As you know, Pope Francis is TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year. I’m pleased to report that I voted for him last week when I heard that Miley Cyrus was winning. (Not that Miley doesn’t deserve to win. I talked about her more this past year than I talked about, say, Henry Winkler or Joey Fatone. BUT, that doesn’t mean she’s worthy of a magazine cover beyond maybe Cosmopolitan or Why Won’t People Just Let Her Do Her (Admittedly, Sometimes Strange) Thing?) Anyway, I always feel a bit of a thrill when the person I voted for wins.
The Only Time I Didn’t Feel So Good About Voting for The Winner: When I was in the fifth grade, we had a weird family fun night event during which every classroom voted for a girl and a boy to represent them at the King and Queen ceremony. (Welcome to 1980. I still have no idea what was happening.) Anyway, I somehow ended up winning my classroom queen rep position, and when all of the fifth graders then voted for their overall queen rep, I once again won. I did NOT vote for myself for the classroom queen position, but I *did* vote for myself during the fifth grade overall queen gig. (I was really itching to wear a long dress. You know how it goes.) Anyway, even though it was a secret ballot, my teacher figured out that I voted for myself, and she announced the fact to the class more than once. 33 years have passed, and I still feel weird.
Here’s something that everyone needs to know. If I’m unable to use Oreos as a fallback option, I’m unable to participate in your bake sale or cookie drive or pot luck or whatever it is that you’re doing. There is a good chance that I will want to jump in and bake something amazing, but knowing that I can’t cover up any potential catastrophes with Oreos counts me out. This will never not be true.
Here’s something else that you need to know: I’m cranky. Like, SUPER much so. I like working from a list and right now I’m slammed with things that are spontaneous and not on the list. I know everyone is going through this and everyone is super busy. I do! I wish I handled it better, because when I’m feeling ruffled it feels like I can’t really accomplish anything correctly. (I send lots of e-mails with attachments that aren’t attached. I underbake cookies and then have to throw them away. I take weird opportunities to raise my voice about classroom parties and silly things that Really Don’t Matter and I make myself look and feel like a jerk. I schedule a trip to pick up an ornament immediately after I drop my kids off at school, and then I discover that the store doesn’t open for another hour and I’ve already been driving for thirty minutes, so damnit. All of this happened today along with some freelance, some dog drama, and a fork that is wedged in a weird place and it’s Harper’s favorite fork and I’m already regretting starting this sentence and so are you. The good thing about today? A friend I hadn’t seen in several months met me for lunch at an Indian place and we were able to catch up. Always Good: Friends and Indian Food.)
I have milk boiling on the stove for pies. We have an orchestra concert in 90 minutes. Tomorrow is a half day at school, and then we have a piano recital, and Henry will be groomed on Saturday morning right before a three hour Christmas pageant rehearsal at church.
On Sunday, I get to stand in front of the congregation and say, “I’m naked.” (Maybe someday I’ll tell you about the time I may have lost a job by muttering those exact words.)
Last year I volunteered to read the verse about not being a virgin.
It’s always good to test yourself. ‘ ‘ ‘text/javascript’>
So, all I can come up with is “what kind of pie?”
I totally get you. I was home today with a sick child & the school calls to say that they’re closing tomorrow because of confirmed cases of influenza A.
Last night was a bizarre allergic skin reaction on the dog with midnight visit to the doggie ER, steroids, benadryl and a 2AM bath for the dog.
I’ll meet you halfway on 270. Bring the pie.
I don’t know where to start, so I want you to know that I will not be upset if you are not able to get to the snickerdoodles in time. I’ve been wainting for a year and I am a very patient person and it will not deminish my love for you. Other than that I think I will leave your last to subjects to more adventurous others. Oh yeah, was it American Indian or India indian.
Peace and love. Me.
As long as you have clothes on when you SAY you’re naked, seems ok.
And it’s nice that you mean to bake something, but I’d take oreos any day. And over many people’s homemade offerings.
Wait I have the opposite story re. 5th grade voting: I did NOT vote for myself for class president, and I ended up tied with a pompous ass who carried out none of his duties and left me doing all the work.
My parents told me to always vote for myself. Said they: if you don’t think you are a good candidate why are you running? And also “if a politician lost a race because he didn’t vote for himself- what kind of an idiot would he be?” I had Indian for lunch too-at an Indian takeout called Curry in a Hurry- ha!
I’m definitely not naked, but I do have Oreo residue in my mouth (and a bit on the keyboard, I’m afraid) at this very moment. Planning to dip whatever I don’t eat between now and tomorrow in a half-cookie’s-worth of white chocolate and then some edible glitter stuff. Presto! Fancy Oreos :-)
Also, always vote for yourself! In college I thought it would be rude to vote for myself for a particular office. I lost by one vote.
Probably better off without the extra extra-curricular work load anyway, but still.
I.wish we were in the same town and I could call you and say “Do you want to go for a walk?” And then I would share the stories that relate to your stories and we would both feel better. And that’s the magic of the internet, making me feel less crazy since 2000. All of this to say, thanks for a lovely post. I just threw out a dozen cookies I made (and burnt) for the middle school teachers — it was the last of the 4 dozen I committed to donating. So I had to one up with something else I could make two dozen of right quick, because it would feel odd to me to have two dozen of one kind of cookie, and then another odd dozen and another is dozen. And I started this all late because it was the younger child’s music program at school where I stayed late to help cleanup, and got trapped in an episode of “The New Adventures of Old Christine” where I was Christine, albeit a happily married one. And I had pre-made the cookie dough balls and froze them I I wouldn’t be up late baking! Argh. Perhaps I need to go vote for the pope, because these are first world problems fo’ sho’.
I hear you. I broke out the brandy this week. That’s, like, DEFCON level 5 in these parts.
There is a bake sale tomorrow that I feel guilty for not volunteering to bring something, but I have sworn off gluten and what baked thing does NOT include gluten? and homemade candy is way too hard. I wonder if Oreos would work…
Had I voted, I would have voted for Pope Francis, too. I was happy to see he won. I hate when they choose someone awful and then try to explain that it means for Good OR Bad — nobody buys that.
You should always vote for yourself — because you believe you are best. That teacher was a fool.
My daughter was lamenting recently how the women where she works try to make the non-bakers like herself feel bad when they purchase items instead of whipping them up by hand. I’ll tell you what I told her: Those women are horrible. I’ll guarantee that they cut corners in other ways and expect no one to ever know. The idea that people would stoop to trying to shame someone else into getting with the program when it’s not their program is awful. Happy Holidays, indeed.
I’m sure your declaration of being naked is going to be something not as funny as it sounds.
I am, however, really worried about that fork.
I voted for the pope also:)
Pope Francis even made it as The Advocate’s person of the year. The Advocate is probably the number one GLBT news-magazine in the country. I *really, really* hope he is changing the minds of many Catholics worldwide, although that would add to the idea that Catholics actually worship the pope and not God, but that’s a whole different discussion for another time. So, any way, YAY for Pope Francis!!