From George Bernard Shaw:

“This is the true joy of life: the being used up for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clot of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”

Yeah, that’s me alright — a regular force of nature. And this may be all you’re getting from me this week…

Book of the week: I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being A Woman by Nora Ephron. She is a funny, funny, funny lady. Sorry, I could never hope to be even one-tenth as funny as she is, so I will not try.

Christmas pageants are a lot of work, it turns out. If I was into pharmaceuticals I’d be taking a Valium right now.

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I can’t wait to get into bed with my husband at night. No, really. I cannot wait.

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This one is from my mother-in-law. So Christmas-y!

RED, WHITE & GREEN SALAD

For the salad:
One avocado (diced)
Ricotta salata, feta or queso fresco
Butter or Boston lettuce
12 cherry tomatoes
Small handful cilantro leaves
Four scallions (white parts only)

For the vinaigrette:
Cilantro (1/4 cup, loosely packed)
4 scallions (dark green tops only)
1-2 jalapenos (seeded and chopped)
1/2 cup olive oil
Juice of one lime
Large pinch kosher salt

Combine all vinaigrette ingredients, pulse in food processor.

To assemble:
Mix half of vinaigrette with avocado to prevent browning. Layer lettuce leaves, then tomatoes, avocado and then cheese, drizzle dressing on top.

Bon appetit!

WM

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” — Anais Nin

How I see it: Dedicated, hardworking, stay-at-home mom who occasionally snatches a few minutes to write. Who sometimes sneaks in a phone call to a friend, or finds a half-hour block to make a series of business calls.

The way my kids see it: There’s the back of her head again. She’s always on the computer. She never pays attention to us. She never hangs up the phone. Here, I’ll scream and tip over the dog’s water bowl — that should get her attention.

I’d like to say that the truth lies somewhere in-between, but that’s not true. Their version is the “real” version. Anais Nin was right. So here I am, stalled out on another manuscript, trying to ignore the fact that Christmas is three weeks from today. New Year’s Day is four weeks from today. My husband and I will have been together ten years this May. Shouldn’t we do something fun? I mean — should we have a party? Take a trip? Get a babysitter for the weekend and go to the beach? The dishes are still undone. The laundry is never done. The house is a mess.

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See this. And have a happy weekend! We’re decorating the tree, listening to “Here Comes Suzy Snowflake” and baking chocolate chip cookies.

It’s a Winter Fucking Wonderland over here, to quote Wacky Grandpa.

Great article in this week’s New Yorker — “Little Hotties,” by Margaret Talbot — about the Bratz dolls phenom. Talbot describes them as having “…the sly, dozy expression of a party girl after one too many mojitos.”

Oh. My God. Nailed it. And the toy industry folks have made up a new expression: K.G.O.Y. — Kids Getting Older Younger, “…and talk about it as though it were a fact of modern life over which they have no control, rather than one which they have largely created,” Talbot says. Bastard toy execs. My daughter — my son, too, but my daughter, especially — needs to stay a kid for as long as humanly possible. Let her be a kid. I didn’t get to be one for long and y’know — it was too bad. It was too bad that I looked like an 18-year-old at age 12. It was too bad that by age 13 or 14, grown men were trying to play grab-ass and grab-tit with me and asking me for my phone number. Make that, handing me their phone numbers because of, you know. My mother. (No father = wolves lurking. When I meet fatherless girls I want to bring them to my house so Hockey God can do some hockey slashing techniques on any predators that come around. We could call it Wacky Mommy’s Home for Fatherless Chicks.)

Writer Naomi Wolf, She Who Speaks For All Things Feminist, is quoted as saying “If I were betting on culture as a form of stocks, I would get out of Skinny Barbie and into multiethnic, imaginative Bratz dolls.” Oh. Please. “Imaginative”? The kids like them because they’re slutty. And slutty girls get the attention, you know. And the phone numbers. Barbie’s problem always has been that she’s not slutty enough. I mean, poor Ken. Barbie, the tease. Always so busy being a vet. Or a doctor.

Wacky Girl requested a Bratz set last Christmas that came with its own bar. Its. Own. Bar. What the hell happened to Barbie’s Dream House? Camper? Damn.

“No,” I said, “You do not need to play dolly bar.”

“It is not a ‘bar’ bar,” she patiently explained to me, her stupid, non-understanding mother, “It is a karaoke bar. Where they sing karaoke.”

Yeah, AND DRINK MOJITOS.

This Christmas she still wants a Bratz doll. And now, being depraved on accounta she’s deprived, make that IS DESPERATE FOR A BRATZ DOLL.

“You just think they’re hootchie-mamas, don’t you? Don’t you, Mom?”

“Maybe next time I see you I’ll have a little one strapped to my chest. I’m looking forward to it — I really need a vacation from work. I’m taking three weeks paternity leave.”

— dad to dad, overheard by WM at Sohbet Coffeehouse

“I know nobody likes me. Why do we have to have a holiday season to emphasize it?”

— Charlie Brown

“Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like.”

— Will Rogers, humorist (1879-1935)

From the Cajun Family Recipes website:

Roasted Squirrels

1/2 pound of smoked bacon, cubed
4 squirrels, cut in pieces
2 medium onions, chopped
1 stalk of celery, chopped
4 cups of chicken broth
Salt to taste
Pinch of thyme
Dash or two of hot pepper sauce

Brown bacon, remove and set aside. Brown squirrel in drippings left from browning bacon; remove and set aside. Add onions and celery to drippings and saute two minutes. Add squirrel and bacon and enough chicken broth to cover bottom of pot; add seasonings. Cover and cook on a low heat, adding broth a little at a time as it needs replacing until squirrels are tender – about 1 hour.

Rabbit may be cooked in this manner.

Serves 4.