Magic Jewball

I’d post another menorah shot with additional candles to prove it but trust me, this thing just keeps going. And today, as promised, I’m discussing gifts. I’ve gotten some good ones, including my favorite, cash, with which I’ve gone ahead and purchased the thing you’ve heard me whining about all year, a new laptop. if you’ve been paying close attention, you knew that I recently wasted far too much time vanquishing spyware from my Thinkpad and you have no doubt reached the proper conclusion. Yes, I bought a MacBook. I’d probably be typing from it right now except Steve Jobs was far too efficient and overnighted it, thus ensuring no one would be at home to receive it. My super is SO not getting tipped! Anyway, next post, hopefully.

Now, this wasn’t easy for me as my father worked for IBM and I’ve used Big Blue machines from childhood. I can still do wonders in DOS! But no matter, I’ll learn. I admit I feel a bit traitorous. If you grew up in the golden age of IBM employeehood you’ll know that they had beach and pool clubs, holiday children’s parties, scholarships, and other fun stuff just for the families. But that’s all gone and so is their laptop division. Bring on my Mac! I wanted a cute white one but the Pro’s only come in silver, alas. Ironically, many people go with Apple products just for style whereas I chose one despite the way it looks.

So I don’t have a picture of that yet, but I do have a picture of this nifty present my sister’s family gave me, as chosen by my 12 year old niece who saw it and immediately thought of me. Who wouldn’t?

Yep, it’s the Homer Simpson Chia pet! I’m not even going to grow this thing, I’m keeping it in its box and displaying it proudly in my office. I always wondered who bought these things and now I know: people looking for gag gifts. Sold!

Oh, who am I kidding? I’m sure I couldn’t even grow a Chia head. I suck.

Speaking of people sucking, that reminds me of one of the best holiday gifts I’ve ever received. This one was from my former co-worker, Larry, who knew me nearly as well as my niece does, and got me a laser pointer with the following cheery message:

As you can imagine, I find plenty of uses for it. Anyway, here’s to everyone getting thoughtful or large-billed presents!

Despite the fact that there are no good Hannukah songs (sorry, there just aren’t), this song did pop up on my iPod this week (shut up, yes it is on my iPod). For my favorite Christmas song you’ll have to see the iPod song of the week.

Styx – Lights

That is, I’m actually posting.

Happy Hannukah! If you have been in my apartment you may recognize this as my actual window sill, especially the tell-tale junk on my table as reflected in the window. If you’re good at counting you will notice this is from the third night of the holiday, last night.

I did promise to talk about Hannukah in the scheme of the “holiday season” we have here in these United States and, despite a delay in order to actually have a life, I’m here to fulfill my promise. As you can see, this menorah is in my window (despite the fact that my window faces an attractive alley where precisely no one can see it). The reason I display it for the pigeons is that we are instructed to “advertise the miracle” that happened to us resulting in this holiday. Since we can’t all afford infomercials, we just stick the menorah in the window to do the job.

Incidentally, the most important miracle is not, as Sue Simmons said on Live at Five, that after the desecration of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Greeks, oil that looked like it should only last one day kept the menorah lit for eight (although that was pretty ripping!) but rather, that a tiny band of Jews were able to defeat said Greeks and assimilated Jews and rededicate the Temple. This is where the title of the post comes from and the abbreviation of it is on the four sides of the dreidel (in Israel: A Great Miracle Happened Here, outside: A Great Miracle Happened There).

But that’s about as decorative as Hannukah gets. As a matter of fact, no Jewish holiday is really about sticking big blow-up dolls on your lawn or festooning your home in wreaths. Not to mention, as much as I like it and as great as the miracle was, Hannukah is one of the less important Jewish holidays, mostly because it’s not from Biblical times and, like Purim, happened later. This is all to say, why all the arguments about putting menorahs and dreidels up wherever there’s a tree?

It’s simple to me, really. I don’t really take it as a “catch the Hannukah spirit!” kind of thing, but rather as a sort of shout-out. “Hey! We know it’s not just us Christians and other random Christmas-celebrators out here!” I like to see that. It makes me feel not so left out by all the trees and wreaths and reds and greens. I look at each menorah as if it’s saying, “we at Carmine’s see you, Becca!”

Of course, I didn’t really need to see the menorah at Carmine’s because I was there to have our department’s holiday dinner and do I really need to see a symbol of my religious faith while we all get utterly bombed and the conversation devolves (led by my boss, naturally) into “who in the company would you want to do most?” Luckily, the menorah at Carmine’s was tiny and tucked into a corner.

But I digress. No discussion of Hannukah would be complete without me telling you that you can spell it any way you want to. Unless you’re writing it in Hebrew there’s no correct or incorrect spelling. As you can see, I like this one.

Next post: a picture of an actual Hannukah present I received, as chosen by my 11 year old niece. She knows me pretty well. This teaser is really for my own use as without it, in my current world of crazy-busy, I’d never post again.

Oh, and should you have stayed up at night wondering what baked good I made my co-workers, it was mini-bundt Nutella swirl pound cakes. Hell yeah. Should you also be wondering which person at my company I most wanted to do, that’s between me, my department, and the pathetic little menorah in the corner.

The Chameleons – Miracles And Wonders

Would it be too Seinfeldian if I started a post by saying, “OK, see, this is what I don’t understand?” Too late, I guess. Anyway, you may have noticed that we are in the midst of the gift-giving season, aka, the holidays. Most of these holidays are Christian, but that’s a post for some other day. That day being later this week.

But what confuses me is the whole office gift-giving thing. It’s fraught, I tell you, fraught! I am in the middle of the totem in my department. There are a couple of people above me, a couple of people below me, a couple of people at my level. What exactly do you do for these people? I should also share that the adults in my life and myself have sort of stopped exchanging so these are actually the only gifts I will give that aren’t toys or American Girl gift cards.

It used to be that the head of the department gave gifts to the staff and that was it. That worked for me. I mean, you work hard all year, here’s your tangible thank you. But somehow it has evolved into everyone gives everyone and then you have to start thinking, “is this really a gift when the amount I spent is commensurate with your position in the company?” Or perhaps, “why am I spending all this money on your gift when you make four times my salary?”

But I would like to share how I solved this problem, dear readers. It was tough, but I arrived at a fair & tasty solution. Yes, I now just bake for everyone. I go to the Container Store or sometimes Target and buy fancy packaging (I should really just buy them all iPods with what that costs me, really) and make sure it all looks just spectacular. And I don’t just bake cookies, either. I make something really difficult like rugelach (my advice to bakers: don’t make rugelach) or something really pretty like mini-cakes. Here’s the important thing to remember. You can’t put a price on effort! Well, you can, and bakeries do it all the time. But no one I work with will ever be able to say, “man, she only spent $5 on ingredients and $7 on this tin and ribbons.” Because I spent my whole Sunday baking, people. And that’s just priceless. Of course, I make my boss’ cake the tastiest. Shhh. I like to think the extra ingredient is brown-nosing.

Ministry – Work For Love

Enough with brooding songs full of meaning. Although this song feels a bit dark, it’s really a power-pop confection that makes me feel swoony. I don’t really have a lot to say about it except it fulfills all my catchiness requirements, doesn’t seem to mean anything important, and it’s, uh, good. How verbose of me.

The Posies – Dream All Day

Did you laugh when you read that? Because I was snortling a little when I wrote it. Wait, let me get that out, ahahahahahahaha! In case you hadn’t heard, the Grammy nominations were announced yesterday and they’re as stellar as usual. You can see them all at grammy.com but take it from me, any place that recognizes the Red Hot Chili Peppers, James Blunt, and John Mayer as having the best songs and albums of the year, is a nest of crack users.

How does this happen, you ask. Well, first of all, you have to submit a whole bunch of copies of the CD to nominate it, which means pretty much only the labels do. Then they figure out who they think has the best bet and focus on that artist, thus ensuring that the rest of their artists get stiffed. Then, the people voting don’t actually get copies of the CD’s they’re voting on, so they mostly just choose the ones they’ve heard of or heard good things about. This is how dead people win all the awards, by the way. “Wow, I’ve heard of that dead guy! Poor dead guy.”

There used to be subterfuges where label people were able to vote in blocks for Grammys. See, you need to have 6 credits on a released work to vote and…well, I’d explain how it was done but I’d get fired. Needless to say, it took NARAS several years to figure it out. I would just like to declare that I always voted my conscience! Mostly.

But it’s OK, they only broadcast like 3 awards on the actual show, anyway (and there are over 100!) and no one actually watches that show. But they’ll still call it my industry’s greatest night even though there are now Latin Grammys, CMA’s, Billboard Awards, VMA’s etc.

I’m betting Corinne Bailey Rae will be this year’s India.Arie, that is, the artist about whom everyone says, “wow! they actually are recognizing real talent over there at the Grammys!” and who then wins none. But maybe not. I’ve been wrong before. Just, please God, don’t let James Blunt walk away with five awards, I couldn’t stand it. I think I’d even prefer Carrie Underwood or, God forbid, the Pussycat Dolls. Mmm hmm, music’s greatest night.

Starland Vocal Band – Afternoon Delight