Welcome to speed blogging. What is that you ask? I respond by saying it is when I write down something in the five minutes before the oven goes off, signaling that the freshly baking cookies are now ready to take out and eat. If speed blogging is something other than that, I don't know because there isn't even time to google it and find out.
I just spent about a minute there trying to think about what to write about. And now the oven's going off. But this totally counts as a blog post and who knows, maybe later I'll have time to make something better.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Geeky things just sort of happen to me
Sigh.
I had hoped so much that I had a better picture of this cake.
But I've searched through my picture archives and apparently I didn't think to start taking pictures until AFTER the cake was being cut.
Now, the story goes like this. During my college days, I worked for the bakeshop at the local Jewel. I didn't get to decorate cakes - I was more the person who baked the cookies and bread and pies and stuff and put them out on the shelves. I also got to frost brownies and cupcakes.
I did decorate a thing or two here and there. One of my first decorations was a dragon to celebrate, I don't know, a birthday or something. In any case, I think I drew Onyxia, but I can't say for certain. Also, I don't have a picture of that to back up any claims, so we'll move right along.
My brother Benny graduated from high school one year, as these things happen in the ever forward march of time. He was kind enough to ask me to decorate his cake instead of having an actual professional do it. I asked him what his specifications were, and he wrote me a list. And then I created this:
In case you couldn't guess, the high school colors are blue and orange. The little dent in the top of the cake is from where there had been a paper diploma.
And yes, it does say Merry Graduation.
And yes, you do win geek points if you guess what year my brother graduated. The knife might have messed the number up slightly, but all of them are showing.
My favorite moment of the night was when not one - not two - but three of his friends whipped out their pocket calculators to check and make sure I got the number right. I mean, they just whipped out those calculators like it wasn't even odd to bring your calculator to a party.
That gets a thumbs up from me.
I had hoped so much that I had a better picture of this cake.
But I've searched through my picture archives and apparently I didn't think to start taking pictures until AFTER the cake was being cut.
Now, the story goes like this. During my college days, I worked for the bakeshop at the local Jewel. I didn't get to decorate cakes - I was more the person who baked the cookies and bread and pies and stuff and put them out on the shelves. I also got to frost brownies and cupcakes.
I did decorate a thing or two here and there. One of my first decorations was a dragon to celebrate, I don't know, a birthday or something. In any case, I think I drew Onyxia, but I can't say for certain. Also, I don't have a picture of that to back up any claims, so we'll move right along.
My brother Benny graduated from high school one year, as these things happen in the ever forward march of time. He was kind enough to ask me to decorate his cake instead of having an actual professional do it. I asked him what his specifications were, and he wrote me a list. And then I created this:
 |
| Just, uh... just take it all in. |
And yes, it does say Merry Graduation.
And yes, you do win geek points if you guess what year my brother graduated. The knife might have messed the number up slightly, but all of them are showing.
My favorite moment of the night was when not one - not two - but three of his friends whipped out their pocket calculators to check and make sure I got the number right. I mean, they just whipped out those calculators like it wasn't even odd to bring your calculator to a party.
That gets a thumbs up from me.
 |
| Just, uh - don't take in the messy bookcase behind me. |
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Gym Class
Continuing the competitive theme that I've been working to weave into my narrative this week, I figured I'd share some insightful tidbits from my high school gym classes.
I used to pride myself on being the fastest runner in my class, as long as you excluded anyone who was on a sports team, and especially anyone on the track team.
I was the girl who insisted on playing football and field hockey with the guy's team. (What, you never had a sexist gym teacher that insisted on separating the boys and the girls? I loved it because girls typically stand around in gym class trying to avoid mussing their hair). Oh, I wasn't good at sports, but it was much more fun with the guys. I might have cheated somewhat though. Being that I've always been a twig of a human being, I suspect the guys might have gone easy on me and avoided the body checks that hockey can lend itself to when you're fighting for control of the puck.
During one unit of swimming class, I had a gym teacher who insisted that every person start the class by jumping off the diving board. You might not know this, but I don't swim - or float - very well. Luckily, after a quick conversation with the teacher, I got to the root of this rule - he didn't want students trying to keep their hair dry all period - and I made a compromise whereby I would go to the shallow end of the pool and dunk my head under the water while everyone else showed off their amazing ability to float on the scary end of the pool.
My high school designated Tuesdays and Thursdays as cardio days. That meant that instead of having normal gym class, there were a bunch of different activities you could do for the period, such as running around the track, basketball, tennis when the weather was nice, rock climbing - really whatever sports they felt like setting up for that day. The basic premise was based on how many laps you ran during the official 12 minute run at the start of the semester - if you ran enough laps, you didn't have to do the cardio activity and could do another sport. If you didn't run enough laps, Tuesdays and Thursdays sucked.
I enjoyed running alright, even though I wasn't great at it, but through a series of events that, to be honest, I can't even remember how they got started, my friends and I campaigned to have DDR added as a cardio day event. The gym teacher coordinator even looked into getting some actual machines, but as you might guess, those were out for budgetary reasons. So he got some of the hard mats you can buy online and set up a time for a demonstration. Because I have such amazing DDR skillz, I got taken out of my 5th period class to go down to the gym and demonstrate DDR for faculty from both my school and others in the district.
It didn't make me nervous. This is what spending my weekends in the arcade had prepared me for - showing off for large groups of people who think I'm doing something awesome but don't actually know that there are so many people who are so much better than me.
But I enjoyed every moment of it. It was one of those rare times when I got to show off a "skill" I had worked so hard on in a situation that I never thought would occur. I kept grinning like a happy maniac the entire time. Just relating that story puts a smile on my face - and a twitch into my feet.
Well, now I want to dance!
Just kidding. DDR is not dancing. But I'd still like to play a round.
I used to pride myself on being the fastest runner in my class, as long as you excluded anyone who was on a sports team, and especially anyone on the track team.
I was the girl who insisted on playing football and field hockey with the guy's team. (What, you never had a sexist gym teacher that insisted on separating the boys and the girls? I loved it because girls typically stand around in gym class trying to avoid mussing their hair). Oh, I wasn't good at sports, but it was much more fun with the guys. I might have cheated somewhat though. Being that I've always been a twig of a human being, I suspect the guys might have gone easy on me and avoided the body checks that hockey can lend itself to when you're fighting for control of the puck.
During one unit of swimming class, I had a gym teacher who insisted that every person start the class by jumping off the diving board. You might not know this, but I don't swim - or float - very well. Luckily, after a quick conversation with the teacher, I got to the root of this rule - he didn't want students trying to keep their hair dry all period - and I made a compromise whereby I would go to the shallow end of the pool and dunk my head under the water while everyone else showed off their amazing ability to float on the scary end of the pool.
My high school designated Tuesdays and Thursdays as cardio days. That meant that instead of having normal gym class, there were a bunch of different activities you could do for the period, such as running around the track, basketball, tennis when the weather was nice, rock climbing - really whatever sports they felt like setting up for that day. The basic premise was based on how many laps you ran during the official 12 minute run at the start of the semester - if you ran enough laps, you didn't have to do the cardio activity and could do another sport. If you didn't run enough laps, Tuesdays and Thursdays sucked.
I enjoyed running alright, even though I wasn't great at it, but through a series of events that, to be honest, I can't even remember how they got started, my friends and I campaigned to have DDR added as a cardio day event. The gym teacher coordinator even looked into getting some actual machines, but as you might guess, those were out for budgetary reasons. So he got some of the hard mats you can buy online and set up a time for a demonstration. Because I have such amazing DDR skillz, I got taken out of my 5th period class to go down to the gym and demonstrate DDR for faculty from both my school and others in the district.
It didn't make me nervous. This is what spending my weekends in the arcade had prepared me for - showing off for large groups of people who think I'm doing something awesome but don't actually know that there are so many people who are so much better than me.
But I enjoyed every moment of it. It was one of those rare times when I got to show off a "skill" I had worked so hard on in a situation that I never thought would occur. I kept grinning like a happy maniac the entire time. Just relating that story puts a smile on my face - and a twitch into my feet.
Well, now I want to dance!
Just kidding. DDR is not dancing. But I'd still like to play a round.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Back to being unconfident
It's only taken me about two months, but I'm already feeling as though everything I type has been typed before somewhere else. So what the heck? I'm going to rehash a topic I've already talked about myself!
You might remember me talking about my undying need to prove myself via arbitrary rewards and I thought of another story in that same vein.
Maybe a few stories. Anyhow, I think this need is part of a larger picture - a blend of stubbornness and a ridiculous competitive streak.
For example, when I was in physics in high school, I had a pretty awesome teacher for half the year. This teacher balanced delicately between nerd and punk. Maybe mostly nerd and unintentional punk would be a better description. Regardless, his class was fun to go to and the experiments he had us do were always something amusing.
One day - I think it was around November because I was wearing this vivid pink sweater - I walked into the classroom for some first period physics and saw something that made my morning. There, in front of the lab section of the room was a large bed of nails on top of one of the lab tables. Without knowing it, my new goal in life (ok, for the morning anyhow) was to get to lie down on this uninviting surface.
The chance came near the end of class. After a lecture that probably had something to do with why the nails wouldn't stab you if you were careful, the teacher called for any volunteers to give it a try.
I won't lie; my hand was in the air before he got his sentence out. No one else put their hand up. Some of the girls even looked apprehensive about the whole event.
"Danielle," my teacher said, looking at me - and my bright pink fluffy sweater, "I'd be afraid that your sweater would get caught."
My sweater was the least of my worries and I was very thankful that I had worn a t-shirt underneath because as he finished speaking, I called out, "No, I still want to try." I pulled off my sweater, ignored the way it messed up my ponytail and practically stood out of my seat. "Let me try!"
I knew that once someone went, more people would start volunteering and some part of my brain told me that if I didn't go first, other people might think that I was a copy cat.
The actual experience of lying down on a bed of nails is nothing very exciting. For boring reasons, there is not much chance of hurting yourself unless you sit up too fast or roll on your side or press your hand against a nail. It was almost like a bit of a massage.
It was awesome.
As predicted, many more people raised their hand and wanted to try it and I felt proud of myself for leading the way.
And now, looking back at it, I see the ridiculousness of it all.
But that didn't stop me several years ago when, in high school (of course) biology class, our project was breeding fruit flies with specific traits. If you've ever bred fruit flies or had fruit flies in class for whatever reason, you'll remember that they are typically kept in tubes with an oatmeal based food product (usually dyed a fantastic blue to provide a color contrast against which to easily view the flying bugs).
One day, after introducing new flies from one tube to new flies from another tube, we each had a fruit fly tube full of dead flies and fly food to clean out. The guys at the lab table behind me were daring one another to try the food.
"I'll give you twenty bucks," one said.
The other shook his head. "No way."
"I'll throw in five," said another.
This seemed to bring the pot to a number more suited to the one guy eating stale fly food and spurred my ridiculous competitive nature.
I turned to them and said, "Hey. Why waste your money on him? I'll do it for 10 bucks."
They looked at me like I was crazy and my lab partner looked at me like I was crazy. I shrugged. Ten dollars is ten dollars, I figured.
Sadly, the guys did not take me up on my offer. As far as I know, they did not end up paying the other guy to eat any either and this satisfied me; I felt as though I had accomplished a grand task.
Again, looking back, I'm not sure what the hell was (...is) wrong with me.
You might remember me talking about my undying need to prove myself via arbitrary rewards and I thought of another story in that same vein.
Maybe a few stories. Anyhow, I think this need is part of a larger picture - a blend of stubbornness and a ridiculous competitive streak.
For example, when I was in physics in high school, I had a pretty awesome teacher for half the year. This teacher balanced delicately between nerd and punk. Maybe mostly nerd and unintentional punk would be a better description. Regardless, his class was fun to go to and the experiments he had us do were always something amusing.
One day - I think it was around November because I was wearing this vivid pink sweater - I walked into the classroom for some first period physics and saw something that made my morning. There, in front of the lab section of the room was a large bed of nails on top of one of the lab tables. Without knowing it, my new goal in life (ok, for the morning anyhow) was to get to lie down on this uninviting surface.
 |
| It's like a TempurPedic except the exact opposite. |
The chance came near the end of class. After a lecture that probably had something to do with why the nails wouldn't stab you if you were careful, the teacher called for any volunteers to give it a try.
I won't lie; my hand was in the air before he got his sentence out. No one else put their hand up. Some of the girls even looked apprehensive about the whole event.
"Danielle," my teacher said, looking at me - and my bright pink fluffy sweater, "I'd be afraid that your sweater would get caught."
My sweater was the least of my worries and I was very thankful that I had worn a t-shirt underneath because as he finished speaking, I called out, "No, I still want to try." I pulled off my sweater, ignored the way it messed up my ponytail and practically stood out of my seat. "Let me try!"
I knew that once someone went, more people would start volunteering and some part of my brain told me that if I didn't go first, other people might think that I was a copy cat.
The actual experience of lying down on a bed of nails is nothing very exciting. For boring reasons, there is not much chance of hurting yourself unless you sit up too fast or roll on your side or press your hand against a nail. It was almost like a bit of a massage.
It was awesome.
As predicted, many more people raised their hand and wanted to try it and I felt proud of myself for leading the way.
And now, looking back at it, I see the ridiculousness of it all.
But that didn't stop me several years ago when, in high school (of course) biology class, our project was breeding fruit flies with specific traits. If you've ever bred fruit flies or had fruit flies in class for whatever reason, you'll remember that they are typically kept in tubes with an oatmeal based food product (usually dyed a fantastic blue to provide a color contrast against which to easily view the flying bugs).
 |
| Pictured: Food-like substance. Kind of. |
One day, after introducing new flies from one tube to new flies from another tube, we each had a fruit fly tube full of dead flies and fly food to clean out. The guys at the lab table behind me were daring one another to try the food.
"I'll give you twenty bucks," one said.
The other shook his head. "No way."
"I'll throw in five," said another.
This seemed to bring the pot to a number more suited to the one guy eating stale fly food and spurred my ridiculous competitive nature.
I turned to them and said, "Hey. Why waste your money on him? I'll do it for 10 bucks."
They looked at me like I was crazy and my lab partner looked at me like I was crazy. I shrugged. Ten dollars is ten dollars, I figured.
Sadly, the guys did not take me up on my offer. As far as I know, they did not end up paying the other guy to eat any either and this satisfied me; I felt as though I had accomplished a grand task.
Again, looking back, I'm not sure what the hell was (...is) wrong with me.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Blogging Through October
Well, the countdown to NaNoWriMo is officially out of the "month" category and into the "day" category, with a little over 28 days until I will be attempting to write a 50k word story about, well, I think vampires. So in order to get used to hitting the keyboard until words come out, I have promised myself that I will post every day this month.
I can't promise it will be pretty. Or coherent. And it might even be somewhat unrelevant. I might just write down words that have similar sounds like belligerent or intelligent or possibly malevolent and then try to figure out what connects those words. I feel like somehow, it will make me a better person.
Now I can't give away too much about my soon to be awesome novel that I will work on in November, except to say that it won't be a vampire romance - probably. My main character is going to be a biochemist though, I think, so I can almost guarantee the novel will be factually inaccurate. There will be time for fact checking later!
Also, I'm trying to think about the setting. I want it to be modern day so that biochemistry is a thing, but I feel like it might be cheating. So then I want to set it in a modern day style fantasy world but then I think that people would think that's cheating too. So it's a good thing I have at least 28 days to think about this, because I'm going to need them.
I can't promise it will be pretty. Or coherent. And it might even be somewhat unrelevant. I might just write down words that have similar sounds like belligerent or intelligent or possibly malevolent and then try to figure out what connects those words. I feel like somehow, it will make me a better person.
Now I can't give away too much about my soon to be awesome novel that I will work on in November, except to say that it won't be a vampire romance - probably. My main character is going to be a biochemist though, I think, so I can almost guarantee the novel will be factually inaccurate. There will be time for fact checking later!
Also, I'm trying to think about the setting. I want it to be modern day so that biochemistry is a thing, but I feel like it might be cheating. So then I want to set it in a modern day style fantasy world but then I think that people would think that's cheating too. So it's a good thing I have at least 28 days to think about this, because I'm going to need them.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Bye bye weekend. It was good to know you!
The weekend is winding down and as I'm enjoying my evening watching Super Troopers, the voice at the back of my brain is reminding me that another work week is about to start up and that in less than 12 hours, I'll be back at my desk.
This annoys me. Not because I don't like my job - my job is decent and the people I work with are very nice. No, what annoys me is that my brain doesn't understand that I don't need to think about work at this moment. I could just enjoy the evening and the ridiculous movie and then go to sleep; I'd have a good evening and then a restful sleep and then go to work ready to kick butt - well, by kick butt I mean "do work appropriate and related activities" - and everything is perfect.
But no. My brain says "it is panic mode time. You have work in under 12 hours so you must start preparing from this minute forward. What will you wear this week? What will you bring for your lunches? Do you know where your cell phone charger is? Can you accurately predict everything that your manager will ask you to do tomorrow?"
This is probably why at least 75% of my Sunday night dreams involve me being late for work and desperately trying to get to work but being unable to get there.
Maybe that's a lie. It's probably closer to 90%.
This is probably also why when I worked part time, I preferred morning shifts to evening shifts - when I had an evening shift, the whole other part of my day was marred by knowing I had to go to work and worrying that I would be late and unprepared if I did anything like go to the mall or hang out with friends.
Originally this was supposed to be a rant about house buying shows where people are unsatisfied with kitchens because the appliances are black instead of stainless steel, but I guess that's going to be for another day, since all of my clocks are starting to look like kinda messed up and it's making it hard to concentrate and write.
This annoys me. Not because I don't like my job - my job is decent and the people I work with are very nice. No, what annoys me is that my brain doesn't understand that I don't need to think about work at this moment. I could just enjoy the evening and the ridiculous movie and then go to sleep; I'd have a good evening and then a restful sleep and then go to work ready to kick butt - well, by kick butt I mean "do work appropriate and related activities" - and everything is perfect.
But no. My brain says "it is panic mode time. You have work in under 12 hours so you must start preparing from this minute forward. What will you wear this week? What will you bring for your lunches? Do you know where your cell phone charger is? Can you accurately predict everything that your manager will ask you to do tomorrow?"
This is probably why at least 75% of my Sunday night dreams involve me being late for work and desperately trying to get to work but being unable to get there.
Maybe that's a lie. It's probably closer to 90%.
This is probably also why when I worked part time, I preferred morning shifts to evening shifts - when I had an evening shift, the whole other part of my day was marred by knowing I had to go to work and worrying that I would be late and unprepared if I did anything like go to the mall or hang out with friends.
Originally this was supposed to be a rant about house buying shows where people are unsatisfied with kitchens because the appliances are black instead of stainless steel, but I guess that's going to be for another day, since all of my clocks are starting to look like kinda messed up and it's making it hard to concentrate and write.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
That one time I saw santa
About half a month ago, I had mentioned the wonderful upper peninsula of Michigan and how during my childhood, I had a lot of fond memories of snow and a lot of less fond memories about being sick and throwing more times than I care to count. Looking back on it now, I see that my parents were just doing the best they could to iron clad my immune system as a young child by exposing me to different strains of germs all year round. Thanks to them, I haven't thrown up in over six years because every time my body gets the flu or whatever, it laughs at how weak those germs are compared to the probably eight different flu strains I would fight off visiting my 25+ (at the time. This number has since gone up) cousins all those years back.
I paid for this superpower with somewhat less enjoyable Christmases my first half decade or so of life. I can say truthfully that I don't even remember most of those years, so it is totally a trade off I can agree with. Plus, one year I saw Santa and everything! Ok, no, that's a lie. I only saw Santa - not one single reindeer.
Before all of my siblings were born, my family used to go up to Michigan for Christmas a lot. This year, the year before my first brother was born, it was just me and my sister. We got up to Michigan a few days before Christmas, and I had a blast the first day, playing out in the snow outside until my mom deemed it necessary for me to come in and warm up my hands.
I was about three and I was tired from a long day of play, so I happily agreed to go inside. We were at my grandparent's house, which was a wonderfully old relic of the UP's copper mining days. The house wasn't big by any means - the first floor had a small kitchen, living room, sitting area and the only bathroom in the house (and did I mention that my mom grew up in this house with seven siblings? They knew the meaning of patience).
When you first entered the house, the entry way could lead straight through to the kitchen, you could turn right into the living room, or you could go up the steep, steep stairs that probably break some sort of building code these days. The first time I went up those stairs, I was so scared to go back down that my parents finally had to have me sit down and slide my way off each step to the next one.
That day, I went into the living room after shedding my snow-covered outerwear and sat down on the couch for a few minutes, thinking about what to do next. I heard my mom go down the short hallway to the kitchen.
And then The Feeling struck. You know? That awful feeling you get when your stomach decides that whatever it has inside it needs to come back up? The Feeling you get when your body lets you know that the next few moments are going to be less than pleasant for you.
I moved quickly. I went from the living room through the small sitting area to the other entrance of the kitchen, where my mom was sitting at the table with my grandma and dad, drinking hot chocolate.
"I don't feel good." I managed, and then threw up all over the linoleum.
~~~
That Christmas found me lying on the couch in the living room, wrapped up in my grandma's warm homemade blankets. I vaguely remembered that there was presents, and I tried to be excited for them, but I didn't have the strength to go to the tree and look. My mom brought me my present from under the tree, but even then, I found I didn't have the energy to open it, so she opened it for me and I kind of smiled at the toy but really I was just falling back asleep.
Several years later, when I found out that (spoiler alert) Santa is not real, I had this following conversation with my mom:
Me: Well I guess that makes sense, but there is an issue. I remember seeing Santa one year.
Mom: When was that?
Me: You know, when I was three or something and really sick, so I spent the night on the couch instead of upstairs. I kept waking up during the night and then one time, when I opened my eyes, I saw Santa putting presents under the tree. I remember the bright red outfit.
My mom looked confused and then laughed. She said, "You know how I own that red sweatshirt?"
I nodded. The "five star sweatshirt" was a favorite and my dad loved to say my mom wore it because she rated all five stars. The five star wife and mom.
"I had a pair of red sweatpants that I would wear too, and I was wearing those when we were up north that year. I hate to say it, but I think all you saw was me."
My mind worked to process this. Yes, it made sense that a fever-hazed brain would convert that image in such a way. It was a logical leap to be expecting Santa all in red and assuming anyone who wore red and put presents under the tree was therefore him. A little bit of magic seemed to silently drain away from the holiday, but it was quickly replaced by a realization.
"Does that mean that I can eat some of the cookies we leave out after everyone else goes to bed?!"
I have since inherited the red sweatshirt and though it is old and worn out, it's one of my favorite sweatshirts to wear during the holiday season.
I paid for this superpower with somewhat less enjoyable Christmases my first half decade or so of life. I can say truthfully that I don't even remember most of those years, so it is totally a trade off I can agree with. Plus, one year I saw Santa and everything! Ok, no, that's a lie. I only saw Santa - not one single reindeer.
Before all of my siblings were born, my family used to go up to Michigan for Christmas a lot. This year, the year before my first brother was born, it was just me and my sister. We got up to Michigan a few days before Christmas, and I had a blast the first day, playing out in the snow outside until my mom deemed it necessary for me to come in and warm up my hands.
I was about three and I was tired from a long day of play, so I happily agreed to go inside. We were at my grandparent's house, which was a wonderfully old relic of the UP's copper mining days. The house wasn't big by any means - the first floor had a small kitchen, living room, sitting area and the only bathroom in the house (and did I mention that my mom grew up in this house with seven siblings? They knew the meaning of patience).
When you first entered the house, the entry way could lead straight through to the kitchen, you could turn right into the living room, or you could go up the steep, steep stairs that probably break some sort of building code these days. The first time I went up those stairs, I was so scared to go back down that my parents finally had to have me sit down and slide my way off each step to the next one.
That day, I went into the living room after shedding my snow-covered outerwear and sat down on the couch for a few minutes, thinking about what to do next. I heard my mom go down the short hallway to the kitchen.
And then The Feeling struck. You know? That awful feeling you get when your stomach decides that whatever it has inside it needs to come back up? The Feeling you get when your body lets you know that the next few moments are going to be less than pleasant for you.
I moved quickly. I went from the living room through the small sitting area to the other entrance of the kitchen, where my mom was sitting at the table with my grandma and dad, drinking hot chocolate.
"I don't feel good." I managed, and then threw up all over the linoleum.
~~~
That Christmas found me lying on the couch in the living room, wrapped up in my grandma's warm homemade blankets. I vaguely remembered that there was presents, and I tried to be excited for them, but I didn't have the strength to go to the tree and look. My mom brought me my present from under the tree, but even then, I found I didn't have the energy to open it, so she opened it for me and I kind of smiled at the toy but really I was just falling back asleep.
Several years later, when I found out that (spoiler alert) Santa is not real, I had this following conversation with my mom:
Me: Well I guess that makes sense, but there is an issue. I remember seeing Santa one year.
Mom: When was that?
Me: You know, when I was three or something and really sick, so I spent the night on the couch instead of upstairs. I kept waking up during the night and then one time, when I opened my eyes, I saw Santa putting presents under the tree. I remember the bright red outfit.
My mom looked confused and then laughed. She said, "You know how I own that red sweatshirt?"
I nodded. The "five star sweatshirt" was a favorite and my dad loved to say my mom wore it because she rated all five stars. The five star wife and mom.
"I had a pair of red sweatpants that I would wear too, and I was wearing those when we were up north that year. I hate to say it, but I think all you saw was me."
My mind worked to process this. Yes, it made sense that a fever-hazed brain would convert that image in such a way. It was a logical leap to be expecting Santa all in red and assuming anyone who wore red and put presents under the tree was therefore him. A little bit of magic seemed to silently drain away from the holiday, but it was quickly replaced by a realization.
"Does that mean that I can eat some of the cookies we leave out after everyone else goes to bed?!"
I have since inherited the red sweatshirt and though it is old and worn out, it's one of my favorite sweatshirts to wear during the holiday season.
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