Golden who?

So, to be honest, I really didn't miss the Golden Globes. I watched what I thought was the news conference announcing the winners, but actually what I watched was some Access Hollywood watered-down version. Where was the glitz? The glamour? I missed the dresses! I didn't miss the awards not one single bit. Though I was super excited that Mad Men and John Hamm won for AMC. Thrilling! One fabulous show, I tell you. But I must say, those writers have way more power in Hollywood than I ever thought. It's pretty impressive that one group can shut down the entire television season.

In other news, I could not have been more excited about Nate and Jen being eliminated last night on The Amazing Race. For recaps, check out www.televisionwithoutpity.com. Hysterical. My favorite part was when Jen yelled at Nate on the street in Taipei, "You NEED to make the decisions, Nate! Don't ruin my birthday by not making the decisions right now!!!" Rock on, Nate. Make her make those really tough subway-or-taxi decisions. Nate cried at the end, and I tried to feel bad for them, but I didn't.

Weekend recommendations: Definitely order the Szechuan short ribs at Bloomsbury, but don't order the salmon if you go. Also, their wine list is full of things that normal people can't pronounce. If I can't say it, probably I shouldn't drink it. Also, I discovered that if I need something, I should just mention it in my MIL's presence and it will magically appear. Like yesterday morning, I was telling her about how our coffee pot got mysteriously cracked one day and she opened up a cabinet door and said, "Here, want this one?" Um, okay.

Things to look forward to this week: BB goes back to school! Woo hoo, I have finally have my Monday nights back. He's taking grad-level accounting, bless his little heart. Also, school started for me on Friday and I'm already behind on my reading. Way to keep those resolutions, E. Baker! I'm definitely looking forward to tomorrow, when my work-study student comes back to work. And I'm also looking forward to Thursday, when it's supposed to rain...or if it's really cold, like it's supposed to be, maybe something else?

Happy Monday!

All Clear...For Some of Us

This week has been "cancer screening" week in my family. Frank's PET scan showed cancer on two lobes of his liver and he was scheduled for surgery yesterday. Daddy's scan was this morning.

Good news first: Daddy is cancer free! He goes back in April, but every three months that goes by without a recurrence lowers the risk of the cancer returning - at all. Fabulous all the way around!

Now the not-so-good news: Frank's five-hour surgery was over in half an hour. According to family, the cancer is so widespread that surgery would do no good, so they closed him up before they really got started. This morning my aunt is meeting with the doctors to see what the options are, if there are any. Of course this is discouraging news; Duke flew a doctor from Johns Hopkins down here to be on stand-by to "freeze" any remaining tumors that couldn't be removed during the surgery. Turns out his trip was for naught. So now we wait...and hope for the best.

In other news, I went out (meaning waaaay out in the county) on Tuesday night to West Johnston High School to judge senior boards. They emailed looking for volunteers from JCC and I'm thinking, Hey, how hard can it be? Judge some projects, meet some peeps, be seen and put a notch on the resume. Uh huh, riiiight. So I get there a little past 5pm because hello, you have to drive 30 minutes from here and suffice it to say our county is rather large. Anyway, people are already assigned to their spots and are already munching on sandwiches. I get assigned to one table, get moved to another and start reading through project portfolios. Basically they give you a big bin with the portfolios of the projects you'll be judging; the notebooks explain what the project is and the process the student has gone through.

To make an extremely long night a very short story, let's just say one of the judges in my room was a know-it-all band parent who'd judged twice before. The other was a first-year guidance counselor at the school, straight out of graduate school and very serious about his job as judge. The projects ranged from pregnancy and smoking to making a ghillie suit (for those of you who don't know, it's that bushy looking thing that soldiers wear in the woods as a disguise). Some of the students spent a super long time on their projects and their presentations and it showed. Some were nervous but still had put a lot of work into it and some didn't care enough to start this thing until Christmas break. As judges, our scores have to be a consensus, and consensus in this case means within at least 7 points of each other. Let's just say that on several different occasions, I scored students at least 15 points lower than did Genius Guidance Counselor. Band Parent fell sort of middle of the road. After the 7 or so students finished their 10-15 minute presentations (during which there were numerous technological difficulties which extended the time we spent in there), we gathered score sheets to tally.

By this time, it's seriously going on 9:30pm (and I have to drive half an hour to get home) and GGC doesn't want to budge on his scores. "But if I come down a point or two then it won't be consistent with what I gave Olivia Overachiever!" he whined. We reminded him that you can't compare student to student, and that basically we just needed a number close enough to mine so that we could get outta this joint. "But what if we ruin Sally Slacker's senior year? I mean, what if her senior project grade isn't good enough and she doesn't get into college? And then she fails high school and her life is over and it's all our fault?" Oh my GOD I wish I was kidding. This dude went on and on and on. Finally he conceded on that one, but not on other students, so I made the decision to give credit where it wasn't due so I could actually get home before midnight. And this is after the in-charge lady made an announcement that if there were any volunteers still left in the building we should pack it up, 'cause they're locking the doors. We're done right?

Not so much. GGC walks down the halls of the high school whining the whole way. "I don't mean to beat a dead horse," he complains. "But I really feel like we shortchanged some people. I mean, they spent months and months on this. What if their confidence is ruined? How will we explain that?" Here's a tip, buddy: we don't explain it. The project sucked, she coulda done better, we did our job and now we're done. And it's 10pm. And maybe I would've had a little sympathy if he'd been the senior guidance counselor, but no! He worked strictly with freshmen!

So now the question becomes whether or not I will judge again. Because inevitably they'll ask me. I asked around and apparently ours was an isolated case - most everyone else was out of there before 9:00. I might give it some time and do it again, just to see what it's like with different judges -and maybe some smarter students?

One last commentary on the whole night: The girl who presented on pregnancy and smoking did so because she'd just had a baby and like, totally hated it when her friends wanted to smoke around her. And when she talked to her other pregnant friends, they like, all agreed with her and stuff. Babies aside, she was a cute, blonde cheerleader-type. And so were all her friends, as we saw from her powerpoint presentation. Cheerleader moms. What an interesting concept.

The other 5

As promised, the other five memorable holiday moments, in no particular order:

• When I flipped Drew the bird (a la Phil) on Christmas Eve and he caught it on camera.
• When my 8 year-old niece poured wine at the dinner table and asked, "Would you like some more Chardonnay?"
• The lovely time I spent with Max Marvin Hollowell the Hamster.
• The feeling of finally finishing the file cabinet and finally hanging the bathroom shelf. By myself. With power tools. By myself. And they haven't fallen apart!
• Three great Christmas Day sights: That Darn Cat on DVD, my daddy and Frank.
  

Resolute

I am proud to say that it is now the 5th day of the new year, and so far, my number one resolution has been number one on my mind. I have organized and organized and organized (and still have about two tons of paper to go through before I'm done) and feel good about my progress. But on the grand scale of grand resolutions, isn't organization as cliché as losing weight? Or getting more sleep? Or quitting...something?

Of course those are all on my list. But what about becoming resolute about something "new?"

10. I resolve to watch at least one (1) presidential debate before the election in November. Even if I have to wake myself up with a bucket of cold water, and even if the Breck Girl has a bad hair day.

9. I resolve to not give in to any and every whim of the animals I live with. Charlie is not a baby; just because he cries doesn't mean he's hungry. Does it?

8. I resolve to get ahead in my schoolwork, and not be scared of Dr. Henze. Even though he's scary and uses really big words that I don't understand, I still resolve to read ahead and ask dumb questions.

7. I resolve to balance the checkbook at least every two days. I have become somewhat famous at work for bringing in a metal spike that holds two months worth of receipts that must be sorted through. I look like the cashier at Mel's Diner on a busy Sunday morning.

6. I resolve to at least look like I'm interested when Brian starts in on some long story about an article he read in the Wall Street Journal.

5. I resolve to really enjoy turning 30. I think it will be fun, no matter what I do, and I think I should look at 30 as a privilege. So I shall.

4. I resolve to become more interested in the lives of my friends. I used to be good at this; I've slacked off. However, I also resolve to become less interested in Facebook and MySpace.

3. I resolve to visit at least one of my out-of-town friends at least once this year. And Raleigh doesn't count.

2. I resolve to say no to some things this year. It's hard and I don't like it, but Mom never said life was fair.

1. I resolve to still sleep good at night, and perhaps nap good during the day, even if I don't accomplish a single thing on this list. After all, who really stays organized, loses that weight and quits whatever it was they were going to quit, all year long?

Hellooo Christmas!

Dear Santa,

I'm sorry that I've been a little neglectful in my blog posting of late. Surely you haven't missed me. What's that? You have? Oh pooh, you must be kidding! Well then, let me not waste any more time. Here's a list of my top 10 wishes for Christmas, followed by the top 5 most memorable moments of the holiday-season-thus-far. (I'm saving the other 5 for after New Year's.)

I wish for...

10. Energy. Lots and lots of it. Right now, my beautiful but comfy floral chair has sucked every bit of energy I have. It's my own little rock of kryptonite, right in my den.

9. The writers' strike to end. Please, oh please, Santa! Can't you make them go back to work? Clash of the Choirs, Duel, Re-runs of VH1's Dumbest Celeb Quotes Ever... Can't you see the havoc that is being wreaked upon our televisions? Oh, wait. I get it! This is a big, fat sign from up above telling me to get OUT of my chair and DO something. I see... Very, very clever Santa.

8. Patience. Starting tomorrow, Santa, you know that I will have to endure three long days of nothing but family. If it were only my family, I'd be happy. But noooo, Santa. There's Christmas Eve dinner, followed by Christmas Day lunch, after which we travel for Christmas Night dinner, only to be awakened the next morning by Day-After-Christmas cheese toast breakfast, and then, the Ultimately Dreaded Lasagna Lunch with the Bakers. Heavens to Betsy.

7. New recipes. How many times can a girl make Forgotten Cookies? Or fudge? I wish for new recipes that are easy, delicious, and whose ingredients can be found at Food Lion.

6. More rain. I am terrified by the drought. Not so terrified that I'm saving water in buckets and milk jugs, granted, but still frightened enough to take shorter showers. Oh, look at that! It's raining right now! Hot dog!

5. More Christmas cards with fewer babies. Don't get me wrong friends, I love your kids. Really I do. But now that everyone has a kid except me, it seems that the only cards I receive are combo birth announcements. "Christmas Came Early This Year! Baby Girl Jones. 6 lbs. 7 oz. August 1st." That's not Christmas, that's summer. Really, people.

4. Another Spears debacle. The only child in the Spears family that has yet to make a complete ass of himself is Bryan Spears, the eldest and apparently wisest of the three. Jamie Lynn's kid has no chance in this world... Wait a minute. Wasn't I just saying that about Brit's kids? Ah, yes... Redneck Spears Cousins: The Future of Hollywood.

3. No in-family arguments this year. I realize it's a tall order, but if poor Brian has to endure another Baker fallout, I'm just not sure he'll make it. I mean, he'll make it, but he'll want to suddenly become an only child. (Okay, so this is MY wish, not his, but you get what I'm saying.)

2. An all-around Baker household weight reduction. I think that, collectively, the four of us weigh as much as a tractor trailer. I'm doing my part, but Lucy, Charlie and Brian have yet to see the benefits of cutting back. The bellies on those felines are out of control. Time to rein it in.

1. Health. For Dad, for Frank, for myself, for everyone I know and love. That's not asking for much, is it?

And now, the Top 5 Most Memorable Moments of the Holiday Season Thus Far:

5. Dad bought gifts for Mom early. Like right after Thanksgiving. This is memorable for several reasons, but mainly because the tables have turned... He thought ahead and I procrastinated. Now I'm left at the 11th hour to wrap her gifts. There's a lot of them and they're all heavy.

4. The Baker Christmas Tree Disaster. See previous blog.

3. Elizabeth's champagne intake at the Champagne Christmas Brunch. I drank too much, talked too loud (and also too much), and I think I offended some people. Oh well. I'm the only one that entertains anyway, so it's not like I'll be minus an invitation anywhere. Plus, what's a party if no one behaves like an idiot?

2. The Student Services Fish Fry. Up until Thursday, I'd never eaten croaker before. And now I know why. The shrimp were scrumptious, but now I see why Toney's on enough blood pressure medicine to make his eyes look like a crack whore's.

1. And the #1 Most Memorable Moment so far has to be the Annual JCC Christmas Luncheon. I was nervous for weeks, couldn't eat a thing, bought new clothes, sweated and panicked my way through it...and I lost. Granted, I lost to a Vice President, and several people said I was robbed, but still. I am not the recipient of the Outstanding Staff of the Year award. Bollocks. I had grand plans for that $1,000 and I had on a cute outfit to boot. I must say, though, my loser face was really Oscar-worthy. Take that, Susan Lucci!

Finally, 3 Things I'm Most Looking Forward To In 2008:

3. Giving up Staff Development Day. 'Nuff said.

2. Getting closer and closer to my 5% pay raise, aka my master's degree.

1. The endless number of 30th birthdays - including my own! (September 15th. Write it down. Mark it on your calendar. Take vacation and make a trip to SmithVegas to celebrate with me.)

0. (I forgot one!) Ellis' wedding. Even if BB's not in the wedding, we'll still be there to cheer on his very best friend since Andy Griffith.

I don't know what to say

I sat down at the computer this morning to write about my weekend, which has been a comedy of errors. But then the phone rang, and the lives of the people in my family will never be the same.

First of all, my dad's okay. His scan isn't until January, so he has a temporary (hopefully permanent!) reprieve. This has nothing to do with him, but everything to do with cancer. I don't understand why it won't attack people who are evil, who bring nothing good to this world and who only cause pain. Instead, cancer ruins the lives of people who are good and kind and loving. People who have endured their own kind of pain and who have soldiered through. People who still have so much more life to live.

I am almost in tears as I write this. I don't understand why cancer scares, and sometimes kills, the people I love. I don't understand how it leaves us all speechless and terrified, but marches on anyway. It has marched on through the body of a person, very dear to me, who thought that chemo had saved him. Instead, he knows now that he has six months to spend with his wife, son, stepsons and granddaughters. He has six months to get his affairs in order and provide for their lives after his is over. He has six months to do everything he ever wanted to do, but will most likely be too sick to do.

And despite this, despite everything, he kissed my cheek last night, told me I looked lovely and offered to refill my drink. He smiled, he laughed, he joked. Because what else can you do? What else can you say? Hey, good to see you, I have six months. Great party, too bad I won't be here next year.

I shouldn't have, but I called Brian at work to tell him. And now he'll spend the rest of the afternoon reminded of the five years he spent wondering how much longer his own father had. Bernie's six months turned into five years, but that's a lucky statistic; the exception, not the rule. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say to my dad, who is bound to be scared to death to go for his scan, knowing how this one turned out. I don't know what to say to anybody. There are no guarantees.

Thanksgiving was different and smaller. Christmas will be difficult and even smaller than Thanksgiving. But we will spend it with our family, for we would be no other place.

O Christmas Tree

For many years now, Brian and I have secretly made fun of people with artificial Christmas trees. "Crazy!" we said. "Who in the world wouldn't want the smell of a fresh Frasier fir permeating their home? How can it be Christmas if you put your preschool-made ornaments on some plastic tree and call it a day?"

As it turns out, artificial Christmas tree owners may be on to something after all.

Last Friday, after a long week at work for me and a long, well, two days off for Brian, we decided to pick out a tree that we planned to put up over the weekend. We headed to Spanky's, our local tree place that we've been going to since I was a child. Spanky can't be more than five feet tall, but he's got these guys that work for him and have for years - they can handle a big ol' Christmas tree better than BB can handle a pallet of Pepsi.

Anyway, since we're seasoned tree-picker-outers, we headed straight for the yellow tags. Blue tags mean short and somewhat skimpy (think Charlie Brown, but with a little more oomph). Yellow tags mean around eight feet tall and fairly fat. Fat we like, when it comes to Christmas trees. White tags mean 11-12 foot trees - basically trees for people who own old homes and plant to host giant holiday cocktail parties.

So the yellow-tagged trees were all lined up in a row, and it didn't take us too long to find our big, fat, too-tall tree. We pick it out, one of Spanky's little helpers takes it down and saws off a good foot or so from the bottom. (Our ceilings are only so tall, you see.) We take it home, put it in a tub of water and let it drink until Sunday.

In short, our weekend was crazy. The Pepsi Christmas party was Saturday night (I could write a whole other blog about that one), and with everything else we had going on, we didn't get to the tree until 5:00 Sunday afternoon. I don't know about where you all live, but here, it's practically dark at 5. Plus it was raining; cold, wet drizzle and Christmas tree stands don't mix.

First we took the handsaw and sawed off some bottom branches that were in the way of the stand we had. Now granted, we have done this before, but never have we had a tree this big and this heavy. Our stand had screws that you screw into the tree trunk to hold it up, but the tree was so heavy that it just fell right over when we tried to stand it up. Brian had worked all day, I had been in church since God was a boy, and it was all we could do not to cuss this tree up one side and down the other.

All told, it took us three trips to Spanky's, two tree stands, and one kind teenager to help us get this damned tree up in our living room. And, after all of that, we discovered that those bottom branches we sawed off left a few holes...all the way around the tree. It took us til Thursday to calm down enough to decorate the thing, but now that it has rocking horses made out of pencils, candy cane picture frames and cotton ball Santas on it, it's kind of cute. Fat, bright, lopsided and dry, but it's still kind of cute.

Those fake tree owners may have it easy, but they sure don't have good stories to tell. And I'll bet you one thing: when they come home from work after a long day, I bet they don't come inside to smell the scent of a freshly-cut Frasier fir tree telling them that yes, it is Christmastime.