Happy Winter Solstice! As of today, we will have exactly seven hours and fifty-three minutes of daylight, which is NOT VERY MUCH. However, at least we aren’t in the Arctic! And days start getting longer tomorrow, so there’s that. Also! We are in the Final Countdown To Christmas, so there is much excitement around the Boyhouse. I have two more classes to teach before I have a week off, and let me tell you, as soon as I get home from class tomorrow, I am (finally) cracking open that Almonde Baileys I bought, putting on a pot (YES A POT) of coffee, and watching Christmas Vacation with the children. I have been looking forward to that moment for weeks now. It’s going to be glorious.
The boys – including my husband – will also be decorating their traditional gingerbread house tomorrow. We are a bit later than normal but I shrug my tired shoulders at the notion of a gingerbread house schedule. I was reminded by Facebook of the house they made eight years ago:
Nothing can top that baby. Nothing!
For those of you in the throes of festive stress, come here, sit beside me, while I make you an Almonde Baileys and coffee. It’s a stressful time, although I am currently feeling like a motherfucking boss since I zoomed over to Superstore as soon as I dropped the kids at “school” (no actual academic activities will take place on this day, thank god, since no student has any focus at the moment) and, people, I managed to rack up 9,500 PC Points. LIKE A BOSS. And it was all buying things that I would normally buy, rather than weird one-off things that will sit in my pantry for years to come. I AM THE QUEEN.
On Monday I drove past the mall on my way to get a wax (TMI? Sorry, I am literally on my second POT of coffee and my filters, as it were, are blurred) and there were cars lined up along the road just to get into the parking lot. I can’t imagine what the parking lot itself was like, but I did see a lot of very slow moving vehicles. My god, the mall. If you or someone you love is heading there any time this week, my thoughts and prayers are with you. GO WITH GOD, PEOPLE. And don’t forget to be nice to the people working the checkouts.
Hmm, I had more to say but in my coffee-fueled haze I cannot remember what. Oh yes! The banana update. Were you all on the edge of your seats, waiting for an update? Well, wait no more because here it comes: the bananas went from greenish to completely black-and-brown in a matter of 24 hours.
But, Dear Reader, you need to know that when I took off the gross peels, with the exception of the very tip, inside was a firm, yet ripe, banana.
That photo looks a little “not safe for work” and also that is what Reynaud’s looks like.
All of which is to say that while I do love Costco and all of its outsized goodness, I will never buy bananas there again.
Happy Holidays to all of you wonderful people. I wish for you a time of joy, happiness, and peace, and if anyone wants some banana bread, I have a freezer full of bananas for you. xoxo
Can you spot the Barkley?
I went out running errands today and felt like the Ingalls family preparing for a blizzard: everything was SO CROWDED and there was a feeling of “This is my Last Chance until after Christmas!!” Another shopper and I were heading out at the same time, and I said to her, “I feel like I can’t leave or else I’ll find I’ve forgotten something and can’t have it,” and she said she’d walked around for an extra HOUR because of that very feeling.
Wow, seven hours, fifty-three minutes. Down here in Maryland, we’re getting about nine hours, twenty-five minutes. (That’s using my weather app data for today’s sunset and tomorrow’s sunrise, which presumably should be pretty close to Thursday’s stats.)
I know the Vitamin D thing was only in the title, but Vitamin D is the only substantive change I’ve made in the last six months and I feel SO MUCH BETTER than usual for this time of year that I feel like walking around shoving Vitamin D pills into everybody and their dog. I know, I know, it’s anecdotal. But still.
My husband tried to go to the liquor store today. I told him, Matt, don’t go. He didn’t even make it into the store and still sat in the parking lot jam for half an hour.