Today is winter solstice - the only place to go from here is up.



A happier Basra




Boys of summer

The new Cards Against Humanity trump card.

On Thursday Emily, Carrie, Lindsay, Julie and Andrew came over to decorate cookies with (e:terry) and I. Well I should say bake too, because I rode home so late I made Lindsay roll out the dough so we could bake them.

We used all my mom's cut outs and decorations including Bufanda, the holiday character no one knew about. For icing we made one out of eggnog and powdered sugar since we had no real milk. I was eating it out of the bowl by the end of the night.

I don't really have any pictures of them decorated because we ate them all while sang Usher and JoJo.




Bufanda the holiday character








All finished frosting

Every year, my family celebrates fesitvus, ala Seinfeld. Its basically a pointless holiday they made up in reaction to commericalism of Christmas, where you "air your grievances" with everyone. The tree is substituted with a metal pole, theres a weird dinner, and the night ends when the head of the household (in the case the dog) is pinned during a "feat of strength" . Its kind of hard to explain without having seen the episode but its bizarre and fun. Here's a website about it that looks like its stuck in the 90s as well.

On Wednesday, I picked up Mary from the train station (2 hours after it was supposed to arrive) after dropping off Alex (you owe me gurrrrl, next time its the 16 bus for you) and headed home for festivus. I was going to bring Terry but it got too late, which is too bad because my parents really wanted him to come. Dinner was a carbfest since my mom was sick - homemade mac and cheese, toasted raviloi, a big salad, bagels, and the biggest freaking snickers I've seen for dessert (eaten with a fork and knife - also Seinfeld).

I love my family but everytime we're all home together I realize how much we just scream, even in a regular conversation. I guess when you have that many people in a small space its what happens. Even Midnight barked like crazy the whole night.

I should have taken a picture of the grievances, they're the best part.

While running on Linwood yesterday I found this Russian cassette tape in the snow. First of all who in Buffalo is still listening to cassettes in English, much less Russian. I can't imagine its a huge demographic. And how did it end up in the street?

Google Translate says its labeled the "Aprelevka Order of Lenin Plant Records", 1990. Sounds like my jam. I would have kept it to confirm, but it smelled like a old lady perfume/car air freshener - almost as bad as the one I spilled in my car and (e:xandra) got all over her. I also don't know where I'd even find a tape player - maybe my parents house.

Update: looking around more I found that Aprelevka was a city in the USSR with the largest record factory in the country. The factory was called "The Order of Lenin" as sort of a title. So it must be a blank tape that was made there? Still weird! Wiki