OMG CALENDAR-CHOOSING TIME!! at Milk and Cookies. I love love love choosing a calendar. I have tons of good options but am so reluctant to SETTLE on one—but also getting panicky as they start selling out. [Edit: I made myself CHOOSE ONE ALREADY. I got Sibley birds, a dark horse candidate.] What are you getting this year?

Review blog stuff: review of MasterCard MarketPlace [link removed because review blog is gone], with a $100 gift card giveaway. That would help with a little holiday debt right there. Just a couple more days left for that one.

One of my manual tweets from the other day was “We felt our fish were insufficiently happy, so we spent $80.”

We had a 2.5-gallon tank, with two tiny minnows in it (the kind that look exactly like goldfish ((to us)) but have a much smaller maximum expected adult size) (not the kind that turn into frogs: that’s tadpoles). We went to the pet store to buy new filters for the tank, and we saw they had the 14-gallon tank kit marked from $90 down to $40, and we said, “Oh, okay.” Then we bought more stuff to put in it, because there was more room in the new tank for stuff. Plus we needed to buy larger filters.

I’d been planning to get a larger tank (the smaller one was a test, to see if we were a family that would enjoy pet fish), but I’d been balking because the tank KIT (which I wanted so I wouldn’t have to make decisions about a filter and a light and a heater and a lid and etc.) is so much more expensive than the plain TANK, which periodically goes on a “$1/gallon” sale (but then requires the filter decision and the heater decision and so forth, which makes me do Panicky Math, and Panicky Math leads to “Never mind! Forget it!”).

Darn it and also yay: I just went on Amazon to see if they had the tank so I could show you the kit-ness of it, and they don’t have the same tank (here’s the 10-gallon version, which our 14-gallon tank brags about being “40% larger than,” and thank you for doing that DIFFICULT and EXTREMELY USEFUL math, Aqueon!), but they do have the replacement filters for 2/3rds of the SALE price I just paid for them at the pet store. Well, in six months I’m getting a GREAT DEAL on replacement filters, MARK MY WORDS.

So we brought the new tank home, and the first step was finding a new place for the fish tank to live: a 2.5-gallon tank holds about 20 pounds of water so it can live on a book shelf, but a 14-gallon tank is about 112 pounds of water and needs something I would let someone Rob’s size JUMP on). We’re using a heavy 1970s dark pine cabinet we bought at Goodwill for 1/4th the price of an on-sale fish tank kit, back when we were in the first half of our 20s.

Then it was a matter of moving the fish. I don’t know if you have ever done fish, but they are a bit tricky. They live in WATER, you see. Transferring them from one water to another water (especially when the first water is in a nice nitrogen cycle and the new water is not) is risky and difficult. It took a couple of days, but now they are in their new tank:

You cannot see the fish in this picture.
This is because one of them is in the “broken jug” and the other is behind a plant.
It is not because I am just pretending to have pet fish.
Of what use would that be?

And we are on Dead Fish watch. We want to add more fish now that we have room, and we are thinking we might even use the heater so we can add something other than minnows or goldfish, but we need to wait awhile to make sure this new water is working out. (I feel nervous about really filling it all the way to the top the way the instructions say. I also feel nervous about not following instructions. We’ll see what conquers what.)

Notice that our new tank has, along with a new “broken jug” and the old turret and a couple of new fake plants, a T-rex. Henry wanted to do a whole dinosaur theme (there was also a stegosaurus and some other dinosaur, plus two dinosaur skeletons), but I am not yet sure about Tank Decor and didn’t want to commit to dinosaurs.

Now, I have a question for those of you who have experience with fish. No, two questions. No, THREE questions:

1. Should I get them some taller plants?

2. If we do start using the filter and branching out into freshwater fish, what’s a good type to add first?

3. Really? Fill it all the way to the bottom of the black rim?

Because of a GOOD thing (upgrading a computer Paul called “steam-powered”), I was without computer/internet for a day. It was like a power outage: I kept thinking, “Well, since I can’t work on blogs, I’ll get caught up on email….oh. Well, I’ll set up the fish tank. Hm, I’ll go Google whether it’s bad to put them close the the television…oh.” And I had to do Twitter MANUALLY:

My family celebrates on Christmas Eve night (I’m not sure if this is from the Dutch ancestry or the minister ancestry), so we are already relaxing and enjoying all our presents while you suckers are trying to get a shower and a cup of coffee in the midst of the chaos. My favorite parts of Christmas:

Cards around the doorway between living room and kitchen.

OMG UNDERWEAR IN STOCKING!!!
MOST HILARIOUS THING EVER!!!

Heading out for annual Christmas lights drive in pajamas.

Children reading new books, playing new video games,
looking at new coloring books,
while Mother has a latte and Cheetos for breakfast.

Non-favorite part: slipping on a step and hitting several subsequent steps with my buttular region SO HARD I have a bruise the size of a LARGE YAM. This is the only time I have ever been tempted to post a picture of my butt on the internet, because I would really love to get some big sympathy for this. I asked Paul if he wanted to see it and he was like “OH-kay! *waggling eyebrows”* and then he totally divebombed into “OOOOOO, GEEZ, AGGGG!!” I am not kidding when I say I can’t SIT, not because sitting is so painful (though it kind of is) but because getting UP again is too painful. I am kneeling on my sideways computer chair, elbows resting on the armrest, hunched over the keyboard like a butt-injured Christmas vulture.

My before-I-even-knew-what-blogging-WAS friend Firegirl was asking about favorite Christmas songs and I was trying to choose one (fail), and that reminded me of how one of my favorites is a song I didn’t used to like at all. I used to think Winter Wonderland was an extremely boring song, and also lame, but then I bought one of those Scholastic multi-book packs of Christmas books and one of them was Winter Wonderland, which was a book to SING. And this was when I had two children, and I used to read to them before bed (now Paul does reading duty), and I let each of them choose one book and then I’d read both books to both of them, and anyway my point here is that they kept choosing that Winter Wonderland book over and over, and I realized it was a very pleasing song to sing and right in my range. But more importantly, I realized it was a song about an ENGAGEMENT. I’d been picturing children outside making a snowman and calling it Parson Brown, but it’s NOT children, it’s a couple! And they go on a walk, and they start joking around about how the snowman is asking them if they’re married and they say no but that he can do the job when he’s in town. MAD FLIRTY!! And then later on they’re all snuggled up by the fire and they “face unafraid the plans that we made” while out walking! So the joking around is what helps them to discuss it for reals!! Isn’t that ROMANTIC?? So anyway, now I love the song. Except the verses about the circus clown and the Eskimo way, because those are totally not on topic.

I have Do They Know It’s Christmas? stuck in my head, and you’re welcome. (You should watch it if only to admire Hottt 1984 Era Sting, who is looking pretty cute in that video especially compared to the boys who were under the influence not only of Earnest Face but also of certain unfortunate hair trends.)

I remember hearing this song in…let’s see, how old was I? It came out when I was in middle school, but I don’t remember hearing it until high school: I went to a religious middle school where even Christian rock was frowned upon, and when I say “frowned upon” I mean “actively campaigned against by the teachers, with guest lectures about how we could tell the devil was directly involved by listening to the particular type of beat.” (I listened to my Michael W. Smith album anyway, which, now that I’ve thought of this, finally gives me a good answer to the question about why I ended up Leaving the Flock. “It was the beat, the beat, the crazy devil-worshiping BEAT of ‘Old Enough to Know’!!”)

So anyway, I heard “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” when I was at the public high school, probably while walking to school listening to my WALKMAN, which played CASSETTES I made by recording songs off the radio. And I remember hearing “And there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmastime…” and thinking, “Yeah, but….I mean, snow isn’t really the issue, is it? There are areas of the United States that don’t get snow at Christmastime either. And actually, for people who don’t even have enough clothes and food, that’s probably GOOD to not have snow and cold and ice.” I also remember trying to understand why the singers seemed to want to know the answer to the question of the title. Do they…”know” it’s Christmas? Why? Would that make a difference? Should we…tell them? Like, just in case? (None of this stopped me from listening to it 40 billion times.)

As an adult I get what they were trying to do (i.e., “Get in on the ’80s Group Empathy Rock trend”), but “the Christmas bells that ring there are the clanging chimes of doom” seems comically over-the-top (why would impoverished people spend money on clanging chimes of doom?), and I’m not sure the songwriter’s suggestion to the listener (i.e., thanking God it’s them instead of you) will solve the problem as it’s been presented. The second solution, “Feed the world,” is somewhat better, but lacks instructions for practical application: okay, I have some food, I’m standing in the world….now what?

Such a perplexing song. To hear it you’d think the main issues in Africa (which, incidentally, is kind of a big place, and my geography knowledge has always been a little shaky but I’ll bet it isn’t COMPLETELY without rain or rivers ANYWHERE) were (1) They don’t get snow at Christmastime, (2) They don’t know it’s Christmas, and (3) Bells of doom keep clanging.

May I suggest that if Shelly Overlook has a contest, you enter? She said “gift from Disney World” and I pictured…key ring? Instead, look:

RIGHT?? There is:

1. a 2010 Minnie Mouse holiday pin that looks like an ornament (which I plan to use as an ACTUAL ornament—how’s THAT for mind-twisting?)

2. a bag of Goofy sour gummy worms

3. a TAPESTRY THROW FTLOG

4. and, my favorite, a green handbag with a bow on it, and I wish you could see it with the lining, which is purple argyle (you can see a glimpse of the purple color peeking out under the bow)

You are so jealous right now.

PSA time. It seems there are two major misconceptions about the flu vaccine:

1. That it prevents all strains of flu, and without fail. (It’s a concoction based on the strains predicted most likely to appear that year, and the vaccine won’t work for every single person even if the predicted flu strains are correct.)

2. That it prevents “stomach flu.” (“The flu,” short for influenza, is respiratory. “Stomach flu” is not influenza at all, so the vaccine doesn’t prevent it. I don’t know why it’s called flu, because it isn’t.)

Now you know. *musical trill*

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New gift idea posts at Milk and Cookies:

1. Non-toy gift ideas for children.

2. Gift ideas for 9-12-year-old boys. I mean, are they impossible to buy for OR WHAT?

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My littler children had gingerbread houses and milk for breakfast. WHAT?

I love my new coat. I love my new coat SO MUCH. I love my new coat SO MUCH that I am poised to do an uncompensated infomercial for it, right here and right now.

My old winter coat is a Perfectly Good Coat. It’s from L.L. Bean and I got it on one of their really good clearances a number of years ago. It is a color of green I really like (the bright, leafy color—I think the color name was in fact “leaf”). It’s polyester-fill or whatever, and the outer surface is a nice-feeling one. But it is really more of a Late Fall Coat. At the bus stop every morning I freeze my bees.

Perhaps you have noticed that a good warm winter coat is EXPENSIVE. And that this is not a good time of year for a big cash outlay. And I totally hear you, and so if you don’t have the money to spend right now, perhaps you should look away because I am about to say something like “MORTGAGE YOUR HOME AND RENT OUT YOUR CHILDREN TO BUY THIS COAT,” and that would be SO disheartening if you’d already mortgaged your home and rented out your children for some OTHER purchase.

Anyway, I felt discouraged by the project of finding a coat, but I finally hit my coldness limit. I went to Lands’ End because I had a coupon, which I will give to you in the hopes that it will work (are these one-time use? here’s one I haven’t used: promotion code SANTA40 and pin #4517, but you can also just go to LandsEnd.com and I think you’ll see the offer in a big box on the home page), for 40% off one item, plus free shipping. And here was my basic search process: click Women’s, click Plus-Size, click Outerwear, click Down. I knew I wanted down instead of polyester this time, because one of the kids has a down jacket ($23 on clearance at Marshalls) and I’m jealous every time I put it on him.

Then I hit a snag in my search process because there were still a lot of options. I dithered around awhile. I figured out gradually that “jacket” means hip-length, “parka” means it covers the buttular region, and “long” means “I will feel trapped, like in a nightgown.” And then I shopped by color, because I look like the wrath of Target in black and brown, and white is way too optimistic, and grey is a good color on me but also makes me feel like it isn’t much fun to be spending so much money on a new coat. That brought me down to two choices, and I showed them to Paul and he made a little scoffing noise and said “Definitely that one. The other one is just ‘a coat,’ but this one is cute.” That’s right: I got a man to give a considered opinion about a piece of women’s clothing. Plus, he chose the significantly more expensive one.

Here it is, My Coat:

(this is a screenshot yoinked right from Lands’ End,
and that link I just made goes directly to that product)

(If you read me in a feed reader, you should really click through to see how close the coat color is to the color of my blog background.)

Here are the things that worried me, before ordering:

1. I haaaaaaaate fake fur. (I don’t mean I hate it on OTHER PEOPLE: for example, I think it’s quite cute on the model. I mean I hate it on ME.) I think it’s ugly: ugly color, ugly texture, not good with my coloring, gets all matted and icky, looks weird with my glasses. Plus it tickles and bothers me. But the description said the hood was removable, and I’m not accustomed to wearing a hood anyway so that should be fine.

2. Sometimes L.L. Bean and Lands’ End clothing is a little BOXY for me—like it’s made for a different body type. Maybe the cut wouldn’t flatter. But it LOOKED good: the waist seems to nip in.

3. I am QUITE pear-shaped, and so an item of clothing that is supposed to cover both the upper and lower pear regions doesn’t always work: it can be loose to the point of falling OFF me on top and be too tight down below. I wanted the parka length, but would it be too snug in the Lower Pear Quadrant?

4. I loved the color on the model, but would I be sorry I hadn’t gone for something more subdued and practical?

The coat arrived yesterday and I put it on and there is nothing but joy and love and little ladybugs flitting around singing songs of warmth and etc.

1. I had not sufficiently read the description: the fake fur is itself also removable. (If you read the description yourself, you are going to wonder how I possibly missed it, since it’s mentioned about three times. My only excuse is that I was stressed about coat selection, and also I kept thinking, “Yeah, yeah, I know the hood is removable”—without realizing it was talking about the TRIM.) So I have a hood, which is wonnnnnnnnderful and how was I surviving without a hood before? and with NO FAKE FUR. I wish I’d put this as #4 because it was the last thing I discovered and so the correct order of events is FIRST glorying in the coat and even coming to terms with the fake fur, and THEN thinking, “Hey, what is this little….is this a ZIPPER???” and having the heavens open up and the ladybugs start their joyous flitting.

2. The fit is GREAT. I think it’s quite flattering—as flattering as a warm winter coat can be, anyway. I feel CUTE. And sometimes a winter coat can make me feel HUGE, so this is a very pleasant feeling.

3. Lower Pear Quadrant worries were unfounded: not too snug in the buttular region, and not too big on top, either. I suspect this coat might in fact be designed for Pears.

4. THE COLOR, I LOVE THE COLOR SO MUCH. I’m so glad I went for it even though it’s a little Dramatic. I did the same with my previous coat (bought the bright leaf-green even though it seemed a bit STAND-OUT) and was happy with it every time I wore it, and it’s the same with this coat. Plus, how cute is it going to look with my hot-pink gloves?? SO CUTE!!

Additional note: 5. I was worried when I first took it out of the box because it seemed so THIN and LIGHT compared with my polyester coat. But I wore it to the bus stop and it was so warmmmmmmmmmmm. I’d forgotten my gloves but my hands were totally warm just in the pockets, which are lined with this super-soft comfy fleecey stuff. The neck of the coat comes up to scarf-height. I stood there thinking, “This is such a light coat, and yet I am not even FEELING this freezing breeze!!”

Let us turn to the subject of price. Ack, right? I have never spent $139.50 on a coat (they have it in non-plus-size, too, for $129.50). And I didn’t this time, either, because I had the 40% off coupon. Still, it was $83.70 ($77.70 for non-plus-size), and that is not change you find in the couch. But right now I am VERY HAPPY with that price.

[Edit: It seems to be sold out in every color but ivory now, but there are more colors in the jacket-length.]

It is ON: here’s the Tassimo review, with Tassimo giveaway [link removed because review blog no longer exists]. The Tassimo peeps say that if we do this FAST, they might be able to ship the winner’s Tassimo by Christmas, so I’ll take entries until this Sunday at 5:00 p.m. U.S. Pacific, so the winner’s address can be ready for Monday morning. WHEEEEEE!!! Free Tassimo!!!! (No, this is not why I’m up at 4:30 in the morning WHY DO YOU ASK.)

(Comment on the entry linked to above, not on this one.)