25 Days Til Xmas: Tips from Jewz-A-Claus

Tip #1:  When buying Christmas lights to hang on your windows, you could save a lot of money by just printing drawings of lights and tacking them in the wall.  That way, you don't have to worry about your electricity bill going up. 

Blue

So Pink is pregnant, which I guess means she won't be doing any dancing on the hanging linens for the next few months.  What I want to know is when the baby is born, will she say things to the kid like,
"what's the dealio?" and
"if you're too skool for cool."

or what happens if the baby pisses her off and won't sleep, will she write a blockbuster song about it called, "shut up"? 

To School or Not To School

I have been thinking a lot recently about going back to school.  I think the ONLY thing stopping me at this point is not wanting to spend the money.  I wish one of my rich relatives who has a lot of money would say, "Laura, you are so smart...let me help you out."  It's nothing to them.  Like my father, if he could just give me a loaner from the trust fund I'm maybe going to receive when I'm 77 because he lives to be 109.  But I doubt I'll get that trust fund anymore because I've been such a "bad daughter" by making fun of his diseases and I'm pretty sure all my money is going towards his "just-in-case" radiation treatment or my stepmother's bipolar light mood stabilizer. 

But I digress.  I just don't know. I sit all day. Every day.  At work.  Bored. Bored. Bored.  And now I am 34 and I don't know how long I can keep doing this same thing over and over and over. So, school. That would keep me busy.  The problem is yesterday, I went from looking into getting my MBA, to being a pastry chef to being a laser technician to being a teacher.  So, my focus is a little off.  But, school would keep me interested right now.  A hell of a lot more interested than the daily drudgery of coming into a boring job everyday and getting excited when it's time to go to Shaws to make my salad and decide which flavor Kettle potato chips I wanted to eat that day. 

So, I decided to study for my GMAT.  I figured that would give me a focus at least and somthing to try for.  I am so bad at taking tests like that and my scores are always so low but I figure I could at least try.  But the problem is the test itself is $250. So, I am going to start by getting a couple of books and seeing if I can focus on practicing for the test.

I'm sure I could always ask my father for math advice while he lays in his hospital bed too.

Yellow ribbons and onions

Thursday is Veteran's Day.  And while I don't know many veterans (ok...I only know maybe one or two), I do know how important this day is to all veterans and families and friends.  And after watching TV last night, I now know how important this day is to advertisers and local restaurants. 

If you are a veteran and you go to Outback Steakhouse on Thursday, you get a FREE bloomin onion. How awesome is that veterans?  You put your life on the line everyday and you get an onion.  Damn, you are lucky. 

Also, if you are a veteran, and you want to go to The Golden Corral buffet restaurant, you get a FREE meal. That's right.  Strap on those prosthetic legs and let go of your PTSD for a day, and get yourself a plate filled wtih corn, fried chicken, mashed potatoes and spagetti (that is at least what I get at buffets).  Even Gary Sinese is doing it.  And I'm pretty sure he only played a veteran in a movie. 

I'm not making light of veterans and the struggles they face when they return home. I'm just saying, you might want to skip your parades and get some free food. Something to think about. 

Oh-oh-oprah

I have decided that this year I am going to record Oprah every day because this is her last year on the air and I figure the stories are going to be really good.  Last week I was watching an episode with Pam Smart and with every commercial Oprah kept telling us about this family that was the bravest family she has ever met (AND they were WHITE!) and how they had a miracle we just had to stay tuned for.  So I waited and waited all weekend to watch it and last night I watched it.  It was about a family who lost all three children in a car accident. I waited 30 minutes for the miracle, which I guessed because lets be honest, anyone could have guessed the miracle.  They had triplets a year after the accident.  What got my blood pumping though was not Oprah shedding tears, or her bringing it back to herself and how this story eventually was really just about her.  What got my blood pumping was at the end we find out that the family had over $291,000 in legal fees and Oprah shakes their hands and says, "Thank you for sharing your story."  AND DOESN'T GIVE THEM ANY MONEY!  In what planet does this make sense?  Pay their billls Oprah. For the love of God.  One of your shoes and one of your diamond earrings would have covered this! 

Mis-A-Lie-ND

So it's been awhile since I've blogged.  I've also been annoyed and stressed and my back has shooting pains running through it down my leg and I just spend $300 for a chiro to take xrays and tell me that I've been misaligned for over 25 years.  I can't even begin to explain the irony of that one.  Then he did a quick pop and that cost $25 and I still have shooting pains down my spine.  I could have had 4 massages at this point for what I just spent for that!  Now I have to go back two more times this week and if my back doesn't feel better by Friday, I'm going to lose it. How many times am I supposed to pay $25 for him to pop me for two seconds?  I could have had MASSAGES.  I get so bent out of shape when I am stressed...literally!  I'm bent out of shape. 

What size is your pretzel?

Saturday I decided that I needed to get my culture-on. It was a beautiful Saturday and it was open studio time in the South End.  I would like to fancy myself a cultured art person. I am a very creative person and I always have thousands of ideas streaming around my head of things I can do creatively.  So going to open studios always fuels this.  Ok, you caught me...I've only gone to open studios once in my life before.  But, I feel like open studios would fuel that.

So a friend and I decided to take the day to venture to open studios. It started with a beautiful sign outside that said "free parking".  You can't get much more artistic in the South End of Boston in my book than that.

When you walk into people's lofts and see their idea of art, it can always be a little challenging for someone as sarcastic as myself.  Especially someone who doesn't understand how a white canvas with a piece of hair on it at the MOMA can be considered contemporary art.  If that was contemporary art, you could call my purse art with the stuff you find in that on a daily basis.

At first, I went in thinking I would stand and look at people's work all serious..with my hand on my chin.  I would be quiet.  That lasted about 15 seconds until I realized that these artists were not only selling art; but they were giving away free food.  And it was like each artist was not only competing on their work and selling their work.  Yeah, yeah....any artist would tell you they are not competing. They are doing "their own thing"...WRONG.  You are always competing.  And how do I know this?  Because of the food.

All artists thought they needed to give out pretzels.  All. Of. Them.  Some had little pretzels. Some had full on pretzel sticks.  That is like the rich houses you go to on Halloween who give out full Snicker bars.  I totally bought a pair of earrings from the guys who also gave out the full pretzel sticks and starbursts.  All of them had hummus and spritzer water too.

We finally left after a couple of hours of art peeping, about 20 different postcards from artists that were also free, which I can in turn frame for free art and a stomach full of pretzels and I turned to my friend and said, "wow...there are a lot of white people here."

Honestly, I have to ask myself how some of these people afford to work in these studios. My guess.  Trust funds.  Not that these people aren't creative or that they don't derserve everything they have.  But honeslty, let's not kid ourselves thinking that cutting pictures from magazines and making framed pictures allows you to afford a loft like this.  If that is the case, I am doing something really really really wrong.  I thought it would have been funny to bring a fan into that studio. 

That is what I learned at open studios. That white people like art, pretzels, bubble water and overpriced canvases that make their exposed brick apartments more appealing.