Outdated Traditions?

Christmas in my house is always interesting. Four years ago, I only had to split myself two ways: Gene's parents, my family (we always have dinner and exchange gifts with my father's entire side of the family...every...year). Now we have to split ourselves three ways: Gene's parents, my mom, my dad & his family. Usually, this wouldn't be a problem, except that Gene loathes my father's side of the family (not my father, just his brothers, his sister, and his nieces and nephews). He has good reason. They do treat him like a pariah... as if he isn't good enough for me. Why? Because Gene is a teacher, and therefore doesn't make any money. They're all white collar and snobby.

Every year before Christmas, we have the big fight. The fight where I want to still hold on to the traditions instilled on me since I was born (christmas with my dad's family) and Gene not going. Which honestly, I'm fine with. I'm fine with him not going. However I've finally realized though that eventually I'm going to have to choose... Gene or the snobby relatives of mine that I'm forced to love. I wouldn't make Gene spend holidays with these people. They don't talk to him at all, and when they do it's very condescending and trivial. And sometimes they don't talk to me either. I actually don't like these people very much... only some of them. I'm slowly starting to see why. All of the relatives that I loved on that side of the family have divorced out of the family... so they no longer come to family functions, obviously. My cousin Linsey I barely recognize anymore... her and I have grown so apart that we barely speak. I'm grown closer to my cousin Gabby than my cousin Linsey, and Gabby is six years younger than me. Gabby, my sister, and myself see the ways of our relatives and don't like them very much. Gabby's twin brother and my brother love those people and want to spend all this time with them. I don't get it.

I don't understand if there's a tradition set in place... why you (read: me) feel obligated to do it, even though it makes you feel like less of a person? These people see each other twice a year: Thanksgiving and Christmas. Rarely do they see each other any other time. And why? So they can have this illusion that they're closeknit. They aren't! And they act all rich and mighty... but they aren't! I don't understand this people anymore... but for some reason, I'm not ready to give them up yet. My mom's family is closeknit... and they live all over the world. We get together only a few times a year as well, but we all know each other's phone numbers, addresses, and email addresses. When I moved, I wanted to give my address to my aunts and uncles on my father's side, but no one had anyone elses email or cell! What the heck is that?

Seriously? SERIOUSLY?

My day kind of sucked today. So I had to redo my big big big awesome interview that I landed for my show a SECOND time because the audio quality was poor. So I go to edit it today, and ran into the same problem. Luckily I had a backup interview, but this one was supercool and I'm super bummed.

So after getting shat on figuratively, I go to the mall to get lunch and to pick up a few more things for Gene. I step out of my car and am about 100 feet from the door when I am LITERALLY shat on. By a stupid seagull. So now I have bird poo all over my nice wool peacoat. It did need to be drycleaned, but I wanted to be able to have another coat on before I took it to the drycleaners. So then I drove around a while trying to find a drycleaner, but now I'm sans coat until Wednesday. Boo. Not to mention I have to ULTA tonight, so I have no coat to wear when I leave the store at 10:30 or so and it's FREEZING OUTSIDE.

Me and today aren't getting along right now.

Poor Puppers.

When I was in high school... I did a lot of theatre. My junior year, I was lucky enough to play the lead. I was Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. With a show like that, you're faced with an interesting dilemma: what do you do with Toto? You need to have a dog that can actually do some acting, and when you're doing high school theatre in a gymnasium (my school was cheap. And Catholic, so we had no money unless it came to the football team) you can't exactly hire a professional acting dog.

Enter Sandra Dee, my director's lhasa apso. Yes, she was white, and no she wasn't a terrier... but she was a trooper. And she was my Toto. I love that dog a whole heck of a lot... and me, and my friend Morgan, trained her dog to do the things that Toto has to do. Like answer to the name Toto, pull the curtain away to reveal the "Great and Wonderful Oz," and run away from the Wicked Witch into the arms of the Scarecrow below after Dorothy is captured by the Flying Monkeys. I worked almost as hard on my own work in the show as I did with Sandy in her transformation for Toto. And no, she wasn't onstage the entire time (that's just mean) but she did what we asked, and she loved all the attention. She still has an identity complex, and whenever I'm over she still only answers to the name Toto. It's kind of funny.

I found out about a week ago that Sandy/Toto has cancer. They found tumors on her mammaries and removed them, and now her doggie oncologist is suggesting chemo. They found another lump that could possibly be a tumor, but might be a fatty deposit, but if she had the chemo, then it would kill it. The dilemma is that she's not a pupper anymore. She's 12. And when she had her surgery, she had a hard time recovering from that. If she gets the chemo, she'll lose all her doggie hair and might get sick. And doggie chemo also ain't cheap. If she doesn't get the chemo, the type of cancer she has happens to be very aggressive, and she may not make it much longer. Selfishness wants my friend and her family to give Sandy the chemotherapy. She would suffer though, and might not understand that they're trying to help her. I really hate how much this is hurting my friend and her family. I'm also not ready to say goodbye to my Toto. She's such a good puppers.

A Surprisingly Uncrazy Black Friday

My black Friday began at 4am. I had to be at work by 5... and not just present at 5, but pretty by 5. Something that is a bit difficult, especially when you have to get dressed in the dark. but I managed. And I managed to get to ULTA by 4:50 (despite it taking 10 minutes to get through the red turning light to get into the mall... not fun). Me and 5 of my co-workers are standing outside the door.. and no one is showing up. At all. This is a bit of a BFD because A. it's Black Friday and we were supposed to open at 5:30. B. Our district manager was coming to the store.

Our district manager (who is lovely, actually) showed up... and there was no opening manager still. We called two of our other managers, and our GM ended up letting us in, after an hour of standing outside. And you best believe I got paid for that hour I was standing outside.

For the most part, it sounded like all of the black friday evil crazies were next door at Best Buy (where they were bouncing people. They actually hired BOUNCERS.) and apparently Long Island and California. I had one person who wanted a BE color match at 6am. And a lot of people yelling at me because we didn't have the smashbox $12.99 blockbuster. We weren't hiding it from you... we couldn't find the damn thing! I'm sorry!

Most of my Christmas shopping is actually almost done. Mom, sister, brother, goddaughter, dad, Colleen, future in laws and most of Gene are done. That leaves my friend Lindsey. And my cousin Linsey, but I'm not spending a lot on her. I always do, and then she always "forgets" my gift. but I feel guilty not getting her anything. She's getting something from Lush, as is my friend Lindsey. Sara & I are going to a Lush party in Philly this weekend.. and we get a goody bag if we spend $55...which let me tell you is so not hard at Lush.

And in un-holiday news... I'm really excited about my next interview for my radio show! (I have a radio show. It runs at 6:30AM on Sundays... no one listens to it. But it's mine! I interview people) I'm interviewing Thomas Kinkade tomorrow afternoon... and I'm very squee about the whole thing. I love his art.

Enough with the crazy!

It isn't even Black Friday yet, and I've already had my fair share of ULTA shopping crazies. Last night, this woman comes in ten minutes before we close demanding a "makeup artist." Well. We don't have any of those on staff, so you get me. Who is trained on all the makeup lines, but I'm not a licensed cosmetologist or esthetician. Whatever. She tells me horror stories about the last time she was in and how this girl told her Bare Escentuals doesn't have a shade for her (which was a lie, but whatever) and how this girl had terrible skin and horrible makeup. I know the girl she was talking about, and she has a serious skin condition that she's been dealing with for years. Now she looks great because she's on acutane. But for a while, she had a really bad acne problem. I didn't appreciate the bash on my friend who has an unfortunate overproduction of sebum (the oil in your skin). But fine. I let it go.

Then she grills me about everything Bare Escentuals does, and demands to know if I wear it, and yells "don't lie." I don't. I tell people I don't because they don't match my skin. Which is true. She tells me that we have the same skin color and she can't wear Bare Escentuals. We don't have the same skin color, she's much more gold than I am. But I humor her. It's now 5 minutes before we close, and I don't do full makeovers when we're closing, but this woman was such a nutjob that I HAD to do one, because she kept yelling at me when I didn't do the other things. I didn't put mineral veil on her and she flipped her lid! Then she grilled this poor girl I was training (IT WAS HER FIRST FREAKING DAY) if she wears Bare Escentuals. Then crazy starts talking about herself in the third person, and my poor trainee was so lost and had no idea what she was talking about.

Now, I'm a good salesperson. I'm a really good salesperson. It also doesn't hurt that I like the products that I sell and that they are very nice. But I didn't want to do my pitch, I just wanted to clean my damn store and be on with it! And THEN this woman finally leaves, and says to me "Oh don't worry... I'm coming back" like it was a threat. Am I supposed to be frightened?

I'm already wishing for Christmas to be over. Is that normal? Between my two jobs... I've started to hate Christmas. I just want everything to go away for a whiel. I'm not looking forward to Black Friday. Luckily, I have off from the radio station... but I have to work at ULTA at 5am. Not happiness.

Edit: I changed "talking about herself in first person" to third person. Because first person makes no sense.

Twilighting and Silver Jewelry (spoilers, fyi)

I finally saw Twilight, so among the bajillion of other book lovers, I'm blogging about my disappointment and things I actually enjoyed about it.

I knew off the bat that the effects were going to be cheesy, so I didn't let it bother me. Instead, Sara and I laughed at them the entire time. It actually made it fun, inappropriately laughing while trying not to get our heads snapped by the 12-yr old vampiras.

Things that did upset me?
* Tyler didn't exist... like at all. He almost kills Bella with the car, and then disappears. I love the Tyler vs. Mike tension! It's hilarious!
* Bella wore her jacket in Port Angeles at the restaurant. I know that's picky, but it upset me.
* Bella also DOESN'T FIND THE BOOK STORE IN PORT ANGELES, DAMNIT.
* Taylor Lautner? He's a white kid. A white kid who went tanning to look Native American.
* Sparkly Edward looked more like Emma Frost in diamond form than I ever really wanted. (oh yeah, i'm an X-Men nerd...ps)
* Jasper... doesn't have his power... and is either really constipated or has a gun held to his back the entire time. And his hair? *almost* as bad as Carlisle's.
* Carlisle's hair... was really funny. He walked on screen, and I burst out laughing.
* It seemed like the director, the actors, everyone involved thought that this movie was a big joke. And then realized after they shot it that it was going to make a lot of money. And they tried to fix it. And they failed.

Things I loved:
* Charlie & Bella's relationship. It was perfect.
* Charlie in general. That actor was perfect.
* Edward & Bella's relationship I thought was spot on, and I thought Robert Pattinson's acting was great, despite reviews that he was "wooden." I didn't think he was wooden at all.
* Angela & Eric. Awesome. Just...awesome.
* Vampire baseball pretty much lived up to my expectations.
* The set-up for the remaining story.

Things I wanted:
* More Alice and more Esme.
* I'm curious to see how they do Breaking Dawn at all... or if they somehow make it so that Breaking Dawn never happens, which would piss off every Twilight fan ever.
* I'm curious how New Moon goes...


The rest of my weekend was fairly uneventful except for the Silpada party I went to. Silpada is like Tupperware, except it's silver jewelry and SUPER PRETTY. And I may or may not have booked my own party... for January... which becklette better come to!

Snow comes up, Charlie Brown. It comes up!

It's snowing. Before Thanksgiving. This I am so not okay with. So far... my day has been a big bowl of poo. I woke up late...and I woke up to about an inch of snow and counting. I go out to my car about 10 minutes earlier than normal, turn on my car to warm it up, and then start dusting the snow off of my car with my broom. After about 10 or so minutes (not sure exactly how long, my cell phone aka my clock is inside the car. with my purse.) I finish sweeping snow off of my car, and I'm all ready to drive off.

Except my car is locked.

Apparently my car (which is new to me as of the summer) automatically locks when you turn it on. Something I was apparently unaware of until this very moment. I actually thought it automatically locked when you put it in gear. Nope. When you turn it on. I start walking to the future mother-in-law's house, which is really not all that far away. She has a spare key to my house, but not to the deadbolt. So I take her car and drive to the school Gene teaches at, get his house keys, drop the van back off at the future mother-in-law's and go on my merry way. THANK GOD the car was still there and nothing was taken. Like my purse. And my cell phone. And my GPS.

As I'm driving to work listening to my morning show (Preston & Steve...they're hilarious), I didn't want to take 95 to work. But because I had to take Gene's keys back to him, taking any other way besides 95 would have been out of the way. So of course, as soon as I get close to 95...there's an accident with injuries. So I get stuck there. Then as soon as I get onto 95, it's jammed. I just can't win! I was almost an hour late for work. Luckily, I haven't had any time to leave for lunch all this week except for yesterday (I've eaten, don't worry, I just haven't left nor stopped working) so I have some time built up that I can still leave at a reasonable hour today.

I really hope today gets better. This morning was just riduculous. At least my car was warm...because my feet were slightly FREEZING from having to be outside in the snow for a while. Maybe I should have worn my boots instead of sneakers that get wet easily...