Dec. 24: IDCEAYWTPFriday

It’s Friday, and that means you get a post called I Don’t Care Enough About You to Write in Transitioning Paragraphs Friday.

• Hey! It’s Christmas Eve! I love today.
• Today my iPod has been playing everything from the “Christmas” genre on shuffle. I have a lot of Christmas music—I don’t know if I realized exactly how much until I put it on shuffle—and I’m actually getting a little tired of it. I’m also remembering why there are a lot of songs I’ve collected but opted to leave OFF our annual CD compilations because there is some really bad Christmas music out there, and it starts and ends with Mariah Carey. Pretty sure. 
• Have you elfed yourself yet this year?
• Big bummer: we had to cancel Poker Night last night because one of the Chris boys couldn’t make it. It would’ve been weird with just one Chris, right? Yes. We’ll try again for some evening next week, with a new invitation or two extended (ahem, Fancy™ Family, we’ve got our eyes on you…). We’re excited to use the way-cool poker set Val and Chris gave us for Christmas—how card shark-y do we look now? We are totally gonna fool people into being a-scared of our mad poker-playing skillz.
• Speaking of Fancy anyone, Fancy Lori™ is incredibly skilled in the knitting arena. If any part of you is cold, she can whip up something that’ll warm you up right quick. Pretty sure. And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.
• Ugh. I am completely addicted to Pictureka. Dammit! I love the iPhone app, and after playing the board game at Sunshine’s last night, I love that too. And I just found out they have a Disney edition and OMG I have to have it! If I don’t post for a few weeks, just assume that I got Disney Pictureka and have no time to do anything else. And remember that once upon a time I was sane(-ish). That game’ll make you ca-razy.
• This song makes me happy:

I keep trying to comb Pat’s hair but he won’t stop moving.

• Here’s another Christmas song that I’m enjoying this year. Thanks for sharing, Sherilee!

Brrrr.

• I heard that I went caroling the other night. News to me!
• It’s not just me, is it? You’ve got excessively dry skin and static in your hair and clothes too, right? It’s always a little strange when that happens around here, because it’s usually humid enough that we don’t shock every single thing we touch. Apparently it’s not so humid right now. I do not love it.
• What Santa really does when you’re asleep. Now you know.
• Sunshine got me a super-cute “you-know-me-so-well” gift for Christmas. This photo doesn’t do it justice, but it gives you an idea of how awesome this necklace is:
  
  
  The copper disc says “weapon of choice” and the charm is a typewriter. Perfect, right??? It also has me thinking two things: (1) I’m going to start making more jewelry with copper, and (2) I want to try metal stamping. I mean, have you seen the awesome metal stamped stuff on etsy? I could totally do that.
• (I actually am not all that confident I could do metal stamping very well. But I could invest hundreds of dollars and lots of energy in it and try and fail and shove all the tools in my “depressing attempts” closet. Yup. I could totally do that.)
• On the opposite end of the spectrum from the loveliness that is Sunshine, here is a woman I very much want to punch in the face, hard and repeatedly. You don’t even have to watch the whole thing before I’m pretty sure you’ll want to slug her too:

She may be a hand model, but she’s no George Costanza (pre-iron burn)

• We’re going to a wedding tomorrow! April’s mom is getting married to a man she re-connected with on Facebook last year. I’m so happy for them—what an exciting thing.
• Which reminds me, why isn’t anyone asking me to perform their wedding ceremonies? I’m thinking maybe it’s time for me to take this personally. I mean, first Kim F’n gets all engaged and asks HER DAD to do her vows, and then my friend’s mom gets engaged and (probably) asks her church pastor to officiate. Why do all the people I know use the excuse that they already know someone who they want doing their wedding? Maybe I need more friends who don’t go to church or know people who go to church. People who aren’t allowed near the holy water. People like me.
• Alright, we’ve got 13 people sitting at our table for dinner tonight, so I’d best get busy preparing. In case I don’t get around to posting tomorrow, please accept very big and most sincere happy holiday wishes from this branch of the Manullang family!

Dec. 26: Christmas report

I already wrote about the fab start to my Christmas Eve—lunch with Mike, Angie, and Kim—and the day just got better as it went on. I don’t know if having such a joyous holiday amidst my current health crisis means I’m in denial, but it does seem a little strange that we enjoyed ourselves so very much these past couple days.

Throughout the day on Thursday our doorbell rang with the last of my Amazon deliveries and tasty gifts from our generous and friendly neighbors. Have I mentioned before how much I love where we live? It’s a happy place, with happy people. We love them.

When Victor got home from work, he picked up the take-out Chinese food order and brought it home, where we transferred it to our Chinese tableware purchased especially for our annual Christmas Eve tradition. With Darlene’s help, I even got the plates right side-up when I set the table (they actually have Japanese writing on them, but this stupid American doesn’t know the diff, and gets them upside down every year). Two shout-outs:

• Lucky Star, a Chinese restaurant here in Clackamas, of all places, has pretty decent food. I judge most Chinese restaurants by their hot and sour soup, and this one’s is deeee-licious. I also like that all of their dishes have unique sauces, unlike many American-Chinese restaurants, where everything is served with “pink sauce.” Blech. I know there are much more authentic restaurants in Portland, but when you’re out here in the ‘burbs, we think Lucky Star cannot be beat.
• The biggest Asian market near us is Fubonn, which is in an Asian shopping center whose stores change on a regular basis. The supermarket itself, though, is huge and much more convenient for us than Uwajimaya in Beaverton. A few years ago I dragged Darlene shopping up there and had her help me choose proper Asian dinnerware, serving dishes and utensils. I got about 16 place settings, with several platters and large bowls, and spent less than $100 for everything. We store it except for the two or three times a year we use it, and it’s totally worth it to eat “real” Chinese food the “right” way.  Fun, too.

After dinner we let Katie and Jack open a few gifts. Another one of our Christmas Eve traditions is that they always get new jammies on Christmas Eve. They also usually get a quiet-ish toy or two, and maybe a book—anything that will NOT keep them from falling asleep that night. Although we aren’t doing the Santa thing anymore, we still keep most of the gifts hidden until Christmas morning so the kids don’t ask to open more and more until all of a sudden there’s nothing left for the next day. This is mostly because Victor and I are parents who just can’t say “no.”

At 11 p.m., both kids were still awake. I would’ve been frustrated by this, but they were playing quite nicely together and looked so darn cute in their new jammies, how could I be upset with them? We finally gave up waiting for them to fall asleep and started loading the gifts under the tree. Peeking was kept to a minimum, so the shrieks of glee the next morning were genuine. I always love that part.

Darlene and Wellington joined us again at 9 a.m. Christmas morning for gift-opening. We all felt completely spoiled and honored by all our goodies, and are still glowing like the happy recipients we are. Mid-afternoon we sat down for a pot roast dinner. I totally played Martha Stewart for that meal—planned everything, but did absolutely NONE of the work. My minions did a lovely job, though, and are definitely going to be re-hired for all future entertaining events at my home.

We all had a lovely Christmas Eve and Day. I needed more rest than in Christmases past, but I still felt very fortunate to be celebrating the holiday with my family. For the most part, the cancer thing easily took a back seat to the festivities, for which I was grateful. I was also relieved not to have horrible weather to deal with, like we did last year and like many folks are having in the Midwest right now. Total suckage!

Here’s hoping your holidays were as joyous as ours!

Dec. 24: The Santa Land Diaries

If you've never heard David Sedaris tell of his experiences as "Crumpet," a Macy's Department Store elf at Christmastime, listen to the audio here, courtesy of NPR. It's about nine minutes long and totally worth it.

A bit of trivia: In the movie "Elf" (one of the best Christmas movies ever, IMO), when Buddy approaches Jovie she asks, "Did Crumpet put you up to this?" Coincidence? I think not.

We're getting ready for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner of Chinese food. Nummers. This year we've got 16 people around the table. Yikes. Come on by, and we'll serenade you with an exuberant "Fa ra ra ra ra..."

Happy Christmas Eve Day and many lovies!

Jen

Feb. 2: Heil Myself... Heil to Me...

Know what? I'm so darn smart I can barely stand myself.

Problem is, today my noggin just gave up. It's full. The "No Vacancy" light's blinking, and if I could think of any other metaphors I would. They say beer kills brain cells, and drugs kill brain cells, and TV kills brain cells. I know for a fact that thinking too much kills brain cells too. And it ain't as much fun as that other stuff neither.

Anyhoo, I can tell I've exhausted all intelligence because I can't think of anything to write and also because I said "anyhoo." But has that ever stopped me before? I think you know the answer to that one.

Today is Sean's birthday. It's hard to believe my nephew is already 15! Just kidding, I know he's actually 18. Yikes-a-hootie, I 'member before he was born. It's actually just as hard to believe he's 18 as it is that my sister has an 18-year-old kid! Geez, she must be really old, like FORTY.

And speaking of important birthdays, there's one coming up in our house too. Yessiree, Katie will be 5 years old next Wednesday. Her party--this year, classmates only--is Sunday afternoon. She can't stop talking about it. I can't stop stressing about it. It'll be fun, I'm sure, because our parties always are (I hear--I don't attend them all). One of the plans is for the kids to play "Hullabaloo," a kid game from those brainiacs at Cranium. If you haven't played it, you should--it's really fun, kind of a combo of Twister and I don't know what. Just trust me.

My little friend Olivia is doing very well post-transplant. Read Mark and Annalee's journal entries at Olivia's Wish. Warning: Jan. 30 will make you cry.

Well, it seems my blog has finally seen some action! This is quite exciting, though undoubtedly only to me. I liked that "Anonymous" made a worthwhile contribution as she always does, and was not surprised that Martin's entry was mostly just making fun of things I say. If he continues this pattern I might have to make use of that little garbage can icon underneath the comments... but not yet, I'm just so thrilled to know someone is actually checking in to manullang.com!

And Lori, the motherboard episode got me too--that was the turning point, when I went from sorta liking the show to really liking the show.

So now that you kids have checked in, it's only a matter of time until Kathy contributes, isn't it???

My friends Kristine and Michael just crack me right up. I want to share a couple of their recent e-mails with you, my Jenketeers (The Onion reference... I promise, it'll never happen again):

Yummy Chinese Food!

And y'know how your monitor can get so grimy? Here's a little help getting it polished up: Mr. Clean

In the ancient words of the ever-eloquent Taylor Lassen, "No more words."

J.