Thursday, December 15, 2005

Romans 6:23

You don't have to look it up. The quote is: "...the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." At least according to the gift bag the Balabusta picked up today at the mandatory teacher induction Christmas party for her public school district.

The Balabusta is in the process of doing a slow but full-scale Christmas freak-out/meltdown. Please understand, the Balabusta has got a weird relationship with this holiday, due to heavy Catholic cultural influence, plus Yiddishkeit, plus pop cultural overload, which all give conflicting messages very fast and make the Balabusta's head spin around, while she tries to simultaneously attend Midnight Mass, ignore the whole thing, and dodge the hordes of downtown shoppers as an incessant backbeat of "Feliz Navidad" and "The Little Drummer Boy" pounds in her head. As a result, she is finding all of DovBear's discussion of the evils of stupid Bill O'Reilly and his War Against the War on Christmas stuff very comforting.

So anyway. Kids in my morning core mad because they don't get a Christmas party. Kids in my afternoon core greedy for cookies. Left school, got lift to mandatory teacher induction Christmas party. Ate little quiches, and spicy jalapeno artichoke dip, and drank spiced wine. Was given a number and sent to pick a gft bag, which simply said Joyous Christmas on the front, but later turned out to have the Romans quote on the side. Contains a rather nice ceramic flask which looks like an eggplant, and some little eggplant soy sauce dishes. Unsure as to what the hell I will do with these things, but I suppose it's the thought that counts.

One of my paraprofessionals brought me a mug with snowpeople on it, and the other a bag of Chanukah gelt. The one coming tomorrow is Muslim, and hopefully has forgotten there's a holiday coming up...

Anyway, I left the mandatory party, but had to go to the school's staff Christmas party because the gentleman giving me the lift wanted to drop by. Went to second party. All the Jews gathered around the ham--the Balabusta had spanikopita--and discussed travel plans.

Got lift to BART. Took BART to Del Norte. Went to Staples and photocopied STUFF. Went to friends' home. Helped them pack kitchen stuff for upcoming move. Collected fella. Went to Target, bought cookies. Bought copy of Harry Potter DVD, since too much trouble to rent at this point. Went by McDonalds, got fella four cheeseburgers, came home. Balabusta made sandwich for self. Now blogging.

If I can just get through tomorrow without actually collapsing, I'll be home free.

By the way. The Balabusta has a vague memory of the Smothers Brothers having a routine featuring "MacNamara's Integrated Band". Does anyone have lyrics?

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