Life as a Cookie

I've once been told by a wise baker that every cookie has a story... Below are the lives of nine cookies, as told by the members of my family who created them for Christmas...

Christmas Morn

Twas the night before Christmas
And at my sister's house,
Engorged with food
I lay passed out on the couch.

"Go to bed!" scolded my wife
With a slap to my thigh.
I stumbled up the stairs
And mumbled "Good night."

Within minutes I was drooling
Unconscious in the guest bed,
With flashbacks of dinner
Dancing in my head.

Prime rib and potatoes,
Chocolate ganache in my belly,
That shook when I snored,
Like a bowlful of jelly.

All of a sudden there arose,
Such a clatter to break my peace.
The clock read seven am,
And up were my nephew and niece.

"Merry Christmas!" they exclaimed
To their father and mother.
But Uncle is still sleeping!
Please do not bother.

The ripping of paper,
The excited guffaws!
I'm hitting the "snooze" button
But the noise would not pause!

I dragged myself out of bed
With great determination.
And headed downstairs
To join the celebration.

"Merry Christmas!" was yelled
To which I could only grunt a reply.
I needed some coffee...
Only open was one eye.

Amidst the brightly wrapped boxes,
To my open eye did I see,
The rare sight of a room
Full of my family.

So rare is the chance
That we all get together,
The loss of some sleep
Is well worth the pleasure.

As a boy I received toys,
And now I ask for housewares.
I've learned the meaning of holidays
And it gets more meaningful each year.

Appreciate the gifts,
And moreso the thoughts that are given.
And appreciate those rare days
Spent with the family this seaon.

Stop Signs

You ever have one of those days where one weird thing after another happens, all related but totally unexpected, like someone tipped over the first domino in your domino chain before you finished building it?

It started with a dream about me being in a car crash. In a white Acura. (I own a black Pontiac.) In the dream, I had a fender bender with a family member and his family in their car on the Gowanus Expressway and my car was totaled. Like it hit a pole at 80 MPH. But all that happened to cause the crash was a lane change at maybe 15 MPH. Nobody was hurt, and the dream ended with me greeting the other family in their car, cause it was a family who I liked and haven't seen in a long time.

I got to work in the morning and turned on my computer. My homepage is set to Netscape.com, and in one of the daily tidbits of trivial bait to win over my click, it offered: "Which Signs Are the Best Drivers? And the Worst?" From that article, came this:
The number one worst drivers were Geminis, "typically described as restless, easily bored and frustrated by things moving slowly," explained Warren Duke, Suncorp's national manager of personal insurance. "They had more car accidents than any other sign."
Needless to say, I, am a Gemini.

About a half hour later, I had this IM conversation:
*********: wanna come over and drink!?!?!
TheBigKL: i would still have to drive
*********: you don't have to drive if you need to just crash!!!

Uh... did I mis-read that?

For the record, I've never been in an accident, asides from that cement pole that hit the side of my car while I was parking in a lot. (It came out of nowhere-I swear.) It's been a full day and a half and a hundred miles later, and no bad signs since. And I'll take that as a sign that I have at least a few dominoes left standing.

Life News (Just not my life...)

I learned enough this weekend to fill out a script for a prime time show on the WB.

• A friend who I haven't seen in six months is now five months pregnant. (If you do the math, it's safe to say that it has nothing to do with me.)
• A friend who I haven't seen or spoken to in what may be a year or longer is now engaged... to another friend who I haven't seen or spoken to in over two years.
• A friend who I haven't spoken to since the Spring is now getting a divorce. (Again, this one also has nothing to do with me.)

Even though there are neither any engagements, pregnancies, or divorces in my immediate life, I think this weekend has taught me that to avoid potential heart attacks from unexpected news as I get older, I'd better stay in more frequent contact with my friends.

Dental Breakdown

I took the day off of work today to do some holiday shopping, run some errands, and visit my dentist for Medieval torture and a free toothbrush.

I don't particularly like my dentist. She's a nice person, and she'll talk about anything... except about my teeth. You would think a dentist with over a decade of experience would know by now that I, her prone patient, would rather hear about what she found in my mouth, and not her trip to Ellis Island. Maybe she thinks I'm the type who likes surprises, and I like to guess why she's drilling into the nerves of my left wisdom tooth when the cavity was supposed to be in my right molar. (And for the record, I like surprises, but not if it involves a drill in my mouth.)

As I was lying under that crane-armed spotlight, listening to the drill and wincing from that and the shop vac sucking out my saliva, blood, and tonsils, I thought about how dental science hasn't advanced much since 1875. If a laser can shatter a gall stone, wouldn't something have been invented by now that can clean better than a drill? Even the sound has become synonymous with pain and fear. How much nicer would the world be if dentist drills played "It's A Small World After All" when turned on?

Now that I've gotten two additional cavities since my last visit, I'm going to make it a point to go about every 4 months. I figure logically, the more often I go, the less I'll have to endure in that chair, and maybe I can avoid the drill altogether. So be sure to visit your dental care provider at least twice a year, boys and girls, and no drill and free samples of Crest should give you something to smile about.

My fillings (I think there are two of them, and I think there are silver, which are just guesses since the dentist didn't bother to tell me) work just fine by the way, as I gave them a test run at the all-you-can-eat buffet, Minado.

Twirl The Baby

It's always amusing to discover new ways to make babies laugh. It's a bonus when they make you laugh so hard, you feel like you're going to pee in your own diaper.

This past Sunday, I played "Twirl The Baby." (You can play this with anyone you can physically pick up who won't wiggle out of your hands.) Just pick up the lucky recipient, and spin around three times at the very least. Do your best to not lose your grip for best results. Then put the lucky baby down, and watch him giggle and try to walk! (So that's what I look like on bar nights!) Good clean fun for all!

I heard the next day that the little guy was throwing up and pooping excessively. I would like to think I had nothing to do with it, but there may be obvious side effects for "Twirl The Baby."

If the mother of the child above is reading this... I was twirling a different baby...

Treo Amigo

So I have a new toy. After two years of being locked into my cell phone contract and saying "What??" for every other word in my cellular conversations, I've finally earned my right to dump my crappy Nokia 6200 and move on to a Treo 650. Now instead of a mere cell phone, I've now a cell phone/organizer/camera/multimedia device with a keyboard so small, i think I'll have to sharpen my thumbnails to little points to be able to type on it.

What I can do with my new technological best friend:

• look pretentious with an obnoxiously bright screen and an air of "I'm an important business guy who needs a shiny organizer that can call people."
• go through an empty calendar and enter in appointments to "do laundry from 8 PM to 10 PM" on a Saturday night.
• keep cell phone numbers of cute girls I've met 6 years ago and have never dialed (cause they're probably not legitimate numbers), but make me feel studly just because I have them
• indiscreetly take pictures of attractive strangers and save them in my address book to pretend I know them
• write blog entries on the train which will require me to ice my thumbs when I get home

*Updated: I've realized In the two weeks I've had this thing, I've received more compliments from males about my phone than I've received compliments from females in two months about anything. I will add on to the list of features: "Higher self esteem."