Bubba, I went to take down my bike shoes and Bubba said, in his cutesy I'm Trying Not To Laugh way,

"Uh, baby, you don't need your bike shoes."

To which I said, without turning around mind you, "Of course I do. I can't pedal those fucking things without them."

Yes, so I totally didn't get it right then. But, when I turned around to give him the WTF face, he was standing there all proudly with the most awesome Dutchie bike which happened to have MY helmet in the basket.

Meeee-OW.

Oh.

OH!

Yeah, Bubba - in his unyielding desire to always up the ante on gift-giving, had outdone himself to such a degree that I nearly pooed.

He got me a townie bike.

A lime green beauty with bamboo racks and a comfy leather saddle and grips and NOT clip pedals that I could...hold on to your britches...EVEN RIDE IN FLIP-FLOPS.

Holy crap, I nearly pooed again right there.

So, yes. I love her. I've named her Tulip, on the suggestion of my neighbor, since she looks like the Dutchie bikes we saw in Amsterdam but didn't ride because they weren't ours/it was raining/we weren't sober enough.

And, on Tulip, I rode for Christmas Tacos with my beloved.

Ass.

Then, we rode to BevMo and bought each other booze, per tradition, and then rode home so that we could walk the dog around and leave gifts dangling from our neighbors' doorknobs so perhaps they wouldn't hate us for not having a tree in our window or our house all aflame with blinking bullshit.

Then we opened stockings (which we have and fill thanks to my MiL who provided them so many years back) so that I could have Chapstick until the End of Days and Bubba opened his gift from me.

May there be much wading in the New Year.

After which, Bubba offered up a sacrifice to the puppy gods.

While Jada had a murderous tryst with Duckie, I started getting The Feast together so that when our other non-Christmas-Haver neighbors came over to join us, there'd be more to eat than fudge.

Ew.

Note the traditional Christmas Challah.

After which we all rode bikes around our town and collectively pointed and laughed at people's interpretation of blinking merriment and only two of us crashed our bikes. I wasn't one of the crashers, but I did drop my camera twice when it bounced out of the front basket of my bike after a particularly enthusiastic speed bump approach, and so there's not much in the way of photographic proof that any of this took place.

Except you know that it did because it's my favorite part of our holiday traditions, now made even more efficient with the introduction of bikes. Walking is just too slow when there's this much crap to see and laugh at.

Then we skied.

Beer is also the traditional lunch of Christmas Day.

Oh - and for those who were curious - these were our exact holiday cards this year because it's not just you guys who know Bubba and I as jerk-offs.

Understood. Now don't puss out.

You guys are funny, you know that?

There I was thinking that y'all were bored of my holiday rantings and, perhaps, could use a year off from my Let's Talk Shit About Holiday Decorations pastime while I think up new four letter words, but NO - you like it.

You like the abuse. I guess I should have known.

Well, let me just say that, thanks to comments here, on Facebook and in the greater blog reading community (Hi, people I didn't realize read my blog until I put up this post and ruined your holiday good times!), that I get it.

You want holiday decoration rantings and that is what you will get.

Understood.

BUT - caveat time - I'm not saying boo about Christmas lawn and house decor unless something out there strikes me as newly different and freshly fugly in a way that it did not in previous years. Then I'll say something. And you can feel free to send me your pictures (finnyknitsATgmailDOTcom) to see if anything around your neighborhood fills that bill.

Until such time though, I will save my holiday ranting space for finishing up what I started last year when I invented (yes - I'm that good) the Festival of Ugly Menorahs and then I'm going on a rant to end all Hanukkah decoration rants about the general fugliness of all things Hanukkah decorate-y and celebrate-y and I'm taking you all down with me.

You with me? I thought so.

Whores, all of you.

Firstly, let's finish 2009's Festival of Ugly Menorahs by first remembering what the hell that is here, where I stopped at Night Six: The Night of Holographic Ugliness, and then going from there.

Festival of Ugly Menorahs: Night Seven
The WTF?! Night
(Where There Aren't Any Actual Flames, Just Pipecleaners)

Festival of Ugly Menorahs: Night Eight 

The Night We Light the Menorah and Eat Everything in Site. Including Maybe Some Old Gefilte Fish Because, You Know, This Is Going To Sound Weird But Suddenly It Sounds Kinda Good...

There. That was a cleansing and refreshing way to start a new year of criticizing the world for creating holiday decor to shock and destroy our retinas.

The thing is, contrived Hanukkah ugliness is not limited to menorahs. And, frankly, I feel as though I'd be doing you a disservice if I didn't expand your Hanukkah horizons to include some of the greater offenses the world has ever seen created with a Star of David, dreidel or marshmallows.

Marshmallows? Yes. Marshmallows. Though surely you've seen this great blue wonder circulating your Facebook news feed courtesy of your amazed and horrified "Friends".

From cakewrecks.com

This was the creation of the sadistic and I'm-Not-So-Sure-She's-A-Real-Human-Girl Sandra Lee in a moment of blatant anti-semitism.

Just watch this and try to tell me that she's not sending subliminal CHEAP JEWS LIKE GROCERY STORE ANGEL FOOD CAKES AND TOTALLY NON-KOSHER MARSHMALLOWS ON THEIR HOLIDAY BUFFET TABLES. I AM A NAZI SYMPATHIZER. messages.

 

See, you can't. It's just so obvious. And I think I can see an armband under that sweater of hers. Meanwhile, did she just goosestep to the sink? I needn't say more.

The thing is, her hate clearly extends beyond Jews, Hanukkah and canned icing (did you see how much food coloring she added? I think I grew a tail from the toxicity just from seeing that with my eyeballs) since she has examples of her hate in cake form all set up at the beginning, there. Specifically, this Kwanzaa Hate Cake and this surprising Christmas Hate Cake.

But those are easy examples of ugly Hanukkah-ness. Sandra Lee is obviously the Bringer of Dark Times Made from Angel Food Cake, so I will try to make my point with some, perhaps, lesser known...cue the daunting music...

Crimes Against Jewmanity

You like how I just did that? Made up a batshit crazy name for this rant? Yeah, sometimes I'm good like that. Made it blue, too, just in keeping with the theme. I do it all for you, friends, and no need to clap - you're very welcome.

Anyway, just to spread the blame around a bit, let's see what our Asian friends over at Oriental Trading Company think Hanukkah means when expressed in glitter and pipe cleaners.

"We found this under the sink - let's touch it!"

"What have we done?"

Oh. Did you think I was kidding about the pipe cleaners? Because I wasn't. It's a common mistake thinking that leftover household refuse makes for ideal Hanukkah decorations. Just because something is blue and free doesn't mean that Jews want to bend it into The Holy Shape and hang it from the...wait a minute...this is an "ornament kit". From what, may I ask, does a Jew hang an ornament? Surely not a Christmas tree. But if not that, then what? You know Hanukkah bushes are just an invention of the Hallmark corporation or maybe some cheeky douche playing around at Cafepress.

I'm going to go ahead and call this effort from our Asian friends a clear miss amidst a sea of terrifyingly clear misses. Though, I'm not sure what I expected from them. They do focus a good bit of their holiday business on the sales of Jesus' back alley abortion kit.

What? Too much? You said you wanted it, so don't get all, "Ooh, Finny, no fair taking the lord's name in vain or misconstruing the purpose of His shepherd's crook", because you asked for it.

Meanwhile, I kinda like those undies. Feel free to send me some as a Hanukkah gift. And quickly now! It's over in just a few sundowns. (That's what we Jews call, "Nights", just so we're clear.)

Now, before I leave you to craft your scathing If I Would Have Known How Evil You Were I Never Would Have Said Anything comments (turncoats), allow me to share one more example of a Crime Against Jewmanity.

You could wear a patch on your jacket, but this is WAY easier to spot as a sniper.

Yeah. I don't know what they were going for here either, really, except that someone in the Hanukkah Decorations and Finery department had come to the end of their Turn All Christmas Things Into Hanukkah Things By Making Them Blue or Menorah Shaped and what they were left with was a baby Jesus in his manger and a Santa hat.

So, in lieu of trying to fashion a Santa yarmulke or something else that doesn't 100% make sense, they just said:

Santa Hat

     -Santa

+Menorah

-----------

Hanukkah Hat

and then called it a day by raking the baby Jesus into the shredder.

Hey, these party decoration people are coldblooded - don't give me your judging eye.

So, yeah, Hanukkah decorations are just as bad as I remember from my childhood and aren't getting any better, as these few examples heartily prove, so I'm sure I'll be back to scare your eyes back into their Holiday Decoration Nightmare seeking sockets soon enough.

Just a reminder: no pussy comments. You made your bed, now you can friggen well lie on it and look at these things and laugh.

So awesome that let's forget I got another kitchen appliance, OK.

After the last few years of me reporting on strangely domestic and 50s housewife-ish birthday gifts bestowed upon me by my beloved (upon request, of course, so we can't go calling him mean names, now), I felt it was necessary to come back and report on this year's birthday gift.

Though I'm not sure it fits as squarely into the domestic 50s housewife or delusional homesteader categories as neatly as did my hillbilly potting bench or chest freezer. Those are just true gems right there.

No, this year's gift is another that I've pined for over the past few years and finally (apparently) convinced Bubba was a necessity in our home.

See, to give you a little back story so that you don't get all, "How frivolous! What a ridiculous thing to have taking up space on your counter and in your life you indulgent loser!" (because that's totally what you'd say. Judgers.), I used to drink a lot of sparkling water. Fizzy water some call it. Club soda others call it, though I'm sure that's a different beast altogether. And, well, I decided I had to give it up because I couldn't abide the waste of all those blue bottles cluttering up my recycle bin.

Even when it comes to recycling, I can't do TOO much recycling because that's still a lot of resources being used and then recycled. I'm very psycho about these things, I know.

Anyway, after many years of keeping my fridge stocked with liters of sparkling water, I gave it up. I made sun tea and put that in the fridge and when there wasn't any sun for sun tea (hello, winter!) I drank my water with lemon. I just have a thing with plain old tap water because around here it tastes a bit south of cheese.

I'm just saying.

So, it's been about a year or so since I kicked the bottled sparkling water habit. I've enjoyed not having to lug flats of giant unwieldy bottles out of Trader Joe's and into my garage and then into my house and then into the recycle bin and then out to the curb with my little psycho yelling in my ear all the while, "WASTER! BAD WASTER!"

I told you - I'm psycho. Or, perhaps, *WE* are psycho and that is just psycho in and of itself. Yikes.

At the same time though, my inner psycho kept also remembering this soda maker thing making its rounds on the internet. A contraption that sits on your counter, does not use any electricity or batteries and, when introduced to a bottle (which comes included) of tap water will BUZZZZZZ make it into fizzy water.

Just made that with my grody tap water and BLAM it tastes great.

TAH DOW!

Like the Home Jew version of water to wine, I suppose. Especially when I found out that DID YOU KNOW YOU CAN GET DIET TONIC FLAVOR FOR THIS THING AND MAKE YOUR OWN DIET TONIC AT HOME?

Yes. Yes you can.

Just contemplate the implications of this discovery for a moment...Come home from work, go to make a cocktail only to find that BOH! We're out of tonic. Or DAMNITALL! the tonic has gone way flat. Rather than hopping on the bike for a ride over to BevMo, just jam a bottle in the thing, BUZZZZZZ it and then add the diet tonic flavor. Then mix up a drink and pour Bubba a bourbon and ahhhhh it's cocktail time.

That's fricken beautiful.

So, for whomever that was that suggested I might start making my own tonic because I'm *that way*, you're right. And *that way* is *in favor of convenience and reducing waste*.

I've ordered this flavoring (which has no HFCS or weird chemicals)(and if there are weird chemicals in there, I'll thank you to keep it to yourself because I can only do *so much* righting of my personal wrongs at once) and a diet cola flavoring for Bubba and once it arrives we will not only be awash in just as much sparkling water as we can stand (and I'm AWASH IN IT NOW, BABY!), but also we'll be free from the bottles of diet tonic and the cans of diet Coke and oh my god let the cleansing begin.

I might have to send the recycle bin on a vacation because it's going be a lot less in demand without Coke cans and tonic bottles all filling it up.Well, except for the bourbon, gin and wine bottles...one thing at a time.

Plus, wouldn't you just know that buying flavors to add to this homemade sparkly water is about the most cost effective thing ever when compared to buying the bottles and cans. Oh, it is. One bottle of diet tonic flavor works out to 12 bottles of diet Tonic for five big dollars.

And barely any waste!

Have I said no waste? Because there's barely any.

So, yeah, I'm stoked on this gift and I don't care how Housewife/Domestic/Psycho/Cheap/Fizzy Water Obsessed/Indulgent/Lovable that makes me because ...brrrrrrrrrpp!... I love my fizzy water.

Running loopholes

Today, I really thought that I was finally going to give myself a good reason to stay in bed and skip my runs on mornings when I feel like a lukewarm pile of crap.

Like this morning, for instance.

Except it's very hard for me to be like, OK - I feel like a lukewarm pile of crap due to this damned headache or whatever and, you know, I really would rather not run, so I won't. I'll just lie here in bed and wallow in my lukewarm misery. 

It is hard for me to shirk my morning runs because they are part of a finely established routine and routines are My Way and I'm very stuck in my ways.

I have my routines and I do not stray from these routines. Like, you know how they say that if you do something 17 times in a row you'll be more likely to continue doing it because the routine becomes normal in your mind or whatever? Yeah, well, with me, it's like DOUBLE NORMAL or, well, half as normal or something because once I'm in a routine it's barely possible for me to stray from it. Even if straying from the routine makes more sense than keeping to the routine or if straying from the routine could be a life-saving measure.

Which helps shine a little light on how I nearly killed myself with heat stroke instead of skipping a 9 mile run in 95 degree heat. A decision that would have been easy for 99.9% of the population to make correctly. Me though? Well, the routine was to run 9 miles on Saturday morning and, there it was, all being Saturday morning, so off I went, into the sweaty hot hellfire of a 95 degree morning, with the clear intention of killing myself with heat stroke but, and here's the important part, keeping to the routine.

So, there you have it - I take routines to the extreme. I'm regimented. I'm stuck in my ways. I'm psychotic. I'm unable to exercise the judgment of a dish towel. Etcetera.

But I have hope for myself and I'm working on a multi-step program to keep myself from dying an unnecessary but routine-fulfilling death by finding and exploiting justifications that make sense only to me.

For instance, one loophole I've been meaning to confirm and then use frequently is the one that goes, "If I feel like shit, but decide to go running anyway, I will have such an awful run (ie. It will be nowhere near the 24s and therefore a total failure) that it's not worth going anyway so I should just stay in bed and feel like crap."

Except that, this morning, as I set out to confirm this convenient truth, I must have done something magical with one side of my head pounding and one eyeball popping loose from its socket, because when I trotted back up my driveway after my run, I found that I'd done it FASTER than last time.

SHIT.

And I didn't have the lukewarm miserable headache anymore OR the popping eyeball!

DOUBLE SHIT.

That just won't do. How will I ever get to lie in bed without feeling guilty if I know that going for a run might actually make me feel better AND I might even improve my time?

Well, the answer here is, I won't. I won't ever be able to justify ditching out on a run for lukewarm misery in my comfy bed because the guilt would be too great. And even in all of my barely-Jewishness, the one thing to which I've managed to hold tight is my Jew Guilt. This power is very strong in me.

So, it looks like I'll have to come up with a more compelling reason to stay in bed on mornings of lukewarm crapiness when I don't have the 90 Degree Death Loophole to exploit.

Because you know I stick to THAT loophole with all of my might. In fact, I've even made it the 85 Degree Death Loophole on a few mornings when I found myself breaking a sweat putting on my sports bra. No one wants to run when you can't even get dressed without sweating through your underwear. That's just terrible.

Plus! You could die!

See, I'm very good at this loophole. I will have to work harder on the Lukewarm Misery one.

Running update: I now make up special names for my running clothes to legitimize my shopping.

I am about to launch into many months of gardeningblahblahblah so I thought I'd share some parting words about my winter running, the forthcoming spring time running and how I'm worried that not running a single half marathon this year will ruin my life or at least cripple my not-really-a running career to the point where all I'll do during the times when I normally would have been on a 12 mile training run is wander the neighborhood in my running shorts pointing at the race medals strung around my neck going, "Look, fuckers! These mean I don't *have* to run long distances anymore, OK."

Yes, my mind wanders when I run and I have an awesomely creative and inappropriate imagination.

Also, I realize that 13.1 miles is only considered to be "long distance running" to some people so don't get all "Um, loser - you're not running long distances until you're in the 26 mile range, OK?" in the comments because I'll ignore you and also quietly hate you. And, despite my innate crabbiness, I don't want to hate you.

Anyway, mostly I just worry about The Fatness and not being able to hike as fast on our backpacking trips, as I set my sights on the 5 and 10Ks in the ever-present Active.com Upcoming Events in Your Area emails.

I mean, yes, I have been vaguely tempted to sign up for the Seattle Rock N Roll Half Marathon, if only for the chance to maybe possibly see a bald eagle, like, right there along Lake Washington again so that I can be an inappropriate ass, again, and shriek "Holy Shit!" amongst a sea of horrified runners, but I've learned an important lesson about re-running a race:

Don't do it because it's very boring.

Yep - thanks San Jose Rock N Roll, for that life lesson.

OK, so the second time I ran it, it was OK. I was going for time, which I made swiftly and with little added effort, but the third time (last year), the race was terrible. I was bored to the point where I considered just running off the course at the six mile mark *knowing* that I wouldn't care later about ditching out on the run because I was *so over it*.

But, thankfully, the tiny competitor in my mind (and let me be clear when I say, "tiny", because I'm not all that competitive) forced me to stay and finish what I started. So, really, it probably wasn't the tiny competitor in my mind, but more the HUGE A/R accountant in my mind that wouldn't let me flake on a commitment. Or a race entry fee.

OK, the fee part was probably the tiny Jew in my mind, but whatever. Jew, accountant - let's not get buried in semantics.

All in all, the lesson was learned and as I was finishing that dull drag of a race, I decided that I would certainly not run it again. At least for a while. Because HI no one did anything remotely interesting to their front yards in the year's time between the '08 and '09 races and so I had nothing to look at but the same tired landscaping and the ankles of the toads in front of me.

Boh-ring.

About my winter running, though. Well, I think we're done with that season now, too.

I had, officially, one day that required YakTrax, but as I had not yet purchased the YakTrax, I spent the duration of that run slip-sliding away and very nearly snapping a groin muscle (no injury sustained, though, so YAY).

After that fateful day, however, I did buy the YakTrax and have since used them many times - in Tahoe. Where it snows. And where I like to take the dogs out for leash-free roaming while I drink wine out of a coffee cup.

Like I've said before, I'm a class broad.

I think the arrival of the YakTrax also marked the permanent stowing of the remainder of the winter running gear like the vest, tights, long-sleeves and thick running pants.

Though I may break the tights and long sleeves out for the Mermaid 10K if the weather makes an evil turn on the eve of the race like it did last year.

Fine. I'll manage.

But, in a deliberate attempt to welcome spring and force winter to the back of the closet, I got myself what I'm calling, a Transitional Running Top.

"Transitional" because it has short sleeves rather than long or tank sleeves and will let me transition between the cold ass mornings of the winter and the cool and lovely mornings of spring.

You get it.

Mostly this is because, while I'm ready to wear tanks on my morning runs, I tend to get the hairy eyeball from the freaks all wrapped around their paper coffee cups at the stop lights and sometimes the older gal in her head-to-toe winter running outfit (with matching headband - sharp!) goes out of her way to interrogate me on what exactly is my problem aren't I freezing.

Sure, I can say No and wipe some of my carefully cultivated boob sweat on her forehead to illustrate my point, but it's easier to just wear short sleeves so that my barren shoulders don't attract so much attention.

It's amazing how an extra two inches of fabric extended over the shoulders can mitigate so much unsolicited inquiry into my mental status.

But, surpriseSURPRISE, I actually quite like my Transitional short-sleeve top even though I thought I'd certainly hate it.

It's more form-fitting than the one-size-fits-most free race day technical tees I've been wearing, but not to the point where it rides up my midsection until it's sitting just below my boobs, thus offering up a quivering display of my midsection.

It's a nice, slick, breathey, wicking type of fabric - which is good for the inevitable sweating I do when it's *GASP* 40 degrees during morning intervals, and on top of that, I daresay this top has made me faster.

Oh sure - a top can do that.

And I would know, too, since my last two interval runs, for which I wore my Transitional Top for the first two times, have been in the 23s.

Yep - suck it - Runs in the 24s! 23 is the new 24! And I will now wear this Transitional SUPER FAST Top until such time as it becomes less maniacal to wear a tank top before the 7 o'clock hour.

Which sort of gives you an idea of what my spring time running will be like. Tank tops and shorts, intervaling out my Tuesday and Thursday mornings and long running my Saturday mornings, all with the ill-conceived goal of making time on my races.

In other words, 2010 probably won't be so much about trail running (as I'd previously thought) as it will be about nailing down some specific distance times. Like I've said before, I'm going for a sub-60 10K race time. And, since I managed a sub-30 5K at Thanksgiving last year, I'd like to now make that a sub-29 5K. Which isn't as glamorous as a sub-30, but it's faster than my finish time of 29:14, so you can understand my reasoning, yes?

Yeah, true, it's not as fun to say, "I'm going for a sub-29 5K PR and sub-60 10K PR this year!" as it is to say, "I'm running two half marathons", but when you get down to the bottom of all this, running isn't usually associated with "fun" for most people, so I can be a little less rigid with my standards of declaration.

I'm sure you agree.

And that is about all the running updating I have to do for now. Gird your loins for the forthcoming gardening talk.

Hick yards and gaping holes. This is a long one.

Remember how I did all those ridiculous things to my front yard?

Like plant 800 wildflower bulbs and landscape the sidewalk patch/pee hole with $.99 worth of random ass seeds?

Not to say anything about the 200+ xeric grass plugs...

Well, you remember. I'm sure you do.

And I'm sure at least some of you were thinking, um, Finny - aren't you afraid that it's going to look retarded even after it's done looking like the surface of the moon or some hick's front yard? And to that I say yes. Yes I'm always afraid of having a shitty looking yard or a yard that looks like it's totally out of place or was created by people with limited mental capacities.

Thanks for asking!

Thankfully, the yard is starting to show some promise even though it's only January, our contractor has been wandering all over it even though he *tries really hard* not to and the signs of life are coming up totally at random which sort of lends to the retardedness of it all.

I, however, am choosing to see these little sprouts as a good sign that all that shit I painstakingly planted while being made merciless fun of by my neighbors just might actually blossom into something aesthetically appealing.

Or at least it *might* not look like hicks live here in, say, four months. Meaning that I'm giving this yard until June to perk up and make at attempt at filling in with wildflower blossoms and livelier tufts of grass and, hey, a few poppies and iris would be good, too.

Secretly, though, I'm hoping that the off-hand comment one of my neighbors made, when faced with the confirmation that 800 flower bulbs were indeed planted in our small front yard, will somehow come true.

That comment being, "Shit! 800 bulbs? I bet it ends up in Sunset Magazine!"

Hey, a bitch can hope.

Meanwhile, our contractor is funny. Let me tell you more.

See, we're having our porch rebuilt because half of it was showing signs that it might go out for a pack of cigarettes and not come back. Like - it was starting to, on one side, sink into the soft it-used-to-be-all-orchards-around-here soil.

Sad.

So, we brought in a contractor to do away with the existing concrete pad and rebuild our porch columns since that is a job that Bubba and I need to stay reeeeeeeeeeeeeeaally far away from.

We did have to make up a new mantra to get us started though: Just because the rental yard has jackhammers and concrete mixers available, does not mean we should rent them and then abuse our house and selves with them.

It was tough to resist getting in the truck and going to the rental yard *just to look* at the jackhammers. That much is true.

Anyway, the very skilled contractor did away with the porch concrete and, in its place, we had about a week where there was a nice gaping hole in front of our house.

The hole changed as the week progressed - one day it had a pile of dirt in it, one day it had crushed rock in it, one day some rebar, the next day a lot of rebar and some apoxied holes in the foundation - all kinds of progress. But the point is that for a solid week or so, there was a big hole in front of our house and, consequently, directly in front of our front door.

Now, in normal neighborhoods, this might not pose a problem, but in our neighborhood, where our neighbors are traipsing in and out of our house at all hours of the day and night (thankfully they still knock) and we accept daily deliveries thanks to our online shopping habits and we are constantly swarmed by solicitors, not having a front porch from which one can access a front door becomes a pretty obvious problem.

Our brainier neighbors just came around back and knocked on our back door. This is fine. Excellent, perhaps, and what we were expecting.

Our less determined neighbors have stopped coming by until such time as we can offer them a more hospitable entrance. We now hold our conversations in the middle of the street so that the local traffic can get in on the action.

Our Dutch door sharing neighbor uses the Dutch door.

Our shitty neighbors yell from their front porch.

All of these things are acceptable and were, mostly, expected reactions to the sudden existence of a hole in front of our house after they all got past the fact that there was a hole where our porch used to be and HEY, that's a nice scaffolding and what's it going to look like and so on.

You know, neighborly kind of things.

What I did NOT expect was the absolute brainlessness of delivery people and solicitors.

Let me share an example.

I did NOT expect that a FedEx delivery person, when faced with a giant hole instead of a front porch, would try to approach the porch from a side angle, thinking - I guess - that approaching the house head-on was somehow altering their viewpoint and that, by some strange mystery of physics, if they went to the side of the gaping hole, the porch would somehow reappear and TEE DAH they'd be able to leave their package in the only place they thought a package could go.

No, I did not expect this, but that is indeed what happened. As recounted to us through hysterical laughter by our amused contractor.

The best part was that, when our contractor suggested that they might drop the package in the backyard and Delivery Man agreed, he then returned to the front of the house with full intentions of hanging his FedEx tag on our front door knob (with Delivery Area marked "back door") by way of wading through wet concrete to do so.

Thankfully our contractor is not only a rational being, but also patient and possessing the necessary physical strength to restrain a FedEx delivery man hell bent on hanging a door tag where it did not belong. We came home to find all packages and associated door tags stacked by the back door and no sneaker marks in our concrete.

And that our contractor had tied yellow Caution tape around our front porch.

Yay.

And, since I've decided we've got time for another, "And, this idiot..." story, I will tell you that I found myself really wishing I owned a shotgun/lived in a state where I could own a shotgun/wouldn't have a shotgun pried from my tiny girl fingers and used on myself if I dared to point it at someone, thanks to the stupidest solicitor on the planet.

See, you might have heard that we had a big hole in front of our house where our porch used to be. You've heard, right? Thought so.

Well, you can imagine that this situation offers up a unique challenge to solicitors because their whole goal in life is to get to your front door and then bother you endlessly about random bullshit you couldn't give a crap less about while you make up a hundred excuses for why talking to you is a waste of time.

My favorite is, "Oh, I'm sorry. My husband makes all the financial decisions in this house. I'm not allowed to handle money."

I laugh to myself every time, but only after the door is closed. I mean, really, if you've got one Jew in the house, who do you think is handling the money? Right. But they don't know that.

Anyway.

During our week of A Hole Where the Front Porch Should be, I found myself at the back of the house doing some random thing when I heard the dog start to lose her mind in the someone's coming to the door way that she does when, say, a neighbor approaches the front door.

But I thought to myself, no one can get to the front door, so they'll either go away or come around back, and I'll just go about my business here, hunting down some fabric for this hat, or whatever.

But then the dog didn't stop barking. And she's not an overly enthusiastic bark-for-no-fucking-good-reason kind of dog. So I was intrigued. I left my fabric bins and wandered out into the living room to find a solicitor limboing under the Caution tape and contemplating a precarious climb up the dirt and crushed rock heap to our front door with a Special Offer! door tag or some such nonsense.

I'll admit it to you here, I sorta lost it on him.

I mean, I'd had enough of people doing incomprehensibly stupid bullshit under such comprehensible circumstances. I couldn't, and still can't, understand how one would see Caution tape wrapped around a big hole and think, "Hey, that's fun! These homeowners have set up a little O-course for me. I shall enjoy it greatly before bothering them about a security system they've repeatedly informed me they do not want! Excellent!"

At first I just opened the door and told him to stop. Like, "Hey! Don't go under that tape! Just stop."

And when he kept coming, despite my raised voice and vigilant finger-wagging, I removed my censor.


"What the fuck are you doing? Don't walk in there!"

And when he stood there and tried to do the, "Hey, this will only take a few minutes." thing, I screamed at him to get off my property or I'd let the dog out. Thankfully, the dog was still barking because I had my hand on the doorknob as though I was going to open it and give her the opportunity to investigate the squirrels racing up the street tree.

But again, he didn't know that, so he finally retreated. While giving the dog the hairy eyeball. Whatever - it got him out of our porch hole.

Of course, I had to share this little interaction with our contractor who, after finishing pouring the new concrete yesterday, left us a little gift.

Well, if he's not the funniest contractor ever.

And, because I'd made all kinds of squealy noises about "Oh, Bubba, we should write our initials in the concrete wouldn't that be SO CUTE!" when we were talking about pouring the new pad, and even though Bubba looked at me like I'd just told him I was going to go vegan on him or something, Funny Contractor left us this gift as well, tastefully etched into an out-of-the-way corner of the porch:

To say that I screetched with delight would be wildly underestimating my reaction. Bubba just rolled his eyes in that way that tells me he loves me, but at this moment, he's trying really hard to remember why.

Alright, that's all I've got. You're free.

On burning the shit out of myself.

Right now I'm currently obsessed with three things; my new knives, my new camera and the fact that the front of our house has been ripped off to make way for a new porch and in the last 12 hours we've had at least two earthquakes, so you know, our house could be 100% porch, and maybe even "house"-free, at any point.

Yay.

So, you'd think that I'd post about any of the above topics except that I don't have proper photos of any of those things and, without photos, I feel like their stories would fall flat. Mostly because I guess I need photographs to distract you from my poor storytelling abilities.


*Sigh* These are my short-comings as I've come to accept them.


So - in lieu of being able to show you the photo of my knives all snuggled up in the new drawer organizer or my camera producing something incredible (wow - the bells, the whistles, the WTF does *this* button do of it all) or my house without a front, I'll talk about pork.

Because obviously that's what a Jew would talk about in lieu of all standard subjects, right? Yeah, it makes no sense. Welcome.

In order to bring some semblance of reality to the purpose behind talking about pork, I'll preface this post (can it be a preface if it comes in the middle of a post? I don't know.) by saying that the pork isn't really the significant part of the story. No. The significant parts of the story are the rekindling of love with my favorite Brussels sprouts recipe (which incidentally includes bacon - appropriate) and the fact that EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I make this pork chop recipe, I burn the fuck out of myself because I'm retarded.

Let's start the FACE part of this story, then, since the PRE part has been so frankly put.

Once upon a time I didn't make pork chops until I'd skated by all my life into my 30s. Which, for the record, was just two years ago.

Not that I didn't like pork or pork chops or pork loin or bacon (obv.), but because my mom never made it and so, therefore, I hadn't the foggiest idea where to begin and, hey, we've got all this other shit to eat, so why bother with The Mystery Other White Meat That Sometimes Comes With Barftastic Cream of Mushroom Sauce Barf?

But, Bubba? Oh, he likes pork chops. Yes indeedy. (Sorry, I really felt like I had to say "indeedy" right there, even though I'm totally ashamed of myself.)

So, being the husband-pleasey wife that I am, I set out to make pork chops. Actually, no, I set out to make The Best Pork Chops because I'm competitive and egotastic like that. I MUST ALWAYS BE THE BEST IN BUBBA'S MIND. ALWAYS.

I'm a psycho.

Anyway, I came across a recipe in Real Simple that seemed promising and would lend itself well to a pan sauce I was certain I could master with little effort on my part. I was pretty cocky about the whole thing, really, especially given the fact that I'd never laid a pork chop in a pan in my whole life and what the hell does a Jewess know about cooking pork chops but I set out sure I was going to make them The Best regardless.

Sometimes I can really be delusional.

So, I procured my necessaries, which was really only two bone in pork chops and some olive oil and set out to make these magical The Best Pork Chops like I'd been doing it all my life which I plainly had not.

And while I was all flush with I'm The Bestness I hoarded up our farmshare Brussels sprouts for two weeks so that I'd have enough to produce the Brussels sprouts feast that we've come to love thanks to Dig and her fantastic recipe which also includes bacon (bless you, Dig).

Really, in my head, we were preparing ourself for a The Best meal like none other.

And then I burnt THE CRAP out of my left hand doing the stupidest kitchen maneuver short of jamming my hand down the active disposer.

See, this recipe calls for browning the chops in a pan on the stovetop and then sliding them into the oven to finish cooking. Fine. This is all fine.

But because I was getting all fancy and shit, I had it in my head that, yes, I will brown them on the stove, finish them in the oven and then remove the chops to individual plates while I deglaze the pan with some white wine and VOILA create a very tasty pan sauce for the chops.

Except that my brain does not comprehend the fact that once a pan has been in the oven at 400 degrees for 6-8 minutes, that the handle will remain at or close to 400 degrees for, oh, I don't know, about 10 minutes or more after it's been removed to the stovetop.

Like, YES IDIOT, the pan's not technically IN the oven anymore, but the handle's probably still pretty fucking hot.

Which it was. Which is how I burned the crap out of my left hand when I went to reposition it on the stove to pour in the white wine from the awaiting bottle (but not my Drinking Glass because obviously I need all that wine for myself).

Oh.

And, you know, on its own, that's not much of a story. Because who hasn't burned their hand on a hot pan handle at some point, right?

Except who, may I ask, has gone about making the same exact meal multiple times and burned the crap out of their same hand EVERY SINGLE TIME by doing the EXACT SAME STUPID THING because they just don't learn?

Well, I'll save you the suspense, it's me.

So, what I'm trying to say is that I've gotten really good at making these awesome Brussels sprouts and a white wine pan sauce while holding a bag of frozen peas in my left hand.

Also, I have a nice pan handle tatoo on my left hand into which my large sauce pan fits swiftly.

Yay for that.

Thankfully, after I did this last time and then saw my neighbors while still clutching the frozen peas, these same neighbors had pity on me, thought they'd save me from myself and came over for dinner the next night with a lovely and useful silicone pan handle cover so that I'd not burn my left hand down to a stump in the name of pork chops.

Merciful, these folks. I love them lots.

Anyway, as a thank you for sitting through this painful and rigorously mind-numbing post, I will offer up this menu as a token of gratitude.

Though I will warn you that you may want to keep that bottle of wine in the fridge until such time as you actually need it rather than doing a "one for the pork chops, one for me" dance with your wine glass because it can result in, ahem, impaired reasoning skills that may then result in burning the fuck out of your hand.

Just saying.

Pork Chops with White Wine Pan Sauce and The Best Brussels Sprouts

Pork Chops by Real Simple

Brussels Sprouts by Dig

Pan Sauce and all associated foul language by moi

Firstly, this is more an order of processes to a final meal than a recipe. So don't get all, what kind of recipe is this, loser? because I'll have to smack ya.

OK, firstly again, gather your Brussels sprouts up and trim and halve them so that what you have is a pile of perfect looking bright green gems with some loose leaves and IMPORTANT no little bugs hiding in their leaves. Yay. Set aside.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Cover a rimmed baking sheet with foil, lay out a few strips of bacon, per Nici's recipe, and slide them in the oven until they're roasty and not burnt, about 8 minutes. Remove the pan to a cooling location. Leave the oven on 400 degrees.

Warm up your ovensave pan and add the oil, thus beginning the pre-oven portion of Real Simple's pork chop recipe.

Set out some plates for later because this menu moves pretty fast. Just make sure they're out of the way enough so that you can still function.

Add your pork chops to the pan and follow the recipe, turning when they've browned - about 2-3 mins per side.

Slide the pan into the oven. Turn the oven light on to remind you that HEY IDIOT THERE'S SOMETHING IN HERE.

Grab a good sized mixing bowl and pour in the ingredients for the Brussels sprouts' dressing except the bacon. Whisk it up, crumble the bacon, stir that all in and set it aside. 

Take out a small sauce pot and add about 1/4 cup of water. Throw your Brussels sprouts in there with a pat of butter. 

OH YES BUTTER. 

Put the lid on the pot and position that baby over one of your smaller burners and bring it to a quick boil over medium heat. Turn the burner off and let it steam briefly - only until the sprouts are bright green. Strain them and dump them in the mixing bowl of dressing. Toss. Set aside.

Return to the oven (about 8 minutes have passed) and remove the pan from the oven WITH AN OVEN MITT.

Place the pan over one of your larger burners (turned off) and plate the two pork chops, leaving just the pan goodness in the pan. 

CRUCIAL DETAIL: Slip the handly silicone handle sleeve onto your pan, grab the half-drunk bottle of white wine from the fridge and turn the heat up to med/high on the stove under your pan. Wait a minute and then splash in enough wine to despackle the pan of all of its porky loveliness. Allow it to boil and reduce into a lovely syrupy sauce.  Pour it in equal amounts over the two pork chops.

NOTICE HOW YOU DON'T BURN YOUR HANDS. Rejoice appropriately.

Spoon the sprouts onto the plates. Refill your wine glass. Serve your dinner and enjoy savoring it without having your left fist wrapped around a bag of Trader Joe's frozen peas.

The end. 

To get you all in the spirit

After that one post where I railed against society for leaving the designing of Hanukkah decor to basement-dwelling monsters, I'd like to say that I made peace with the situation and moved on to more productive endeavors like, say, designing something more aesthetically pleasing to prove that it could be done.

Well, I can't say that. Because that's not my way - to go out into the world making right what is wrong. No, my way is to bitch about it.

Which is why you see a label on this blog called Finny Bitches and not one called Finny Fixes.

It's a character flaw of mine which I've fully embraced. I figure, why fight something that comes so naturally?

Anyway.

What actually happened after I ranted about the aesthetic abuses laid so heavily on Hanukkah decor was that I went on to find more fuel for the fire. Meaning, I went to the internet to hunt down even more ugliness. Just to prove to myself that there was, indeed, some sort of awful theme running through Hanukkah decor outside of the few examples I easily found and linked to from my post.

Well, HO HO, was there ever some ugliness to be found. WOW.

Though I found that the most egregious missteps were to be found in the menorah department.

This is the department where, if you're a Jew or someone who knows a Jew or someone who's marketing a product to a Jew and wants to appeal to every type of Jew on the planet and needs an outlet for kitsch where one can express all of one's alliances through a single holiday vessel - you come to let your hair down and really Be Yourself with the innocent and unknowing menorah.

At least that's what the menorahs out there are telling me.

Particularly the cat ones and the Harry Potter ones and the Mel Gibson ones (though the irony here is intensely satisfying and also no one's really taking this one seriously).

I'm going to go out on a particularly precarious limb here and say that people are treating menorahs like some treat their Christmas trees - all decorating them up to be a unique and authentic representation of themselves and their most honored and random-ass pastimes.

Much like the golf-loving father may have a golfing-type ornament for their tree, a golf-loving Jew may also have a golf-themed menorah.

Like high heels? If you celebrate Christmas, go here. If you're a Jew, go here.

Vespas anyone? That random enough for you? Christmas-havers. Jews.

My point is this - while Christmas and Hanukkah may be different holidays celebrated by different religions and different people doing different things while filling themselves to the brim with different not-so-good-for-you foods, the decor can be equal (and mystifyingly similar) in its ugliness and at the root of it all everyone is overdoing it.

A point I've been trying to prove all week on Facebook as I've been celebrating a new holiday called The Festival of Ugly Menorahs which I'll share with you now. Enjoy.

Festival of Ugly Menorahs : Night One
The Sea Monster Night

Festival of Ugly Menorahs : Night Two
The Special Holiday Visitor Night
(Hint: those are tampons)

Festival of Ugly Menorahs : Night Three
The Inflatable Night
(This thing is 6 feet tall and goes on your lawn)

Festival of Ugly Menorahs : Night Four
The I Had Too Much Manischewitz and Spent Night Three in the Loo Night

Festival of Ugly Menorahs : Night Five
The Musical Night When Our Ears Also Witness The Ugly
(Hint: This menorah plays Klezmer)
(Hint: Klezmer is Jew music)
(Hint: Think clarinets and accordions)
(I think you get the ugliness now)

Festival of Ugly Menorahs : Night Six

The Night of Holographic Ugliness

Nights 7 and 8 are yet to be revealed as they have not yet occurred, so I will spare you the final days. Perhaps, if all goes well and I find some particularly stunning gems, I will share them with you as I ready my latke-making outfit for the final night's festivities.

And, before you comment and ask me what the fuck a latke-making outfit might entail, I will tell you that it is not fanciful, nor does it include flashing lights, inflatable accessories or outwardly visible tampon strings (no, that's for beach whoring. And, ew.)

My latke outfit, as it's commonly known around my family, is a black cotton v-neck sweater, jeans and low-heeled boots (2 inch heel max) with gel insoles. One must always be Gellin' when one is Latke-Makin'. Or something like that. Also important are the breatheability and cotton-ness of all items of clothes because that means that they are washable in HOT water and don't shy away from two tons of detergent.

Because you will smell like a nice crispy french fry when you're done frying enough latkes to feed any Hanukkah crowd and the smell will haunt you unless you go home and immediately burn or thoroughly wash with scorching water and soap all of your clothes from that day. You should also take advantage of the "Repeat if necessary" option on your shampoo, shave off all exposed hair, hose yourself off with Purell and commence a week-long diet of kale and purified water until the latkes have been expunged from your soul.

It's an effort, I won't lie to you.

So, if I get through all of that without accidentally lighting myself on fire (which has some implications I won't go into due to the super pissing-off-of-random-people-ness it provokes) during the lighting of my parents' traditional and not-ugly menorah, I may come back here and share with you nights 7 and 8.

If I don't, well, you can assume I've had all I can take of Hanukkah, menorahs, ugliness and smelling like a french fry's armpit and have moved on to other things. Like figuring out how to get through Christmas without yanking down my neighbors' musical manger display running amok next door.

Why it's good that Hanukkah stuff is ugly as hell

Alright, it must be said, the Hanukkah decorations I see around here are the ugliest, clunkiest, most designed-as-an-afterthought-by-the-gimp-in-the-basement pieces of shit imaginable.

Really. That is what I think.

Every time I'm strolling through Target, or doing some casual online shopping for whatever (shoes. It's usually shoes.) or on the off chance that I wander into an actual store sometime between the months of September and January and happen to cross the Holiday Decor aisle or the register festooned with holiday froo-frooiness, I see how Hanukkah has gotten the shaft in the decent decoration department.

And that's once I get past the sub par wrapping paper designs and cheesy clip-art paper plates and Fischer-Price dreidels. Those things I've long learned to live with in their totally-unremarkable-except-for-their-ugliness forms.

But the menorahs? That's where the rubber meets the road for ugly Hanukkah design.

I feel that, when it comes to designing menorahs, the job must have been doled out to someone as a form of punishment based on the results I see for sale in the greater USofA.

There is no way that a sane person, possessing both the ability to see out of both eyes and the aesthetic sensibilities of a diseased rat could create these menorahs unless they were being forced to create them, in the dark, with only a limited number of symbolic references and while at gun point. With the goal of making them as quickly as possible and uglier than the guy's next to him who's already had his arm shot off for making one faintly passable.

May I offer up a few examples?

I may:

Blue base. Blue light bulbs. Star of David. We get it - it's for Jews.

The cat-lovers version, naturally.
Because why wouldn't cats represent a holiday based on the miraculous ability of one day's worth of lamp oil lasting eight days? Now, show me one of these cats with its tail on fire, and we'll talk.

Is this supposed to be a Basque take on the menorah? Wow. Maybe let's not push it.

My favorite of the heinous designs - the Made from Whatever Small Item We Have Nine Of design.

Why must there be so many electric versions? Are we not to be trusted with matches? Will the bulbs burn out automatically in eight days? What about on shabbat? Isn't there some rule against using electricity on the sabbath? I don't know any of these answers.

Anyway, what I'm trying to tell you people is that, even though I am about as unobservant as a Jew can be, I still find it disappointing that in this day and age of aesthetically-pleasing toilets, we can't even come up with a half decent array of Hanukkah holiday decor. And, so help me Hannah (that's a Finny's Mom special quote right there) if I see another deer candle holder being pawned off as a menorah I'm going to punch someone in the fucking throat.

Meanwhile, I've bought exactly zero Hanukkah, or even Any Holiday, themed merchandise in recent memory, save for the cards I put together with the help of Tiny Prints and under the guise of wishing people a "Happy Ski Season!" because I can't even be associating myself with holidays if they're going to look like this.

Thankfully, we'll always have the ubiquitous snowflakes, generic blue paper from the kid's birthday party supply aisle and silver ribbon from the wedding section with which to wrap the festive underwear and socks (what? You don't give your loved ones undergarments for Christmas? Terrible.) Though lately I've resorted to taking the horrifyingly bad wrapping paper and turning it white side out or scrapping traditional wrapping paper altogether and going for the Spanish newspaper some jerk-off keeps tossing on our doorstep.

As it turns out, El Mensajero offers better choices for giftwrap than Target. Something I never would have guessed.

But, hey, as long as all the accoutrement is completely unappealing, I won't have to torture Bubba with trying to convince him that we should have in it our house and that we should celebrate holidays like normal people rather than the way we actually celebrate them.