1998 december 23

most adored

my mother is delusional and my boyfriend has questionable taste.

yesterday afternoon when i got home from work, he was watching the roseanne show, of all things. it was almost over and what was i subjected to in the last five minutes? sandra bernhard singing, nay shrieking, i am woman. hear her roar! i came home from the office today to hear him humming it, incessantly. it was a pretty traumatic event, he may be suffering from post sandra singing disorder.

somehow, i have attained the rank of most adored at the office. this manifests itself in odd but endearing ways, my personal favorite being the vice president of client services giving me all the prizes out of the crackerjacks he is constantly eating. it also means i don't get in one whit of trouble when i screw around the week before christmas, but in truth, no one else is really working either. but i have to admit, the very best part of being most adored is when we get food gifts from various clients and sales people and reps, i get first dibs. it means i turn down a lot of summer sausage and cheese logs, but it also means i get first shot at the boxes of chocolate. and this year people are splurging; we're talking godiva, not russell stover.

i am now commencing a scientific study to see if it is indeed possible to survive on expensive chocolates and eggnog alone for an entire week [don't try this with hershey's]. so far, so good. chocolate has to be a food group what with all the cream and nuts and dried fruit, don't you think?

all i want for christmas is a digital camera. and the patience to finally learn how to use photoshop properly. the instant camera just doesn't do justice to the ornaments i want to show off. the bear, mecki, and the glitter pig i have had since i was about three years old; the two bells were a gift from my grandmother. they were the first ornaments she bought after the war. most everything else was destroyed by bombs and looting, the only thing that survived was a terra cotta nativity scene that i also inherited but usually leave packed carefully in a box. i am so afraid i will inadvertently knock one of the cows or wisemen off the mantle or the table that they never see the light of day. i need to get over that. better still, i need to get a proper china/display cabinet so i can actually put out some of the beautiful but fragile things i have accumulated over the years.

and the black and white picture? that is my very first tree, decorated, according to my mother, with matchboxes covered in aluminium foil, construction paper chains, and figures cut out of decorative wrapping paper. my parents were young and poor, but by god they were going to have a properly festive tree. i wish they had saved those matchboxes; i would love to hang them on my tree with all the other heritage ornaments.

afraid all the godiva i've eaten today will keep me up all night, claire