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Not grinchy, just thrifty
Dec. 17th, 2004 09:54 amI almost wish I could skip Christmas this year. Not because I'm feeling Grinchy. But the month has just gotten away from me. Christmas is a week away, and I haven't done anything about it. Not one shred of shopping, not even present planning.
Which may be just as well, since I just figured up my current financial status and it's...tight. Those two days off for BNAT were unpaid and that means my next paycheck is going to be short.
So, this year, expect "creative" gifts from me. Or gifts of self. Which hey - I know is alright because it's the thought that counts.
I wish I had money to spare to shower my wonderful friends with lavishness. But I'm foolish about money and never plan ahead.
Although I think I might have a plan for next year that would work...
I just read a story in the Strib (actually an AP story, so it's not local) but the basic gist of the story is that the upscale, luxury shops are doing great this holiday season while the mid-level and discount stores aren't. It's basically this: The "have's" are having a great Christmas and spending more than ever before on luxury items ($5000 shoes anyone?) while the "have-not's" are having a worse Christmas than usual.
If you needed yet more proof for the class warfare that is going on in America, there ya go.
And then there's the columnist for the Strib who wrote a column about our city's homeless and how we ought to help them and pointed out that Jesus was for the poor, and hey - Mary and Joseph were "homeless" when they arrived at Bethlehem.
And he got reamed in responses. One guy said that the homeless were "leeches" and if there were a button he could press to kill them all off, he would.
Others felt like arguing the semantics of "homeless" - Mary and Joseph weren't homeless, they were just travelling without a reservation.
The state of our country today just ... sickens me.
In other random chattering, I had weird dreams last night.
FIRST: I dreamed that we were slowly driving along a road, and passed by Dubya and as we passed I said to myself but outloud: "We should run the President over." And then we stopped farther along the road to get out, and sure enough, two Secret Service guys start to approach me, but I point out to them these other two guys who are removing cached nuclear waste from the ground just over there. So the Secret Service guys go over and tell these guys they can't do that.
SECOND: In a response to all the wailing and gnashing of teeth about my casting of the Crucible (I got three different emails from students asking "what did I do wrong?" and "I was shocked!" and "I'm a senior!"), I had a dream where I called a meeting of the students to explain things to them and deliver some hard truths but none of the kids would shut up so I just said the hell with it and said "I quit."
The second dream is obvious, but god knows where the first one came from!
I watched Seabiscuit last night. And most of the extras on the disk as well. A nice relaxing quiet evening at home, with cats on the lap. Except when they got scared off by the coughing.
I love cough syrup with codeine.
Which may be just as well, since I just figured up my current financial status and it's...tight. Those two days off for BNAT were unpaid and that means my next paycheck is going to be short.
So, this year, expect "creative" gifts from me. Or gifts of self. Which hey - I know is alright because it's the thought that counts.
I wish I had money to spare to shower my wonderful friends with lavishness. But I'm foolish about money and never plan ahead.
Although I think I might have a plan for next year that would work...
I just read a story in the Strib (actually an AP story, so it's not local) but the basic gist of the story is that the upscale, luxury shops are doing great this holiday season while the mid-level and discount stores aren't. It's basically this: The "have's" are having a great Christmas and spending more than ever before on luxury items ($5000 shoes anyone?) while the "have-not's" are having a worse Christmas than usual.
If you needed yet more proof for the class warfare that is going on in America, there ya go.
And then there's the columnist for the Strib who wrote a column about our city's homeless and how we ought to help them and pointed out that Jesus was for the poor, and hey - Mary and Joseph were "homeless" when they arrived at Bethlehem.
And he got reamed in responses. One guy said that the homeless were "leeches" and if there were a button he could press to kill them all off, he would.
Others felt like arguing the semantics of "homeless" - Mary and Joseph weren't homeless, they were just travelling without a reservation.
The state of our country today just ... sickens me.
In other random chattering, I had weird dreams last night.
FIRST: I dreamed that we were slowly driving along a road, and passed by Dubya and as we passed I said to myself but outloud: "We should run the President over." And then we stopped farther along the road to get out, and sure enough, two Secret Service guys start to approach me, but I point out to them these other two guys who are removing cached nuclear waste from the ground just over there. So the Secret Service guys go over and tell these guys they can't do that.
SECOND: In a response to all the wailing and gnashing of teeth about my casting of the Crucible (I got three different emails from students asking "what did I do wrong?" and "I was shocked!" and "I'm a senior!"), I had a dream where I called a meeting of the students to explain things to them and deliver some hard truths but none of the kids would shut up so I just said the hell with it and said "I quit."
The second dream is obvious, but god knows where the first one came from!
I watched Seabiscuit last night. And most of the extras on the disk as well. A nice relaxing quiet evening at home, with cats on the lap. Except when they got scared off by the coughing.
I love cough syrup with codeine.
