28 December 08
By Crystal Laramore
Ohhh Santa!
Sooooo. Was everybody good this year? Did you all get what you wanted for Christmas? Did you get something you didn’t even know you wanted? Hopefully everyone had a surprise or two in their stocking. And for all you mean people out there…well, we hope you got what you deserve as well.
What about giving? Did you give some special gifts? Did you give some funny gifts? Those are my favorite. I love finding that perfect funny gift that makes me LOL IN the store! I gave my sister a compact mirror that read: Eat, Drink & Remarry! LOL! LOL! LOL!
I wonder if anyone who’s been reading my Blogs can guess what my predominant gift was this year to give-to my girlfriends… I’ll give you a hint: It was a book…Ok, I gave out several copies of “Why Men Love Bit*hes”. I giggled soooo much giving out those books to my girlfriends. And guys don’t get your tinsel in a tangle. Bit*h isn’t defined as you might think. No one wants to be around a traditional bit*h, but everyone wants to be around a self-assured woman who is not a doormat. Get the book. If you are a man, get the book for your woman. Or your daughter. Or your sister. Or your mother…
Face Book gave me an unexpected gift; they took a stand against women showing themselves breast-feeding their babies on their site. What IS the point of showing the world (what should be) a private moment between a woman and her newborn baby? No it’s NOT porn but some sicko out there will certainly turn something beautiful into something ugly. What is the big deal about keeping it off the big screen? Are we that narcissistic? Is there ANYTHING left (apparently not for the Left) that we want to keep sacred and private?
But I digress…a long time ago a woman I worked with was getting new carpet in her house for Christmas and the look on my face could have doubled on a horror flick. How impersonal! Doesn’t HE get to use the carpet TOO? Anyway it was what she wanted. It took me over twenty years to appreciate that. This Christmas I got an ice machine! Not only did mama get a brand new ice machine but also, Santa kicked the mean ice machine-man out of my restaurant! It was great! Scrooge vs. Santa. Santa won!
Another great Christmas gift I received this year was a box of Blue Diamond Organic crackers. Glutton-free too! I don’t really know what glutton is, but I do know it’s some really good stuff! So, whatever the Blue Diamond people are putting in their crackers, to make up for taking out the glutton, its working. I’ve been coveting my girlfriend Kathy’s crackers (no, not her big-a$ house, just her crack-ers) for so long that she bought me 87 boxes of various flavors of these addictive crack(hmmm)ers. Secretly, Kathy must wonder if I’m there to visit her or the crack-ers…I DO spend a lot of time in her pantry. Anyway, the presents you never even thought of are the ones that mean the most. I certainly think she was LOL IN the store!
Just a little side note: In all fairness, Kathy owes me all the crack-ers I can eat in my lifetime. When I was sad, depressed and barely hanging on by my chewed up fingernails, doing the ugly cry on the freeway one Sunday evening, I pulled over to pull it together and called my “friend” Kathy. See, when you are depressed you need to know where all of your friends live and you need to know all of their addictions so you can choose who will best fit your needs at any particular point in your meltdown/healing process. This particular night I needed wine and since my sister was and hour and half south, I called Kathy. And women all around the world know the ugly-must have wine- cry when they hear it.
And you need to choose girlfriends with really great husbands too. Ron (Kathy’s husband) built us a fire, told me what a *&(^%$ Richard was, drank a little wine (not too much or we’ll get pissed off that you’re into our stash) with us and then politely dismissed himself so we could trash the male species as a whole.
After we drank the case, err, I mean a few bottles of wine, Kathy showed me to my suite and made sure I was still breathing before she closed the door. When I awoke the next morning, sleepy, groggy and following the scent of coffee, I staggered down the long hallway to the great room. The 47 dogs she has rescued surrounded me and before I could really think I heard one of the dogs squawking really loud. Hmmm. What a strange noise to be coming from a dog…then I looked up just in time to see a 10-foot span of green feathers flying at me-Ahhh the squawking seems to be coming from the moving green thing-And the moving green thing is on my freaking head-BITING my freaking ear! Have you ever heard that girl that’s about to be killed in Friday the 13th scream? Well, Arthur did. I think it was the blood-curdling scream I had needed to get out for a while anyway. Pain and relief at the same time….Ahhhhh. So, for Christmas Arthur got a bullet from me, and it sits on top of his cage. Snicker.
Another great gift was the Copenhaver’s. On Saturday I had the door locked after lunch and Santa must have unlocked it just for Barry & Judy Copenhaver. We drank a few beers and visited and then they were off. They are the couple I wrote the “Respect” article about. I served with their daughter Jill in Baghdad, Iraq. Keep up. And on Tuesday Jill followed suit and the visit was complete!
Anyway, the most important gifts come from the heart. And I gave myself a gift as well; the gift of letting go. Richard got a Dear Jon (that is funnier than most of you know!) letter and I mailed “The Box”. The great thing about letting go is you can look back and realize that what you had wasn’t what you thought you were getting anyway. All the advice from your friends and family finally, after all those tears, makes sense. When the smoke signals settled and the wild look in my eyes calmed down, when the wild kitties and squirrels felt it was safe to return, I was able to look at the man I was crying over and realize I was crying over the idea of him, not him. People can tell you a lot of things but actions really do speak louder than words. Ladies, Gentlemen, KNOW what you want. And know when the show is over.
For decades I’ve told thousands of people, “Until you let go of the negative (no matter if it’s a job or a partner or a friend, or glutton…) you cannot make room for the positive”. As soon as I let go of the negative, the positive was right there; the positive energy, the positive thought process, the positive people, etc. “Let go and let God” is not just a pretty little phrase. It’s what I did and I’m grateful, soooo grateful for the people God put in my life to help me through such a difficult time. Ok, THEY may not be so grateful, but sacrifices do have to be made in the name of love and friendship! And thank GOD they love me!
I spent some time looking back over some of their wisdom-filled emails they wrote over the last several months and just LMAO! What’s that song…”I can see clearly now the rain is gone…”? It’s like Dah! And really (truly) I’m not bitter… Bitterness leads to Botox people!
Merry Christmas AC, Deb, Laura, Greg, Jacqueline, Kathy, Ron, Dale (AKA Santa), Bill, Bob and yes, even you Richard.
Match.com: 120.00/year
Dinner with an idiot: Free
Letting go: Priceless
