MERRY CHRISTMAS ONE AND ALL - STAY OUT OF YOUR XMAS TREE!!!!!

Leg Cramps

I have them and have had them for years. Just changing from one shoe to another can cause them; drinking wine can cause them; living causes them. So, as I wrote here before, I heard about keeping a bar of soap between the bed sheets to eliminate leg cramps and laughed and laughed.

Then I tried it in a desperate moment and have not had a leg cramp since.

I am not a true believer nor do I believe in soap mojo, but it worked. If I fall asleep on the couch, I will wake up with a muscle cramp in full bloom, agonizing at times, but if I jump into the bed it will go away...not the cramping and twitching...just the pain.

So I'm thinking some pregnant woman in labor ought to try putting a bar of soap on her abdomen. Do it, it's worth a try and if it works, let me know.

If it works, I will become famous and women all over the world will adore me.

And if anyone anywhere knows why soap ends leg cramps...please tell me. There has to be a scientific reason why a bar of soap can stave off severe leg cramps. I feel like I've experienced a miracle on the order of the loaves and the fishes or turning water into wine because you ran out of wine.

PS Any soap will do, doesn't have to be Ivory as some people think.

So Busy, Too Busy, Bee Busy, Busybody (I hope I'm not.)

Every day I keep thinking that I've just about wrapped up all my pre-xmas chores ( and gifts) and then I seem to acquire a dozen more chores that must be done. I think I've got a present for everyone and then I'm invited to another gathering which requires a hostess gift. These are the times when I wish I were crafty and could make some spectacular gift out of popsicle sticks, glitter and chenille yarn.

But I can't.

In previous years I've bought some bulk items for giving last minute gifts. One year a bought a dozen chef aprons and they worked for male or female and of course, I kept one for myself that I love.

I've also bought xmas ornaments and wrapped those up for unexpected gift giving.

I even bought a case of wine one year thinking I'd have a gift for friends and neighbors but we ended up drinking it, bottle by bottle, until we had imbibed all those hostess gifts I had intended to give out.

Now I know I just have to keep going to the store and buying more items right up until xmas eve when finally, I hope I hope, I'm done needing gifts.

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Ice is not your friend. Not only is it slippery, if you fall on it, like I did going to the garbage pails this morning, it will cut up your hands like your were not a particularly skilled juggler --juggling razor blades .

Lucky for me, all fingers are fine, but my palms are covered in splits which require bandaids. How foolish I felt. Thank goodness it wasn't a nightgown morning or I'd have felt more foolish, at least I had on sweats so nothing was exposed. I keep thinking how one foolish moment can cause so much distress. Once I fell on the ice and broke my leg. So bloody hands and all, I am extremely thankful my injuries are nothing to speak about. Just don't give me anything to clap about. Okay?

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I'm making one type of cookies this year -- my trompe l'oie pretzel cookies. You make a basic sugar cookie then roll into ropes, cut and twist into pretzel shapes. Whip up an egg wash to baste cookies and then sprinkle either large crystal sugar or pearl sugar. They come out looking identical to real pretzels. I like to watch people's expressions when the reach for a pretzel and then realize they're eating a cookie! All other cookies will be made by my resident cookie baker, my husband.

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As you can see, I have nothing much new to talk about and you'd think with all the hustling and bustling I'm doing I'd have a million cool stories to tell, but alas, that is not the case. What have you been up to?

I collect old German and Japanese spun cotton Christmas Elves, but the must have teeth! The somewhat sinister look of the elves with teeth appeal to me. The ones without teeth look too benevolent for my twisted xmas spirit. I like fairy tales and magic and eautiful xmas music but I also need to balance it out with reality. These elves remind me that he holiday season is great, but reality is -- not every moment of the holiday will be antastic and filled with good cheer. There'll be crabby relatives and disappointed kids, hangovers and cookies that get burnt.

My evil self loves my evil elves! Heh, heh, heh, and ho ho ho!

Finbar denuded the bottom of the Christmas tree last night; bowled with the glass ornaments; chewed up a crocheted Santa that had a sentimental connection and knotted up a tiny chime ornament that will remain in knots as I would not have the patience to try to fix it.

Three thirty in the morning, I removed all glass balls and put them away for probably the rest of his natural life. I almost stepped on some broken glass and am still worried that he might have chewed some glass - it looks like he's fine though thank goodness. Ho ho ho.

I am so damned organized this year I can't believe it. All shopping and wrapping are done; all decorating and redecorating done, now it's just baking the special favorites of my family and surviving the Christmas parties I'm invited to.

I feel odd now. Usually I have that pressure on me and I guess I'm used to it. Now it just feels like regular days ahead. I'm not sure I like being this organized. I've gotten used to my December eye twitch that speaks of nervous pressure and disorganized shopping skills.

Last year I was on the quest for Riu Riu Chiu by the Monkees. I had to have it. This year I have it and have no burning desire for another piece of Christmas music as I have tons of CDs and just about all the beautiful holiday music known to mankind.

All I really want for Christmas is a book of poems that contains old time favorites like Face on the Bar Room Floor, Casey at the Bat, Maude Miller - the kind of schmaltzy poems that tell a story and usually have a huge, hit-you-in-your head type of moral.

I also have asked for 50 classic horror movies - unretouched and filled with crackles and snaps and pops like the ones you see on late night TV. (Canopenner, thanks for the idea and link.)

It is weird to have so many things you want already in your house, limiting and defining your future wants. I have lots of CDs and books and movies and socks (I'm into socks) and really don't need or want much this year.

My mother used to tell me to want what I have and I always would be happy. I do want what I have and I am happy but it seems flat to not lust after some item; not rip though packages looking and hoping for that special sweater or book or CD.

But, there's still time for me to develop a "must have" mentality about something.

So what do you want for Christmas or Hanuka?

Am I going crazy or what????

This whole thing about the Teddy Bear, the teacher and the name the children chose for the Teddy Bear is making me crazy.

We cannot all live at this same time on this same planet and have some of us willing to kill over a Teddy Bear's name. We are all going to die at the same time when the planet explodes from stupidity whether it's global warming or Teddy Bear names.

Sometimes I hear things like this and think: Oh 700 years ago, in the dark ages, people wanted to kill a woman because of what her students named a stuffed animal. Then I remember I just read this in the newspaper.

We cannot survive in one small planet where some people live in the now and others live hundreds of years ago. Let's all live in the now, ok? Religion or no religion -- we live now -- all of us -- and have real problems right now to deal with that need the support and brains and commitment from everyone on this planet.

For those of you who are so obsessed with heaven, wanting to go there and worried about offending "god" -- then off yourselves right now before you offend god, and leave the rest of us to attempt to live in the here and now. No worries, if we find the cure to cancer we'll share it with your orphaned children.

Also, enough with the "state" supported punishments of 40 lashes or 300 lashes, this is insane! We do not "lash" anymore. We just don't invite the offending person to our next cocktail party for crissakes.

Lashes are the things around your eyes and some women (me!) put mascara on them but that's about it.

I am always amazed at man's inhumanity to man. Especially when "man" blames god for doing the rotten, crap that's been done in the past or in the now - by human beings.

My point of view, not that you asked: If there were a god, he, she or it would have smote you down or smited you or have done something with "smite" as the root word for the freaking nasty stuff people do to other people.

You know what? I don't want a group hug with people in this world, only those with brains that have been activated, jump-started, exercised, used in some form.

A lump of wrinkled gray matter in a skull does not mean one is human. My animals show more compassion than most of the people living in this world.

I feel better now.

I think.

Yes I do.