Our nautical Christmas 2012

My tugboat man brought back some treasures and cool marlinspike seamanship projects he worked on while he abandoned me was away for two months.

What do you think of the captain’s welcome home signs?

whatever

This picture frame is huge–2 ft. x 3ft.

Marlinspike seamanship picture frame

This is a close-up view of his masterful work.

close up frame

My mariner found a float in the harbor and crafted a delicate netting in black.

netball

And then we worked together to make it into a lamp! The base is a piece of driftwood. The captain’s making some fancy knotwork to embellish the shade.

lamp

Princess Rosebud was spoiled with a necklace from a craft fair somewhere near where Santa lives.

Sparkly!

Sparkly! Shiny!

 He fashioned a pretty little handmade tray with copper tubing sides and handles and filled it with shells and driftwood!

tray

We had welcome home festive cocktails of cranberry juice and vodka with a fresh cranberry in our antique champagne glasses.

cranberrycocktail

And yummy ginger cookies…

gingercookies

Our Downton Abbey-inspired dinner table.

xmasdinnerHis mess, which has since been cleaned up!

suitcases

Now he has a new project–when he’s not surfing– refinishing a rowboat and making it seaworthy.

rowboat

Such is the life of a tugboat captain’s wife! I’m a happy girl, that’s for sure!

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Happy Everything, Everyone!

Aside

I’m going to spend the next couple of days reading and commenting on a crapload of posts piled up in the old inbox–oh yeah, and enjoying the homecoming of my very own tugboat man! Merry Christmas to all and I hope you all get the presents you asked Santa for! Hugs and kisses from SoCal
xoxo

The little sign says Princess Rosebud but it doesn't show up very good

The little sign says Princess Rosebud but it doesn’t show up very good

NIne more days ’til Christmas

Relax, have a cup of ginger tea or something stronger, and remember…

stressed is dessert spelled backwards

UK SPK™- Part Two

Since my son met and married a girl from London, his language has become peppered with UK SPK™, which I define as words and phrases he’s appropriated from his wife, her family, and friends. Because I like to be as trendy and hip as he is, if only to annoy him, I have incorporated quite a few into my daily life.

When everyone was here for Thanksgiving, my DIL (daughter-in-law) and her sister left behind quite a few gems to share.

I really love this one. You need to use rinse if you listen to a song over and over again. “I love Christina Perri‘s song, ‘Jar of Hearts‘ and I’ve been rinsing it.” Or…to use something a lot; “I’ve given my credit card a rinse this holiday season.” …or to play Candyland with your kids until it wears out, or to read the same bedtime book over and over.

Spunk is a very interesting word. For us who speak American English, it means courage or spirit or full of energy, as in  ”She’s full of spunk” or “She’s a spunky girl. However,  for Brits–spunk takes on a WHOLE different meaning!  it’s a slang term for semen. Imagine the shock on DIL’s face when a man at a business meeting told her she had a lot of spunk and she thought he was sexually harassing her!

Cheers–not as a prelude to lifting a glass or a toast, but as a way to say thank you. It’s spoken in monotone with no inflection. Let’s say someone passed you a bowl of mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving. You would say “cheers”. It’s low-key.

To DIL and her sister, swish means cool–to us, swish is a disparaging term for a gay man and denotes an effeminate personality.

Reem = sexy, great, fantastic. Be reem, see reem, look reem. “Johnny Depp is so reem!”

Error or to drop an error, which means to make a mistake. “I dropped an error and left something in the car”.  The family is sitting around the dinner table and somebody makes a mistake in etiquette and one would say, “Error” and then everyone laughs.

To cotch is to relax, chill, take a rest. Describing something as a cotch means it was relaxed and chilled out. A really great cotch is cotchtastic.

Amazeballs is the same on both sides of the pond. Amazing, obvs.

The last and best one comes with its own hand gesture.

cringe

This is an example. This is how you do it!

The word is cringe–but it’s not pronounced the same way –/krinj/–as if we meant to bend one’s head and body in a servile manner.

This is how to pronounce it the  UK SPK™  way.

/kr-AWW-nJ/ drawing out the w and j sound. This is the perfect word to use when someone says something really unfunny and then everything goes silent, or when someone goes on and on about something which is really boring, or when someone makes an unwanted comment.

“OMG, gurrrl, I can’t believe that Phoebe got wasted and fell down the stairs naked in front of her brother-in-law. That was cringe. Totally cringe.”

What makes cringe totes amazeballs is that, to be accurate, it needs to be accompanied by a hand gesture that is very similar to the Wendy Williams‘s “how you doin”, but with one hand.

So to review, when you find yourself in a perfect situation to use cringe, you’d lift your right hand, (or the hand that’s not holding a vodka marty), and make that WW or “claw” gesture. Got it? Practice makes perfect!

(Check out UK SPK™ Part One)

When DIL/sister were here, we all rinsed “Jar of Hearts”.

Daily Prompt-Time Capsule

I don’t know what just happened with my previous publish. Maybe the Elf on a Shelf has infiltrated the offices or computers at WordPress, but it all went haywire, deleted 90% of my Time Capsule post and then re-posted a re-blogged post. Drinks all around! Sorry for the annoyance. Hopefully, this goes right…

The year is drawing to a close. What would you put in a 2012 “Time capsule”?

In 1990, when my son was in elementary school, they created a time capsule and included items like mini-skateboards, sand, Vans shoes, Airheads, Nerds ,Pop Rocks, and a surfing video, “Gleaming the Cube“. The list of favorite songs (girls) included “Hold On” by Wilson Phillips and Madonna’s “Vogue”. The boys liked Bon Jovi and Guns and Roses. His favorite (and most annoying) saying was “talk to the hand”.

If I wanted to communicate with the future (assuming there is one), I don’t have a clue what to pack away. I’m embarrassed by our callous disregard for the environment, our children, and animals.  I don’t think that a box of things conveys my personal message to those who inherit the earth, (except of course for the assortment of my favorite seashells.)

My time capsule would be more of a plea or a wish list.

1. By this time, I hope you’ve learned to honor and respect animals.

2. I hope with all my heart that you never abuse or mistreat any living creature.

3. I hope you don’t EAT animals anymore, and that you’ve created another nutritious food  source that isn’t based on death.

4. I hope you’ve figured out how to feed and house starving people everywhere.

5. Please look at the news for 2012 and realize that child abuse must be abolished.

6. I wish for every child to know a life of love and nurturing.

7. Take a look at this photo of the Arctic and vow to become global stewards and protect the world, not destroy it.

8. Read a lot of history books. Read the classics. Read a lot. Learn. Think. Care.

9. See the video I’ve included of injured and broken men and women in uniform?

10. Please end war.

All I want for Christmas is you…and a credit card with a high limit.

While I’m hard at work on a new post–or maybe it’s a chapter of my book...please enjoy the musical interlude.

 

It’s a dedication–of sorts–to the physical representation of the disembodied voice of my tugboat man. And while the lyrics might say, “all I want for Christmas is you” and that IS true in an existential way, it’s not the only thing I want for Christmas/Hannukah. Yes, I did get my Chanel Grand Shopper Tote, I mean, I could hardly represent my hood without it. Yo. But now I need the matching wallet. And although the GST is a roomy, serviceable day bag, I still very much need the 2.55 with the gold chain for all of my sparkling evening events. Which right now is zero, but once Tina Fey realizes that I am going to be her most prolific, witty, banter filled writing and producing partner, then I’ll be showing up at all the MAJOR parties. Maybe, just maybe, if I’m very, very good, I’ll be able to negotiate with my tugboat miser man and work out a mutually satisfactory deal, if ya know where I’m going with that. Wink. Wink.

P.S. And if you’re thinking to yourself…well, try this…imagine me imagining you with a thought bubble, “Is she really this shallow?” and maybe you’re getting a bad taste in your mouth about this whole “enchanted” person and her apparent obsession with Chanel and shopping, what if I was just a really good writer–but I’m a seventy-year-old MAN–or what if I was really the mariner, and I’m the one on a tugboat, and I have a scruffy blondish/silvery beard and all the boy parts and this is my secret persona–WHAT THEN, huh? Paradigm shift? Could be, ya never know…

Daily Prompt: In Loving Memory and The Last Word

OK, it’s  kinda creepy to write my own obit but I used to write copy at a local TV station and one of my jobs was to call the county and troll the newspapers (way before the internet) to learn  if anybody “important” had died and write the obit so this is not a new concept to me. It’s also a device therapists use to prove some kind of point in couples therapy–I’m not sure what exactly, as I’ve never been to therapy, although many have suggested it! And I do mean many.

Princess Rosebud of Enchanted Seashells is dead. Her stupid ass tugboat captain husband went out to sea and never came home. She was polishing her ten-carat diamond purchased with the insurance money, took a good look at it under the loupe to make sure there wasn’t any dirt in the crevices, tripped over one of her many cats; the diamond flew into the air, her mouth opened to scream, good old gravity caused the trajectory of the diamond to end up in her open mouth, and she choked on it and died.  When her son finally called the police to make a welfare check, the body was unrecognizable because the   eight cats and six dogs had been VERY hungry. The good news is that the swallowed diamond was left intact and looked none the worse for wear.

A lost opportunity, a huge regret, a haunting feeling

During one of my healing retail therapy sessions in the shoe aisle at Nordstrom, an older (and by older, I mean WAY older than me, like late sixties) well groomed beautifully dressed lady was sitting nearby trying on a pair of boots. She had a scarf around her neck that you could tell simply by looking that it was woven of the highest quality cashmere. She had a lovely air of grace and elegance. I think it was that regal essence that reminded me of my mom. She owned that quality too, always dressed head to toe with class.  The woman looked so together that I couldn’t keep from sneaking glances at her while I too tried on boots. I’d been looking for a pair of flat riding boots that fit snugly but weren’t too high, which is a tall order. (ha ha). I’ve never been accused of dressing elegantly. Sexy, flamboyant, stylish, wild even–but never Lilly Van der Woodsen Upper East Side elegant. Lilly van der woodsenHere’s an example of me getting dressed… If one pearl necklace is good, a dozen is better! A ring for every finger, well, why not? We have ten of them, isn’t that what they’re for? And aren’t our arms just begging to be filled with every bangle and charm bracelet in the jewelry box?

My mom would shake her head and say, “Princess Rosebud, haven’t you heard the old saying, less is more?” My response to her was, “Haven’t YOU heard of my saying, more is better?”

So I’m sitting there and this lovely woman is sitting there and she turns to me and says softly, matter-of-factly,

“My husband died last week.”

What do you do when a stranger opens up that way? What do you do? I said,

“I am so very sorry for your loss.”

She continued,

“We had been married for fifty years. I don’t know what to do with myself so I shop all day. I can’t bear to be home alone without him.”

If anyone could empathize with that philosophy, it would be me. Not that I’ve lost my life partner, but when my darling thirteen-year-old kitty died, I felt the same way. I left the house early in the morning and stayed away ’til dark, wandering around the shopping centers like a lost soul. I couldn’t bear to open the front door and know that I’d never again see her face at the top of the stairs greeting me. I couldn’t bear to sleep in our bed and never again feel her jump up and scratch at the covers to join me, nestled against my body, so I slept on the sofa until the captain came back. What made it even more difficult to bear was that it happened while he was out to sea, and I was the one who was unanchored, aimlessly drifting. I totes understood the poor lady’s pain.

“He made every day worth living.”

I asked her if she had family in the area to help her with her sadness, and she shook her head. It was on the tip of my tongue to invite her to join me for a cup of coffee when when my cell rang. It was my son. He needed me to run to the post office before it closed and send him a book he had accidentally left behind the previous week.

As I walked away, I touched her gently on the shoulder and told her once again how sorry I was for her loss and I hoped she’d be all right.

I really, really regret not getting her name and telephone number so that we could meet at a coffee shop or simply make sure she’s OK. I have a feeling she might not be. I do have that feeling. I’ve never seen her again.

For the most part, women are a truly and deeply caring and nurturing community. I dropped the ball that day and it haunts me.  It haunts me.

Hairy Hannukah Harry and the story of Hannukah 2012

…or the continuing saga of my life. As my first husband’s mother said to my mom, “isn’t it such a shame you wasted so much money on her education. She doesn’t really seem to do much of anything, does she?”

Looky here, readers, you all need to stop whining right now. Right now, I say!

I’ve peeked inside your private lives. Here’s a typical scenario:

8:00 a.m. You’re home with your spouse before leaving the house to go to work or he goes to work while you “stay home to take care of the kids” which really means you’re going to Tweet and shop all day and change a diaper or two, only if necessary. Not all of you, but enough to make it true. And I know it’s true ‘cos who do you think I tweet with all day?

Spouse: “I’ll home home at six. See ya.”

{Smooch goodbye}

crzy cat lady bathrobe

This is awesome.

Wife pulls the ratty bathrobe a bit tighter and rebelts it because an important message is acoming…

“Now you come right home after work, don’t stop anywhere; no bars, no strip clubs, nothin’. You come right home, ya hear me?  I’m making something special for dinner tonight.”

Spouse: “OK”

He walks out to the car. Five seconds after leaving the house, before the car even backs out of the driveway, he totally forgot everything his wife said. Typical, right?

6:00 p.m.- no hubby

6:15 p.m – no hubby

6:30 p.m. Here it comes…the power texting, phoning, emailing commences.

{no response}

burned dinner in oven7:00 p.m. Dinner burns. wife drank all the wine, spends time sharpening knives. Candles burnt down to nubs, the smoke of one burnt out candle with its acrid scent floats through the air.

The scissors come out to make a few strategic alterations in his favorite t-shirt.

She opens another bottle of wine.

8:00 p.m. His car drives up, front door opens, “Hi honey, I’m home!”

“WHERE. WERE. YOU.”

‘Wha? Why is it so dark in here?”

Where. were. you. I called. I emailed. I texted.”

“Ohhh…didn’t I mention I’d be late today? I -uh- thought I did.”

-End scene-desperate housewives

OK, I could go on and on but the point is that when 99% of you get mad at your significant others when they’re late; when work or whatever–delays their arrival at the appointed hour–you all need to STOP WHINGING AND WHINING about it!!

Since the world revolves around me, take a walk around South Coast Plaza in my shoes (not the Gucci ones, tho. I wear a 5 1/2 and your feet’d stretch ‘em all out.) I was expecting the captain tomorrow, Thursday. I cleaned the house, washed the windows, planned and anticipated the whole homecoming–even made a new welcome home sign–and he called and said he’d be LATE.

HE’S GOING TO BE A MONTH AND A HALF LATE!

HE WON’T BE BACK UNTIL SOMETIME NEXT JANUARY 201THREE!!

I’m not saying not to be pissed at your inconsiderate spouse–I would never think to deprive you of that joy–just think about ME next time.

OKAY?

Your “late” and my “late” are two different things altogether.

Ahem. Now, to give equal time to my cultural background as a full blooded Jewish American Princess, may I formally present to you my Hannukah installation….with the one and only Hairy Hannukah Harry holding the torah. Eight candles represent the eight days that I had to wait before I could spend more of the captain’s hard earned money and buy a huge bottle of Chance by Coco Chanel (of course.)

Hannukah candles

Forget Elf Shaming, try Hannukah Harry!

Chance by Chanel

Of course I got the larger size. ‘Cos I’m worth it.

Best Christmas Decorations EVER-Haters, line up! Yoo hoo, Pinterest, I’m calling you!

I was inspired by other topnotch decorators who so kindly blogged about their DIY Christmas tree masterpieces. In fact, I was so inspired and so thrilled to be stuck here all alone for the millionth time during the holidays that I created a masterpiece of my own, just for you, my loving internet family. So, Cousin Fur and Aunt Cheeky and Second Cousin Far Removed Tracy F for Fantastic, this one’s especially for you guys. As I looked around my house, the elliptical seemed like it had the best “bones” to adorn. Plus, it had a ready-made beverage holder! I didn’t have any Maxi-pads or other feminine hygiene products–’cos THAT ship has sailed–if you know what I mean. {Hey cool, a nautical reference jauntily tossed in. Damn, I’m good!} I added a toilet paper garland, a couple of Sophie Kinsella novels, two glittery seashell ornaments, a bottle of wine in the beverage holder, a white plastic poinsettia, a few EMPTY gift bags, and a festive plush Hello Kitty toy. You can’t really see it very good, but there’s a chocolate bar too, which I luckily don’t have to share with anyone! I’m such a lucky girl! This is the best use I’ve found for the elliptical. Hanging freshly ironed shirts on it is a close second.

Carry on with your day; just take a moment to let it all sink in. Don’t HATE…Emulate.

Decorated for Christmas elliptical decorated elliptical