Wedding Countdown

Let me start off by saying that there might not be a wedding.  Currently, I'm braving the Nor'easter in Longmeadow, MA at Jack's house.  We're scheduled to leave tomorrow, but it seems that the weather might have something else in store for us.  I mean, they might as well black out the whole radar map and say "Nice try, travelers."

There's my disclaimer.  We all know the wedding won't go on without its number one most important guest, so let's put it out there in case something goes wrong.  Start making alternate plans, Kris.

A year ago, I was still processing this whole engagement thing.  Remember?  I had known my bedside table longer than Kristin and Ryan knew each other.  He had the AUDACITY to propose to my dear older sister without even MEETING me.  The nerve!

Now I'm so excited for the wedding of the century that I can barely contain myself.  I find myself squealing for no reason, practicing my maid of honor speech when I'm driving (which is dangerous because usually I start crying when I do so), and buying a lot of random presents off of the gift registry to ensure that they don't have to worry about things like not having a full set of matching soup bowls.  To try to calm my mind (and take it off of the blizzard warning), I've decided to make a list of the things I'm most excited about.

• Just being home.  Can't wait to see all the family.
• Watching my sister stand around calmly, asking why so many people think it's weird that she wants to eat Aniello's pizza for lunch on her wedding day.  Aren't brides supposed to be stressed out?
• Watching my mom freak out about how much glitter is coming off of the centerpieces.
• Watching my brother try to convince everyone that he doesn't have a girlfriend.
• The open bar.  Duh.
• Singing during Kristin and Ryan's first dance (yes, I'm still holding out for that).
• Kristin and Ryan's first dance, because I'm wondering how well those choreography lessons worked out for her.  After her first session, she kept counting "1, 2, 3" to every song she heard.

That's all I can think of now.  Remember, this is all contingent on my safe arrival upstate, so keep your fingers crossed for clear roads and the ability of Jack's snow tires.

And Of Course...

What would Christmas be without some Office quotes?  Getting Season Six on DVD really put me in the mood.

"'But what are we going to do with this hacked off part?'
'Well, that is a perfectly good mini-tree, Kevin. And we are going to sell that to charity. That's what Christmas is all about.'"

"Unbelievable. I do the nicest thing that anyone's ever done for these people and they freak-out. Well happy birthday Jesus, sorry your party's so lame."

"Presents are the best way to show someone how much you care. It is like this tangible thing that you can point to and say 'Hey man, I love you this many dollars worth.'"

And, saving the best for last...
"Christmas is awesome. First of all, you get to spend time with people you love. Secondly, you can get drunk and no one can say anything. Third, you give presents. What's better than giving presents? And fourth, getting presents. So, four things. Not bad for one day. It's really the greatest day of all time."

Cookie Cutter Christmas

Just got done watching Christmas Vacation for the first time, away from my family for the first time.  It made me think about what we expect out of the holidays and how well (or poorly) things live up to those expectations.  In the movie, Chevy Chase sets his hopes high for a big family Christmas, only to find everything going wrong.  In the end, though, he finds...

Well, I wouldn't know because the DVD was scratched.  See what I mean?

My parents love Christmas, if you don't remember from past holiday blogs.  It's actually a family-wide epidemic.  But I think we're all guilty of trying too hard to make things perfect.  One year, my dad got us a gingerbread house kit.  Most of my time was spent shoving gumdrops in my cheeks while no one was looking.  Kristin was just as fascinated by the random blinking of the Christmas tree lights.  After a few minutes of my father capturing us hastily attaching Necco wafers to our roofs with frosting, the video cuts out and then back in, with a time stamp of 2:08 am.  The finished homes looked pristine, sparkling in the light of the garlands that adorn the inside of my house from November to March.  A background narrator describes them in flowing, poetic language, sounding like a strange mix of James Earl Jones and Santa Clause.  Clearly, it was not the work of the ADD and childhood obesity Fiorillo elves, but rather that of their father, the beer-drinking elf with a knack for home improvement (even of the edible type).

When I first thought about this idea, it made me sort of sad.  It seems people are more likely to be disappointed with all this idealism.  But the more I thought about it, the more it made me think that it was why the holidays are so special to most people.  No matter who you are, Chevy Chase or Lou Fiorillo, you want the holidays to be perfect.  Sure, things are going to go wrong.  The favorite Christmas DVD is scratched.  Winter alerts screw up your travel plans.  The cookies get burnt.  The turkey is dry (or raw).  You end up compromising and fixing the things that go wrong, all in the name of a Christmas you can look back on with "perfect" memories.  In the end, it's all the effort behind the perfection that everyone remembers.  My family will never forget the Extreme Gingerbread Home Makeover my dad performed on our gingerbread houses, just like we'll never forget the drive of death in a white-out blizzard where all my brother did was point out the new minivan's feature of telling you when the tires were slipping ("Pa, you're slipping... SLIP!  You're still slipping!").  We remember not because the experience was perfect, but because it ended just fine.  And usually with a couple of festive cocktails.

So, in the spirit of Christmas, let go of those expectations.  Accept the bad roads and the awkwardly shaped cookies and the tipsy inappropriate grace at family dinners because those things are what make these times memorable and special.  Enjoy your time with the people you care about, people who are pretty awesome even without all the garland and carols and holiday cheer.  Merry Christmas everyone.

Holiday Spirit

Last Thursday, we had our school holiday program.  Nothing quite puts me in the Christmas mood like slightly tone-deaf renditions of non-denominational holiday songs such as "We Wish You a Merry Winter."  The intent was there, but I'm pretty sure if you're going to play "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" over the intercom during the art show and put a Christmas tree up in the main office, you might as well just sing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas."

Anyway, it got me thinking about all the wonderful things that make me feel like that little tangled hair girl in footie pajamas on Christmas morning when I was a kid.  A lot of them are missing now that I live in the South, where the average temperature in December is 47 degrees, but it doesn't stop me from being excited.

The Sounds
Harry Connick, Jr. and Hanson.  People are really quick to bash the Hanson CD and many will refuse to believe that their version of "What Christmas Means to Me" is better than U2's, but I will stand by that album until the day I die.

The Smells
Really cold air.  The kind of air that smells like snow.  I've only gotten a whiff of it once or twice down here, but I love that smell.

The Tastes
Everything tastes better around Christmas.  Maybe it's because people use the holidays as an excuse to eat whatever they want, but I'm not complaining.  For some reason, people seem to be carrying around high-fat goodies with them at all times, ready to pass them out to anyone that crosses their path.  My roommates and I have brought home more treats this month than any other time of year.  It's awesome.  Even the drinks are better- Starbucks Christmas blend coffee, hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps, egg nog... I even made chocolate pudding shots with Bailey's and Kahlua for a Christmas party the other night.  The only down side is that a lot of these drinks are made with milk, which means your hangover is about 7000 times worse the next day.

The Sights
One word- glitter.  Everything is sparkly.  I love it.

The only thing I need now is to get up to New England and see some snow.  Real, Christmas-y snow.  Then I'll be a happy girl.  Maybe I'll even put on the footy pajamas again.

Ke$ha is Ruining America

I try my very hardest to dislike Ke$ha.  I really do.  Every time she puts a new song on the radio, I listen to it and complain about how she's not even singing, and how her lyrics make no sense, blah blah blah.  Give me three days, though, and I'm maxing out the volume with my steering wheel volume control and busting out on the way to work (yes, at 5:15 am).

Today, though, I found something that might enable me to finally shun her horrible (yet so good) music from my ears.  When asking a child how many syllables he heard in necklace...

Long pause as he sings "We R Who We R" to himself

"Neck-a-lace! Three!!!"

Damn you.

My Life...

A student today stacking his group's notebooks-

"I'll let the girl go on top because it's the nice thing to do.... pause.  Miss Fiorillo, why are you chuckling?"

Sometimes I just can't keep it together.  Innuendos get me every time, even if they're unintentional and from the mouths of babes.  Is that sick?

Slap on the Hand

In the teaching world, it's called in action plan.  In real life, I think you could call it "the mom guilt trip" but either way, I'm in trouble.

Yes, yes, I'm referring to my blogging (or lack thereof).  Reading previous blogs had made me realize that it's not just that I'm blogging less often, but I'm writing shorter and less interesting posts.  Have I become jaded?  Am I now immune to the hilarity of my kids?  What happened?

Last year, my students never ceased to amaze me with the ridiculous things that they did.  One day it was asking me to blow in their eye, the next it was a kid drawing a picture that looked like a horrendous homicide/rape that turned out to be him getting stung by a bee (must have been traumatizing).  This year... none of that.  Maybe I'm SO focused on my improved instructional methods that I don't notice those little things anymore, or maybe they've ceased occurring because the only thing that happens in my room is student mastery of objectives.

I'm more inclined to believe that I'm paying less attention.

So what to blog about now that my life isn't a free fall of death and my kids are generally well-behaved and under control?  It's been difficult, especially being busy with all this extra "figuring out my career" thing.  There aren't very many quirky things about applying to law schools; in fact, it's probably one of the least exciting things to blog about.  I'm wondering if this is a normal progression- part of getting older and growing up.  Do you just naturally become more boring?  I hope not.  But when given a chance to poke fun at my life and the other people in it, one of my FAVORITE pastimes, I pass it up to play Web Sudoku or scrub my baseboards (okay, I've only done that once... but still).

The more I thought about it, the more I feel like our overall fun-ness fluctuates something like this:

I honestly think I'm going to have to wait until retirement to return to the fun level I was in college.  Not only will I not have to work, but I'll have all this money to spend on whatever I want.  Take my parents, for instance- retired (or close enough, anyway).  They are having a blast.  My dad just bought a new shower with 10 different settings, including one strangely similar to getting sprayed full blast by a hose.  They've turned the office into a bar, and have bought four flat screen LED TVs for three rooms in our downstairs.  Pretty soon, the attic will be turned into a dance club and my room will be the new hookah lounge.  Then there's my nana, who probably parties harder than most 22-year-old frat boys.  With all the money she saves on vodka with her mail-in rebates, she can pretty much do whatever she wants with her AWOL (Available Widows On the Loose) friends.

I should probably readjust my attitude, seeing that if I don't I'm sentencing myself to 30 years of very low life enjoyment, but I think I might be onto something.  Until then, I'll try to go back to noticing my students and all the crazy things they do so that the two most fun people I know (Mom and Nana) stop pointing out what a boring person I've become.