So Long, 2008!

Breaking out the fine whines a little early, in celebration of the end of this particular year and the start of a shiny, bright New Year! Passing the festive bubbly, sparkling cider, hot chocolate, mac&cheese, pizza, warm soup, and cookies, as needed.

As far as I'm concerned, fireplacing 2008 can just take its considerable suckiness and move right along. Don't let the door hit ya! I'm not a resolution-making kind of person (being unusually prone to breaking them in record time), but can't remember a year when I so looked forward to a Fresh Start. Now, please.

Of course, 2008 has not been all bad. My kids are healthy and reasonably happy; the kitties (and even the dogs) are so entertaining that one can forgive the usual lapses; my beloved is a hero; the terrific relatives far outweigh the difficult ones; the endless election season finally ended; have made new friends, and deepened some friendships; and avoided bankruptcy, outright insanity, arrest, parking tickets, major computer viruses, natural disasters, floods, locusts, etc.

Seconding KLee's sentiments last week, I'm grateful for the WW community, and hope it continues to thrive; there is nothing like sharing and caring and laughing about the stuff that comes up! You Pixies are the best.

What's up with you? Bring your whines and anti-whines, the mega-retrospective ones and the little current ones. Prizes for Old Skool, Elevated Risk of Mullet, Style, and whatever else seems appropriate.

UPDATE 1/1/09: Awards will be late today.

Holly Jolly Awards

Happy Holidays to all, and wishes that you all survived mostly unscathed.

Awards this week are as follows:

Whine of Substance: Margalit sweeps the category with a headache-inducing (and well deserved) rant about her lovely daughter and the ruining of Hanukkah. Margalit, I'm so sorry. Having a child behave badly is bad enough, but during the holidays, it seems especially bad. Please don't cry anymore. All of us at WW love you, and wish you the best. And some rest from the bad attitudes.

Old Skool: Amy wins with her late-breaking whine about all the Christmas excitement turning the obvious potty clues into just another festive dance. Poor Mommy -- no rest for the wicked, right? I'm sorry that the Tot's brand new princess tent is all ... um ... soiled. Along with the carpet.

The Bodily Fluids Award goes to: Esperanza, and her woes about the leaky pouches of precious breast milk. You know, this is just Murphy's Law at work, right? If you had never decided to stop breastfeeding, those bags would never have leaked and had you continued to breastfeed, those bags would have been harder to get into than Fort Knox. Can you maybe rip open the bag and thaw it in a bowl or some other container? I hope you're able to save them -- that's a lot of effort down the drain....

The "What Brown *Isn't* Doing For Me" Award goes out to Sue, for her whine about the fireplacing UPS people who LOST her son's Christmas gift. Sue, I'm SO sorry! And, it doesn't matter that he's an adult -- he's STILL your son, and you still went to the effort to find him a great gift and ship it so that it would arrive in time for the holidays. I have to say that if UPS lost one of my packages, I'd be scorchingly mad, so this is a whine that hits close to home with me. Also, I second the firing of the cleaners who don't actually clean.

The Coveted "Elevated Risk of Mullet" Award goes, by popular acclaim, to Sara for her snort-inducing comment about her Uberboss: "Tell me what point I'm writing to support and I can find the literature and craft you a linguistic jockstrap of an argument, but don't ask for a jockstrap and then tell me you *meant* for me to write you a bra." Fireplacing bosses! Next time, warn us that you're about to be hilarious -- cookies in the sinus cavities hurt an awful lot.

Esperanza wins the newly-minted "Holiday Hell" award for having the Griswalds as neighbors. Neighbors who like to decorate their yard with miles of plastic crap *and* blare badly done handbell carols into the wee hours. Boy, I'll bet that makes life SO much fun! And that's not even *mentioning* the sick hubby or the having to wear hose and heels for Christmas!

Liz gets a special Christmas-themed "Mean Mommy" award for still trying to instill values into her son during the holidays. You are a TERRIBLE person, Liz! How DARE you not let your son act up during the holidays?! What's wrong with you? I hope MM got over his major case of the grumps without further incident. And -- you know you're a great mom, right?

I hope that everyone had a good holiday, and that our WW community continues to flourish and grow here. Our ministers in the crowd know the value of fellowship, and that's what WW means to me, at least. I hope that we can keep it going for a long, long time. That being said -- there's no host yet for next week's awards. Is there anyone out there willing (or champing at the bit) to moderate?

WW: The Holiday Edition

...or otherwise known as "Holiday Hell." I have opened the thread not exactly early, but it will stay open until Friday. On Friday, I'll post the awards, so don't be alarmed that they're late. This will give everyone a chance to get their holiday-related whines in.

Normal prizes are up for grabs as usual, but also ones for the best holiday story, worst holiday experience, and the newly patented "Christmas-Themed Slice of Hell" which goes to the best (worst?) or funniest holiday story.

To all of the WWers out there, I hope that your holidays, no matter what you celebrate, are full of love and joy, and that you find fulfillment in whatever you are searching for. May your bank accounts be full, may your sorrows be few, and may you have peace and prosperity in the coming new year.

Awards!

Elevated Risk of Mullet Award to Klee, for contributing "Christmas-themed slice of hell" to the lexicon. Best to her, Sue, Esperanza, and everyone else wrangling hyperactive children in the next week or so.

Old Skool Award to Amy, who is too tired to whine.

True Meaning of the Holidays Award to Sarah at Ratatat, for her amazing work in ethical education, including explaining why a pile of broken seashells does not a thoughtful gift make.

Toofies Popping Out All Over Award to JenR.

Time Crunch Award to Miranda, who complains that the holidays are inconveniently situated with respect to her work schedule.

Saddest Antiwhine Award to Elizabeth, who was overjoyed that the office party was someplace else so she did not have to monitor emails for 3 whole hours.

Weird Science Award to Liz, who shall be conducting a groundbreaking experiment on herself!

Latkes of Goodness and Angst Award to Madeleine.

What’s the Holdup Already? Award to Redzils, still waiting on dissertation feedback.

Hard Goodbye Award to Sue.

Congratulations to Esperanza’s Boobs, who are getting with the Breastpump Breakup Program. Per Liz’s suggestion, Kahlua milkshakes all around!

Happy Dances for Halloweenlover, whom Klee reports just had a lovely baby girl!

Chocolate, candy canes, and high-quality comfort food to all coping with headaches, relatives, changing therapists, too much to do in too little time, tiredness, unreasonable expectations, shopping, teenagers, fireplacing coldness outdoors, and other accouterments of the season.

Many thanks to Liz, who told me how to link to comments! If this doesn't work, it's all on me.

See you next week, when the fabulous Klee will host!

Pre-Holiday Blowout, Snowout, and Chain Saw Edition

Wooo, what a week so far! Sending virtual generators, warm gloves, hot chocolate, etc. to our freezing Pixies in the Northeast -- and elsewhere. Geez, there is snow in the Northwest as well, and apparently also in Arizona and who knows where else. I heard rumors of snow dustings on local mountains, but have no time to check that out. Will leave breaking news to Kermit.

Daughter came home! Worked on a fundraiser for a good cause! And, I'm thrilled with fabric donations to a quilt for a young local woman we know who is fighting leukemia -- an embarrassment of loveliness, and I hope to get the thing sewn this week. We found some decorations and got a tree, and might get to decorating soon. Way behind in work. I have almost no presents for anyone, even though Christmas and Chanukah are, like, sometime next week, I think. Whee!

We've had a rainstorm and cold weather, but the heater got fixed! And my holiday dream came true: my neighbor is having all the dead and dying trees in her yard taken down before they [a] cause the block to spontaneously combust in summer, or [b] fall on my house during winds/rains of winter. Thus, the chainsaws.

So, what's happening in your particular neck of the woods?

Awards!

First, because this is really, really, really bothering me: the Cluestick Posse is heading out to whup some of Purple Kangaroo's so-called friends'...um...assets. First, we'll visit the one who is conveniently blaming her own deadline avoidance on PK's illness, and the one who asked, "that's not contagious, is it" and moved away from PK on the Group W Bench. Then we'll go pay a call on the one who thought it was appropriate to tell PK that PK was axed from the possible wedding attendants list due to her and Baby E's health issues. PK, you are hereby the recipient of the "With Friends Like These, Who Fireplacing Needs Fireplacing Enemies" Award.

Whew. Glad to get that off my chest. Now I can stop spitting incoherently.

The Remembering What It's All About Award goes to Esperanza, with engorgement clusters. Esperanza is also runner-up for the Elevated Risk of Mullet Award ("teh Second Thoughts, they are killing me...which probably stems from Whine #2: teh boobs are not in favor of this plan. At all")

The WINNER of the Elevated Risk of Mullet Award is Neighbor Lady for the keyboard killing comment punchline "downside: making cole slaw is never quite the same after that..."

The Old Skool Award goes to KLee for her short but sweet whine (presented here, in its entirety) "Wah! I just jammed my finger! I looked down, and there was a bug on my hand, so I went a little mental, and flung my hand out to rid it of the bug. Only, I flung it into the stove. Yeowch! Can i have a lollipop? Or at least some fudge?"
It has everything: Contusions, Comedy, and Candy.

The When Bad Things Happen To Bad People Who Then Need Nurturing Award goes to Kathy A.. I think she speaks for all of us at one point or another when she says, "I'm trying to be a decent person, but the temptation to just book the cheapest trip to anyplace else while I still have credit is very strong." Amen, Sister. (I also like the phrase, "trifecta of damaging relatives." Very nice indeed).

The Style Award goes to Madeleine for her Haiku honoring her old slippers.

Kudos to Redzils for finishing her results section...again
And kudos as well to Margalit for her first column in the local paper

Hugs and kisses to those dealing with Snow, Mold, Breakfast Meetings, Sleep Deprivation (New Mommy Style).

And Anti-whine of the Week to Sue for "Now it's snowing and I don't have to shovel. I never tire of saying that."

Thank you all for playing!!! Tune in next week, when our host will be the lovely and talented Kathy A!!!

WW: Aran Socks of DOOOOOM Edition

I love these socks but, boy howdy, they are going slowly. I'm not the big fan of the cable needle, I'm just sayin'.

But they looook mahvelous.

How about you, dahlinks? Do you feel mahvelous?

Awards! With actual links to the comments!

Uccellina sweeps two categories today: Remembering What It's All About and Style with her ditty to her kiddie who has bitten her t----.

Amy sweeps both Old Skool and Elevated Risk of Mullet for whining about breaking the nail she uses to pick the baby's boogies.

I am bringing back the Roto Rooter Awards for Margalit's novel in three words: Liquid Plumber works.

Hugs and Puffs Plus to all pixies who are sick themselves, have sick kiddoes and/or spouses, and any combination thereof.

The Why Hasn't Anyone Invented A Time-turner Yet? Award to KLee for her whine about too much to do, too little time to do it in, and when will she sleep?

The Etiquette-Schmetiquette Award goes to Sarah at Ratatat for the immortal words, "It seems rude to de-friend [her brother and SIL]"

A Standing Ovation to Genevieve (you really need to get yourself a blog!) for her son's first performance! The Mystery Family is looking into getting tickets, Genevieve!

Febreze and Oxyclean to Sue for her cat's nervous pooping.

And the cluestick posse is a-comin' lookin' for Kathy A's SILFH.

Last, but not least, Redzils gets the Whine of Substance Award. Not only does she live in a garret, but she has to get her dissertation done in 14 days while biking to school in the cold with wet hair.

Tune in next week when our host will be...me!

Pixies, Start Your Whining

It's Wednesday!