piecey at best

Soup weather is finally here! I'm enjoying a tub of Maryland Crab Chowder as I type. It's most decadent and delicious. I like my soup with lots of saltines.

Lots.

Like one sleeve per bowl lots. Broth is so damned wet, I need to thicken it up somehow. Eating runny foods really grosses me out. Especially runny eggs. Sometime when we are one on one I'll tell you what undercooked eggs reminds me of.

Exactly.

Great. Now I can't get "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" out of my head.

I like these days where the sun is warm but the air is cold. It makes me smile, and it makes me sing.

Out loud, on the sidewalk, right in public. Usually something seasonal and standard, like Baby It's Cold Outside or Winter Wonderland or It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas.

Luckily I live in Philadelphia where the sidewalks aren't all that crazybusy so no one really notices except for a few old men who see my joviality as an open invitation to smile.

Not that anyone really notices you in this town anyway.

Old men really like me.

Must be because I'm so classic.

I stopped in for happy hour a few weeks ago with a friend, who suggested that all crazy people be supplied with a valise and a Bluetooth so they look like business people instead of lunatics.

I hate Bluetooths and the people who refuse to take them off when they aren't using them. Why would anyone want to look like they have a hearing problem circa 1973?

Jake loves the Christmas tree.

For the past two nights he has asked if we can lie down together on the couch and look at the beautiful tree. I know it's just a ploy to stay downstairs past bedtime but I can't say no.

The decorations are red and silver this year.

Did I ever tell you that I have my grandmother's ornaments? They are about 60 years old, give or take. They just might be my prize possession. They aren't in mint condition, but I don't intend to be perfect by the time I'm that old either.

I feel perfectly crappy lately. I've been on a huge eatfest ever since I saw a bathing suit picture of myself from last summer and decided that it was high time to put some pounds back on. Unfortunately, the pounds didn't come back but I gained a good amount of pudge. Totally not my intention.

I'm rolling out of my pants and my top gut touches my bottom gut when I sit down and my butt is inching southward. I'm aiming to get to the gym every weekday this month. Or devote an hour to exercise. Shouldn't be to hard with Comcast exercise On Demand and workout videos on You Tube and maybe a Christmas miracle will happen and I'll get that Wii Fit I've been pining for.

I'm making cookies on Sunday when the boys are out watching football. Drop by if you want to help. By help I mean watch. I hate when people "help" in the kitchen but I love when people keep me company. I'll let you lick the spoon since I'm so healthy now.

Thanksgiving was good, btw. I miss my own family's cooking anytime I am away. You know I'm not in love with the food in Philadelphia. It is mainly because everything tastes like garlic bread. Or processed pig. I like my Thanksgiving food to be full of parsleysagerosemaryandthyme. And butter. And moisture. And potatoes. Basil and oregano and non-brined foods have no place in November where I come from. Sigh. Maybe next year I'll cook. Maybe I'll make the paper again.

I feel that I have to make a note that although I didn't like Thanksgiving dinner too much, the aunt that made it is a fantastic cook every other day, and one of the only two good cooks out of all my millions of inlaws. I don't know how they all get to be overweight when the food is only subpar. We stopped at the other good cook's house earlier in the day but didn't stay for dinner. Dammit. Her Thanksgiving rocks.

Neither one of those aunt's reads this, btw. I guess I'll have to call them and tell them that they win.

Jake had fun on vacation. He made a snowman and snowangels for the first time in his life. I wasn't there, but my dad was and that's kind of neat. Both Jake and I got to do some firsts with my dad, 30 years apart. I like when life cycles around on itself like that.

He also went swimming and got to go to a huge indoor water park.

He saw Santa, but didn't really get it. He is still asking me why he "had to sit on that guy'. We told him about Santa, but never really showed him Santa.

I guess he saw a picture of Jesus. I guess like a burly old Jesus, not the nice handsome young teen Jesus like the one that sits above the lightswitch at Kat Kat's house or the contorted bloody one that they show on the Spanish channel (!Sabado Gigante y Jesus Sangriento Espantoso y Muchas Chichis, todo en un lugar!) . Now he thinks the Geico Caveman is Jesus, but we don't let him say Jesus because Jake says it as a curse when he is mad and not in holy blessed adoration so now when he sees the Caveman he says "there's that guy with the bad word for a name".

I'm such a good mom.

You should bring your kids over and let them hang out with my kid.