Way too much coffee. But if it weren't for the coffee, I'd have no identifiable personality whatsoever. (David Letterman)

Last weekend I found the neatest little restaurant. I had dropped off my daughter to work but didn't want to go too far, just in case she got out early. (As it turned out, I was right to be concerned about this. But that's an entirely different story.) So after dropping off Becka, I went in search of someplace with coffee.

On US 1 (Federal Highway) in Lake Park, there is a tiny Dunkin Donuts Restaurant. I've passed it before, and admired the giant coffee cup on the roof. This was the first time I've stopped in. You can get coffee and donuts, just like a regular Dunkin Donuts. Or you can be seated in the diner area and enjoy something off the menu. The menu is limited, but gave me happy memories of eating at the diners of my childhood. It even looked like the diners of my childhood, with old vinyl booths.

The coffee was wonderful. I'm normally a vanilla latte or a cappuccino girl, but even though it was just plain coffee it was delicious. I'm still trying to decide about the biscuits and gravy. The biscuits were fine, and the gravy was perfect (nice and peppery). But obviously the cook was not southern, despite the perfectly seasoned white gravy, because it was served over sausage patties instead of using bulk sausage in the sauce. I just pushed the patties to the side, and enjoyed the rest of it.

The service was nice. There were a lot of regulars when I was there, and the waitress laughed joked with everyone. Even the tourists (a real nice family visiting from England) were quickly labeled "family" and we all ended up talking across the aisle.

The Dunkin Donuts Restuarant has been in Lake Park since the early 1960's. It's a very cute little place, and is worth a stop for breakfast on your way to the beach.

Silly is you in a natural state, and serious is something you have to do until you can get silly again. (Mike Meyers)

Mom came down this afternoon to have a cup of coffee and a quick visit, and we ended up going out dinner. Actually she ended up staying until 10:30 pm, which was very late for "a quick visit," but that's what always seems to happen when we get together.

Anyway, I decided to have a Mojito Iced Tea with my meal. Despite the name, it's non-alcoholic; just a very minty green tea. It was delicious! I drank three glasses of it. When I told mom it was so good that I wanted to take a pitcher home with me, she looked at me a little strange but said, "Go ahead." It turns out that she thought I said I wanted to take a picture of the tea home with me and figured it was for the blog.

So here's my "Pitcher of Tea."

The rabbit ears are all Becka. She couldn't resist joining in on the fun. But then the cookies got jealous, so they showed off with mickey mouse ears.

It really was non-alcoholic. Honest!

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

The Good

1. Knit Picks Harmony interchangeable needles -- just about the best Christmas gift ever! This is definitely on my list of top three gifts, along with the big box of used paperbacks and the year of the BB gun and toe shoes.
   
2. Breakfast by Becka. She makes the best scrambled eggs; much better than mine. But I make better coffee.
   
3. Spending the afternoon knitting with Faith. Even if Starbucks closed early and we were left alone at the plaza.
   
4. Chocolate cherries and The Doctor, with no guilt since the kids were spending time with their father.
   

The Bad

1. I don't like spending holidays without my family. Cari is still in NY, the kids spent the day with their father, and because of Becka's work schedule I didn't get down to see my mom and sister.
   
2. Poor Becka had to work Christmas Eve and today. It's great that she has the hostessing job, but what an awful schedule for her first week of work.

The Ugly

1. My poor baby. And if this wasn't enough, her computer crashed.
   

Tis the day before Christmas...

How do sheep in Mexico say Merry Christmas?



* * *


"Fleece Navidad!"

I always have a quotation for everything, it saves original thinking. (Dorothy L Sayers)

I've been looking forward to talking about my progress this week. My Riva sweater is almost finished. I only have 763 stitches left, and then I get to seam up the sides. Of course, that stitch count includes 109 stitches that have to be picked up along the other armhole, so I'm not making any bets on how much longer it's going to take me. I really, really, really hate to pick up stitches.


I finished the Gypsy Monkey socks, and I totally love them. The color (Gypsy Rose) is beautiful, the yarn was wonderful to work with, and the pattern is definitely on my list of favorites.

As soon as I finished the Gypsy Monkeys, I cast on another pair of socks to carry around me. This time I'm doing them toe up, using one of my favorite "plain vanilla" patterns, Back to Basics. The yarn is Lion Brand Magic Stripes in the Bright Spring pattern. I started them Saturday morning, and by the afternoon I had already turned the heels. I figure that a little bit of knitting time this evening, and I'll be wearing them to work tomorrow.

She loves me, she loves me not.

This morning, Faith told me that she loved me. I showed her my socks, just to be sure, and she still loved me. It was a nice way to start the day.

About two hours later, Faith comes up and tells me, "I don't love you no more."

I had to ask, "Why not?"

"Because I don't want to." And with that, she walked off.

Sigh.

For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn? (Jane Austen)

It's taken me a couple of days to calm down enough to share this story. But now that I know there is a happy ending and everyone is safe, I can go ahead and talk about it.

My daughter called me Saturday night. I could hear terror in her voice from the very start. "Mommy, there's a giant spider in my room." Without giving it any thought, I immediately answered, "Then I won't ever be visiting you again." (I am not ashamed to admit that I am terrified of spiders.)

My daughter persisted. "It's really, really big and ugly. Do something!"

Now, first of all, all three of my children have been raised with the express purpose of killing any and all spiders for me. (Truly, I'm phobic.) Second, she is in NYC and I'm in southern Florida -- way too far away to be of any use, even if I wasn't planning to run even further away from the spider. So I did the only thing I could: whined at her to kill it quickly.

Maybe I shouldn't admit that I was already hyperventilating at the thought of this spider. I mean, she's had to deal with spiders for me all her life. She's used to them. So if this one scared her, it must have been especially scary. She probably would have been better calling her brother or sister. Or even her grandmother.

But it was my little girl, calling me for help. So as I gasped for breath, I decided to put my big girl panties on and be the mom she needed me to be. I offered her the only advice I could, based on my past experiences.

Oven cleaner.

Don't laugh, it works. And it can be sprayed from a distance, which is mandatory if there isn't anyone else around.

My only other offering was to move out of the apartment and find a house without spiders -- something I have also been known to do in the past.

We're Americans, we don't plan, we do! (Night at the Museum 2)

I had planned on updating my knitting projects today. A little bit of bragging was called for, since I've actually finished a project. (Okay, I finished three projects but only one was worth bragging about.)

But my son came home from work with the Night of the Museum 2. I decided instead of sitting in front of the computer, I would join the kids in watching the movie. Oh my gosh, what a great movie. It had a totally stupid plot. I think the writers must have decided to give up going for any type of sense, and just spent their time coming up with situations in order to throw out these wonderfully quotable lines.

One of my favorites is when Kah Mun Rah meets Darth Vader: "There's too much going on here; you're asthmatic, you're a robot. And why the cape? Are we going to the opera? I don't think so."

So pictures of my knitting will have to wait. I'm still giggling too hard from the movie.

Pass the popcorn, please!

Just what every city needs -- cats in charge. (The Doctor)

I don't want to talk about today. Except the part where I got to ignore everything and sit in front of my computer watching a Dr. Who marathon. (Season three, for the curious.) I love Dr. Who.

And look how much knitting I got done!

(I hate to admit it, but I like Jones a lot better than I ever liked Rose. )

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear. Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair. Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy, was he?

I spent the evening shopping with my daughter, and I managed to get most of the gifts for the stockings. Okay, who am I kidding? I got some of the gifts for the stockings. The stockings are my favorite part of Christmas morning, so I tend to get carried away and get enough gifts to fill Santa's entire sack instead of just a stocking. But in theory, anyway, I finished the stockings.

Shopping for the stocking gifts always gets me feeling very nostalgic. There are several things that are must-have traditional items, like toothbrushes and a book and a favorite candy. So I'm blaming my current obsession on this shopping-related nostalgia. But I really want a Fuzzy Wuzzy.



I'd even settle for a Fuzzy Cat. So I hope you're listening, Santa.

History is nothing but a series of stories, whether it be world history or family history. (Bill Mooney & David Holt)

I had to do a very sad thing today. I boxed up and mailed my oldest child her ornament collection. I guess this means that she is officially grown up and moved away, but I still don't like the idea of it all.

My family has a tradition of exchanging a Christmas ornament every year. Each person gets one ornament that is supposed to represent something special for that year.

We started exchanging ornaments back when I was in high school. The idea was that when my sister and I married and moved away, we would have ornaments to decorate our first tree. The tradition continued, and as our children were born they were included in the exchange.

Because the ornaments have special meanings, it's a nice way to remember our favorite family stories.

There was the time that we were camping, and PJ didn't want to take part in any of the campground's activities. Gramma managed to talk him into going to play Bingo with her, and he actually won. After that, we couldn't get him to stay at the camp site; he wanted to spend all his time at the rec hall in case they did Bingo again.

And of course a favorite family story is how my youngest decided she wanted to be cow when she grew up.

Some of the ornaments represent special achievements and activities. Cari received a flute one year because she was in the band. And one year, Becka was remembered for learning to sew.



PJ's trip to NYC to visit his big sister had to be commemorated.


Some years, the ornaments exchanged reflected the recipient's hobbies, like Becka's elephant obsession or my teapot collection.


Because of the tradition, my daughter's tree will be filled with wonderful memories.

The problem is, I didn't realize that by letting her take her ornaments I had to let them go. To her, it's the first ornament in her collection. For me, it was the first Christmas with my baby.

The crisis of today is the joke of tomorrow. (H. G. Wells)

This posting was originally intended to be an extremely amusing anecdote. You would have laughed out loud. Your co-workers would chuckle as you related the story to them. And tomorrow, you would smile unexpectedly as the thought of it drifted into your mind in the middle of your busy day.

It really is a shame that nothing that amusing happened for me to write about. (You really don't want to read about urinals, ghettos, and filing cabinets -- do you?) Maybe tomorrow will be post-worthy.

Never worry about the size of your Christmas tree. In the eyes of children, they are all 30 feet tall. (Larry Wilde)

When I got home from work today I pulled all the holiday boxes (all eleven of them) out of the storage room and carried them upstairs. I've been asking the kids to get them for me since Thanksgiving, and finally decided that if I wanted something done I would have to do it myself. Once I started the actual decorating, the kids got a little more interested. It's really beginning to look like Christmas around here.

One of my favorite things about decorating for the holidays is that it always leads to reminiscences of past celebrations. All the best family stories get retold, often from a different viewpoint.

For instance, I remember that Becka was always the one who insisted that we leave cookies and milk out for Santa Claus every year. Every year there was a big production to choose the very best cookies for Santa. There was one year that we ran out of milk. I tried to convince my youngest that Santa would be just as happy with apple juice or eggnog. But Becka insisted it had to be a glass of milk with the cookies. So I found myself driving around town after midnight on Christmas Eve, trying to find a grocery store that was still open.

When Becka was finally asleep, I'd carefully take a bite of each of the cookies so that there would be evidence that Santa had been there. I'd also drink half the glass of milk, even though I absolutely hate drinking milk. But it was worth it, since every Christmas morning Becka would be so excited when she checked the plate of cookies. It was always the first thing she would do Christmas morning, even before looking under the tree at the presents. Christmas morning memories will always begin for me with that squeal of "Santa was here, mommy! Look, he ate part of my cookies!"

That's how I remember it, anyway.

Becka told the story a little differently today. It seems that she could never figure out why Santa Claus didn't like the cookies she left out for him. She knew he didn't like them because he would only take a bite of each one; he never ate the entire cookie. Every year she would try to pick out the very best cookie of the ones we had made, and yet Santa would taste it and put it back on the plate. She remembers the squeal as "Look, he only ate part of my cookies!"

Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again. (Franklin P. Jones )

I have cookies to eat. Lots of yummy cookies, thanks to the Cookie Exchange with my knitting group last night. I made my Nana's Magic Cookie Bars to share. I got to bring home snickerdoodles (all gone already), oatmeal raisin (hmmm), gingerbread (awesome!), cranberry bread (wonderful!), Scotch Shortbread (a favorite!), and (totally)Heavenly Cookies. The kids are asking for dinner, but I'm full from snacking on cookies all day.

The cookies have been my consolation for the sweater knitting this afternoon. I finished the front, and seamed the shoulders today. I just have to do an easy ribbed collar, seam the sides, and a quick border on the armholes. I figured I would get to cast on a new project after dinner.

It turns out that the ribbed collar wasn't as easy as it sounded. It took me four tries to pick up the right amount of stitches around the neck. Actually, the fourth time I was still three stitches off, so I just did a few evenly spaced decreases when I knit the first row. After all, who was going to ever know? After knitting six rows, I stopped to admire my work. The collar was looking really big. It turns out that I should have used the smaller-sized needles. So I pulled the collar out and tried again.

This time it only took three attempts to get the count right. And after knitting four rows, the collar is starting to look really nice.

Too bad I picked up the stitches on the wrong side. Do you think anyone will notice that my collar folds to the inside of the sweater?

I'm going to go eat another cookie...

You can't leave footprints in the sands of time by sitting on your butt. And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time? (Bob Maowad)

Although I spent most of the day running around, I got to start my day by sitting on the beach. My daughter had a job interview (she's now a hostess at a beachside restaurant), and while I was waiting for her I walked along the shore.

I'll probably be spending a lot more time at the beach now, waiting for my daughter. Which is a good thing. The municipal beach on Singer Island is a nice place to spend time. The sandy beach is wide, rather than the narrow areas found on most of Florida's eastern coast.

The town of Riviera Beach recently started a renovation on the Ocean Mall that overlooks the beach. This makes getting in and out of the beach a real pain. You have to look close for the "Beach Access" signs in amongst the "Construction Area - Keep out!" posters.


But this ensures that the beach will not be crowded. This morning it was just one woman swimming, one family strolling, and me knitting on the beach. And the seagulls, of course.