Sprizee :: A simple girl replete with complications

This month being December I'm really into...

...Parisian singer Yael Naim, vintage Christmas cherubs, my new bright green wool coat (thanks Santa!),  The Writer's Almanac (podcast here), my new camera (you know, the one with the Leica lense!), cellophane bags, grosgrain ribbon, J. Crew cashmere, a shiny new bright red dutch oven (purchased after Christmas while still on sale), Ticket to Ride Europe (one of my gifts to The Dude), my 2008 letterpress calendar made in Seattle, Christmas Eve shopping, Christmas Day snow fall, a likely trip to Portland before the end of the year and New Year's Eve celebrations with friends.
 

Merry Christmas Everyone.

Gift basket for my mom and aunt., originally uploaded by sprizee.

If I could, I would totally send each and every one of you a custom gift basket just like this.

Out of control.

So this thing has been getting a lot of PR in the last 48 hours.  By all the attention it's been getting, you might assume we created a t-shirt that says "Screw the S.L.U.T (South Lake Union Transit)" or something.  No such luck...yet.  Anywho, if you're by a tv in Seattle around 4:20 tonight, perhaps you should tune into KOMO?  Just a hunch. (My friend's VCR will be at the ready but, just in case, why don't you TIVO or DVR it.  Please.)

InternetS on TV.

See ya later alligator.

See ya later alligator., originally uploaded by sprizee.

Right after I emailed my friend about the Crocodile closing, he emailed me back this. He's brilliant like that.

After while crocodile.

P.S. Apparently Dan Savage doesn't know figured out how to do a photo credit on the SLOG.  Thankfully Seattlest does.

Farmoween Recap.

0030_24_1024, originally uploaded by Wheelson.

I look like I belong in spandex with WRESTLE MANIA! across the chest.  The Dude looks like a cardboard cutout.  Ah, fall you seem so far away.  Next year you're going down for the count.  Let's get ready to rumble!

(Photo taken with my Lomo LCA.  Damn, I love that camera.)

Check cha-check cha-check cha-check it out.

1. I saw the Life of Reilly at the Varsity Monday night.  It was funny.  Not too funny.  It was heartfelt.  Not too heartfelt.  It was short.  Not too short.

2. Misty is back, it's Jason's birthday and we're getting together for dinner tonight.  Good times!

3. I'm totally smitten with this hat.  Gimme!

A Christmas Gift For You

If you don't have A Christmas Gift For You from a Crazy Nutjob, you really should add it to your collection.  It is by far my favorite Christmas album.

Jott this down.

Egan discovered this cool new tool that uses voice recognition to translate what you're saying and send it to your friends and family via email and text messages.  But what's really cool is it also includes the audio.  Check it out.  I know Egan sounds like a robot in this recording but I can testify that it is totally his voice.  (He really does need to stop talking like a robot.) 

I can't believe neither of us are getting kick backs for this unsolicited promotion.  Life is so unfair.  I think Apple computers are the best.  [waits]  Hey, where's my free Mac!

This is what Christmas life is all about.

If You Knew by Ellen Bass   

What if you knew you'd be the last
to touch someone?   
If you were taking tickets, for example,
at the theater, tearing them   
giving back the ragged stubs,   
you might take care to touch that palm   
or press your fingertips,   
into the crease of a life line.   

When a man pulls his wheeled suitcase   
too slowly through the airport, when   
the car in front of me doesn't signal,   
when the clerk at the pharmacy   
won't say thank you, I don't remember   
they're going to die.   

A friend told me she'd been with her aunt.   
They'd just had lunch and the waiter,   
a young gay man with plum black eyes,   
joked as he served the coffee, kissed   
her aunt's powdered cheek when they left.   
Then they walked half a block and her aunt   
dropped dead on the sidewalk.   

How close does the dragon's spume   
have to come? How wide does the crack   
in heaven have to split?   
What would people look like   
if we could see them as they are,   
soaked in honey, stung and swollen,   
reckless, pinned against time?

Better yet, listen to Garrison Keilor read it to you. Merry Christmas.  Play nice. On my task list for this week is to smile more, hold doors open for strangers and send several thank you notes to friends and family just because. (In other news, it's raining.  A lot.)