Give it to us raw and wriggling

Okay well maybe not wriggling. But definitely raw. (By the way, big points if you can identify the title quote). Over the last five years I have become a sushi fan. I realized when I started to become a vegetarian that eating out would be nearly impossible for me if I didn't eat at least fish. Most of the issue I have with meat is a taste and texture issue but fish doesn't pose that problem. So when people ask I say I'm not a vegetarian, I'm a pescatarian. 

Now texture is a big thing for me when eating. I have problems with some forms of eggs just because of the texture. My first attempt at an anchovy was comical and disgusting because of texture. So everyone assumed I'd have an issue with sushi. Then I tried it. No problem. In fact it's something I've started craving. Something about a thin slice of raw fish draped over rice simply makes my mouth water. Tonight I went to Taki, one of the local sushi places, for salmon nigiri, eel nigiri, and a spicy tuna roll. Mmmmm. 

This of course compares with Friday night's dinner. Jeff and I went out to celebrate Independence Day at BoneFish Grill. This place just opened near us and I've been meaning to try it. Everyone says it is good. I had the ahi tuna. The meal had a nice piece of fish, but it was the thickest cut I have ever seen on a tuna. It was more like chunks of tuna. The interior was pink and the outside was seared but the restaurant committed an unforgivable sin. I had to bring out my knife to cut my fish. That, for me, is simply not acceptable. The meal was still good. We drank wine and enjoyed the food, but I probably won't be back. If I want good fish, I'll make sure it isn't cooked. 

Independence Day!!!

This post is really for Jeff because today is a special day for us. An anniversary of sorts. Nope not the day we were married, or engaged, or met. Many people would be offended that we celebrate this anniversary. But it means a lot to us. Today is Independence Day. Five years ago, on a Friday just like today, Jeff got himself fixed.

Most people would be shocked that I would A. talk about his vasectomy and B. celebrate it. But it took me a long to time to get to the decision to let him have it and we still claim that it was the best $80 we ever spent. (And I love that insurance covered it). Today is special for me because it provided us with independence. I no longer have to worry about what would happen if I got pregnant. I have time now to dedicate to the things that I want to do. I can relax on the couch and read a book all afternoon without having to worry about what the kids need. I can play WoW until 2 in the morning without having to deal with small children the next day. I know that for a lot of people that sounds selfish, and maybe it is, but this is the only life I get. I want the time to use for the things I enjoy.

One of the King Arthur stories that really left an impression on me was the story of Gawain and Dame Ragnall. I won't tell the whole story here but in order to save Arthur, Gawain agrees to marry a hideous witch. The witch had challenged to two men to find out what women want and when they failed to do so, he is forced to marry. On their wedding day, the witch offers Gawain a choice. She can be beautiful during the day, when they are with people, but hideous at night when she is with him. Or she can be hideous during the day, but beautiful at night for him. Gawain asked her to make the choice, saying she had to live with the results. And that she revealed is what women want, Choice. I have to agree. I love being able to choose what to do with my hours.

So tonight Jeff and I will go out to some beautiful restaurant, where the linens are starched and the food looks like it was prepared by artists. We will probably buy a bottle of white and toast to our freedom. We'll talk about movies and politics and WoW. And I won't have to cut up anyone's food. I love my life. Viva la independence!

Toesicles

Warning: This may very well be too much information. But it's what I'm thinking about today so...

I hate winter! I hate the snow and the cold and more than anything I hate that my toes go numb. Even with wool socks my toes go numb. And then they go white. And then they hurt. Which makes me anxious, and that makes them go even whiter. Not a fun situation. I have what doctors call Raynaud's syndrome. It's a fancy way of saying that when I get cold my fingers and toes stop circulating blood. I was thinking about this last night as I was sitting on the couch watching Dead Like Me (fantastic show, by the way). I had on my wool socks, with my feet under Jeff, while we sat under a blanket. And they were radiating cold.

The first time I had an attack I thought my little toe had fallen off. It actually feels like my frozen toes have fallen off and are rolling around in my socks. A little disconcerting to say the least. I took off my socks to find my toes ghost white. My feet were fine but the toes were radiating cold. No blood. That first time I sat with them over the radiators trying to rub feeling back into them. Now I just walk upstairs and run increasingly warmer water over them until I can feel the floor again.

The way the syndrome works is that when a normally body gets very cold it starts to limit the blood flow to the extremities (hands and feet). In normal people it takes extreme cold for this. It also takes prolonged exposure. For me, it takes a five minute drive to the grocery store on a 25 degree day. Plus most bodies just limit blood flow, mine shuts it off completely. One evening after coming back from a hockey game, I found that my toes and toenails were blue. So now I take foot warmers whenever I'm out in the cold for a long time.

All of this makes me wonder why I'm in the midwest. I know that some of this is anxiety driven but a majority of it is cold weather induced. About this time of year I start looking at houses down in Florida and dreaming of 50 degree winters. I gaze longingly at job applications in the sun belt and wonder about housing prices in Vegas. All winter long I'm like this. And then the spring comes, and the world blooms, and it is just too beautiful to leave. One of these years I'll head south, but for right now Jeff and I will have to deal with my toesicles.

Adult Fables

It all started out with a fish in the middle of the street. I had been looking for images by Adam Rex and stumbled upon a picture of a fish swimming down the street over the head of a little girl. This picture:
The image caught me. I loved the darkness of it, the absurdity of it, and the sheer beauty of it. When I first saw it I thought that it was not really Adam Rex's style. And with good reason. This was a website dedicated to illustrators. And the artist was Shaun Tan. This particular image is from the book The Red Tree and is the story of depression. I checked it out from the library the very next day. The story is simple, one line per page and often with a dark depressed theme. It is the images that make this book. Each image has a bit of oddity, a bit of darkness, and a little ray of hope. The end is simply glorious. It is simply one of the most beautiful books I have ever seen illustrated. And I couldn't believe they had listed it as a children's book. This was far too deep for children to get.

Tan is an Australian author and illustrator who is quite simply one of the best artists out there. After The Red Tree I had to go find The Arrival. This amazing wordless graphic novel tells the story of a new immigrant to a strange land. It describes his journey over, the family he left behind, and the struggles of learning a new language and system. Without any words this book tells more deeply the immigrant experience than any other I have seen. Again this book was listed as a children's book. And again I wondered.

I was surprised to find that one of the Shaun's stories The Lost Thing is being made into a movie. Irene Gallo, who writes a blog for Tor, mentioned it in one of her posts. The video is a very good overview of Tan's work and a wonderful interview with an interesting artist. In it Shaun talks about how he doesn't really see himself as a children's author. And things finally made sense for me. Most of his books are simply far too deep for children. Like adults reading The Lorax, things in his books seem that much better when you are reading them with a little more insight. His pictures may be fantasy images but they are not really geared towards children. Shaun describes them as adult fables and I think that sums it up well.

I'm also rather impatient to get my hands on Shaun's newest book, Tales from Outer Suburbia. The book, which is already out in Canada and Australia (lucky!), is a series of small stories that show the absurdity and strangeness of city living. This image which is taken from the book is one of my favorites. I'll be first in line when it's released here in the states. As for any of his other work I would definately see about getting your hands on a copy. The artwork alone makes it worth it.

Plantings and Peanuts

While I was down in St. Louis this past weekend, my father-in-law and I headed out to the History Museum while Jeff was sleeping. This is a beautiful museum in the middle of Forest Park and I'd been there a couple times before. The main exhibit this trip was on George Washington Carver and I have to say I learned more in the couple hours we were at the museum than I have in a long time. Carver was a fascinating man.

Now I know what you're thinking. Peanuts. I must have learned all about the peanut. That is of course what Carver is known for. And it is true that before Carver, peanuts had primarily been used as hog feed. No one was growing them to eat. He really introduced how valuable a crop peanuts can be. But he also did the same thing with the sweet potato and the soybean.

I was fascinated by this exhibit because most of the issues that Carver talked about are issues that are affecting Iowa right now. When Carver, who was an Iowa State graduate, went down to Alabama he noticed that the only thing people were planting was cotton. And the soil was dying. Cotton, like corn, leeches the nitrogen from the soil. Carver realized that in order to survive, the soil needed crop rotation. If you live in the upper midwest this discussion should sound familiar. If it doesn't...well it should. We have been focusing on King Corn for a while, the same way Alabama focused on King Cotton. And the soil is dying.

Carver learned that crop rotation was the key but no one wanted to plant other crops. They didn't know what to do with them. So he taught them. He found 300 uses for the peanut, including oils, plastics, and of course food. He didn't invent peanut butter but he did make it better. He found hundreds of uses for the soybean. He taught out of the Tuskegee Institute which had no money for lab equipment. Carver worked with his students and took his ideas around the countryside, teaching the farmers. And farms prospered.

Carver started his life in Missouri but his time in Iowa is what interested me the most. At a tough time for African-Americans he found a college (Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa) who accepted him. He graduated with a fine arts degree. He painted and played multiple instruments. Then he went on to Iowa State where he became an on campus sensation for his fantastic ideas not for the color of his skin. He could have easily stayed to teach at ISU but Tuskegee offered him the job and he had to go help. The man only took one raise in his life. He loved sharing his ideas and never once patented his inventions. Truly a modern day Renaissance Man. And a man who's ideas are still pertinent today.

Home again

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. Mine was wonderful although it was strange to be away from the computer for so long. I did a lot of knitting, a lot of visiting, and yesterday a lot of swearing. It is six hours between Des Moines and St. Louis. For four of those hours there were not a lot of problems. We drove the Avenue of the Saints up through Hannibal and Mount Pleasant until Iowa City. It normally takes a little less than two hours to go from Iowa City to Des Moines. Yesterday it took us three and a half.

The weather on Sunday decided not to cooperate for travel. It snowed all day but it only started freezing once we hit Iowa City. Cars were sliding off the road in every direction. The road was pure ice. In our little Corolla, we were being blown all over the place with the wind. Most of the rest of the trip we ranged from 10 mph to 30. Jeff was amazing, using the rumble strips on the shoulder for traction. My anxiety kicked in and I was very shaky. It was a scary drive home.

The weekend was wonderful but I was very happy to be home.

Happy Thanksgiving all

It's Thanksgiving. My favorite holiday. No commercialism, no high pressure shopping, just eating. One of my favorite things to do. I'll be away from my computer for the next four days visiting my in-laws in St. Louis. So no new posts for a bit. Everyone enjoy the time with your families. Relax, eat a lot, and we'll see you after the holidays. Happy Thanksgiving all. 

Getting Animated About It

I'm a huge fan of animated films. If given a choice, I'll almost always pick an animated movie over any other. Stop-motion, digital, hand-drawn, it doesn't matter. I am in awe of the movie making process for animation. There are some many different styles of animation and each is interesting and artistic. When each movie is over, then I have to watch the special features. All of them. I spent two and a half hours watching the making of Chicken Run after I bought that film. That's longer than the movie. 

This past year we signed up for Blockbuster delivery and since then I have been steadily requesting any animated film I can get my hands on. Lately I've been focusing on the more modern movies that have come out. And the results have been interesting. Tonight I watched the last of them for a while and figured I would do some quick reviews of the ones I have seen. I'll stay away from talking about the Pixar films which are consistently wonderful or the straight to video Disney ones that I can't bring myself to watch.  

Tonight we watched Hoodwinked. I had seen the previews when the movie first came out and thought it looked funny. First it had Patrick Warburton. The man is a comedy genius. I will gladly watch every animated film he does voice work for. And I was right. This fairy tale gone wrong had all the makings of a Jon Scieszka children's book. I won't tell you too much about the plot because that is one of the best things about this story. The movie follows Little Red Riding Hood's visit to grandma's house but the characters are not the ones you have met before. Each character, Red, wolf, grandma, and woodsman, tell their own story of the events of the night. And hilarity ensues. This was one of the most inventive and well written of the animated movies we have seen recently. 

The previous one we had rented was The Wild. This movie came out about the same time as Madagascar and seemed to tell the exact same story. I have to wonder if the stories had originally been sent around the studios and everyone sampled from the same thing. Both stories tell of zoo animals that have to make it out there in the wilds of Africa. Both of them have main lion characters and giraffes. We watched both of these. And while each movie was similar in plot there was a very different tone. And because of that, I loved one and hated the other. The Wild was quirky, lead by Eddie Izzard as the koala. There was a zaniness to the movie but it was not a grating zaniness. There seemed to be a heart behind the madness. Madagascar on the other hand focused mostly on the arguments between the characters. After thirty minutes I debated turning the movie off. It was a little like going to dinner with a couple filing for divorce. The sniping at each other was grating. The penguins were the saving grace of the film, perhaps the reason that the new film promised 30% more penguins. 

Open Season was one of those films that I enjoyed and forgot the moment it ended. I had to ask Jeff what the title was in order to write this and couldn't even remember any of the voice talents. Not a good sign. Normally I can tell you who did the principal voices, what the title was, and who directed it. I can tell you who directed the Pixar animated shorts. The story was cute, the characters were silly and slightly over the top, and the jokes were good. I just didn't find it incredibly memorable. Perhaps I should go back to the classic "Wabbit Season, Duck Season" Warner Brothers cartoon as a substitute. At least that one I can quote. 

But the jewel of the ones we have seen recently was Over the Hedge. If I had to pick an animated film that surprised me with its heart and warmth it would be this film. Now I have not yet seen Wall-E but I hear that one will possibly replace it. (I don't see things in the theater so that one has had to wait) First, the movie has a message. It is not a subtle message but one that is not dripping from every word. And it is a message I can wholeheartedly get behind. The sprawling of the suburbs has driven animals into smaller and smaller areas. (but this is not the post for that discussion). What I loved about this movie was the voices. Gary Shandling, Bruce Willis, and Steve Carell were hilarious. How can you not love a film that gives William Shatner a possum role? The movie is funny and touching and silly. Everything a good animated film should be. The scene at the end with Steve Carell was so hilarious my husband had to stop the movie to wipe the tears of laughter from his eyes. Too wonderful. 

I have to love that there are so many animated films for me to enjoy. And so many different forms. I'm eager to see Coraline when it comes out. Stop motion has a special place in my heart. But until then I have many more in my queue. 

People in Glass Houses....

I have a confession to make. I bought my townhouse for the windows. Yeah the place is nice and the location is mostly quiet but it was the windows that made me fall in love with it. There are only three but they are wide and expansive and look out over a forested area. I remember touring the place, thinking I could possibly live here, until I saw the master bedroom window. And I was in love. We bought in August so it was lush and green outside and the nearby creek was just too pretty. When I open the windows at night I can hear the sound of the brook. 

What got me thinking about all this was a recent article in Dwell magazine. I occasionally pick up home magazines because I love residential architecture. And I particularly love two different (and I mean very different) styles. The first is the cottage. Small, cheerful, warm, and bright. The second is modern. Sparse, cool, simple, and... well bright. I've realized that what I love abut both of these styles is the windows. In fact, in 95% of the pictures I pull out of these magazines, the windows are what captured my eye. The other 5% are outdoor living spaces. I am clearly infatuated with mixing the indoors and the outdoors. 

The article in Dwell was covering Mies van der Rohe's Lafayette Park in Detroit. This was a planned community in Detroit filled with modern apartments, townhomes, and condos. And they're almost all glass. Here is a picture of the townhouses. 

My first introduction to Mies was in college. I went to Drake and started my career in the school of journalism. That was before I realized that intense daily deadlines and I do not get along. But the school of journalism was held in an interesting glass building. Every outer classroom was floor to ceiling windows. I was in heaven. The building, interestingly enough was designed by Mies van der Rohe. It was a source of pride for the school. And a source of happiness for me. 

Meredith Hall-Drake University

So I think I could possibly live in a glass house. I love the remoteness of the houses and the idea of constantly being surrounded by views of trees, animals, and nature. Mies created some of the greatest glass and steel skyscrapers around. But it is his glass house, the Farnsworth House, that I love the most. If price wasn't an issue, I'd live there.  

The same with this goethermal house in North Carolina. 

I'm not sure I could live in the Philip Johnson glass house but that's mostly because it is just for tours. 

But I'd love to live with those windows. I just have to remember not to throw stones. 

Snow!!!

As always the first snowfall of the year makes me happy. There is just something magical about the first one which seems to bring people outside to play in the beautiful white flakes. Yesterday was our first snow and I watched a young girl riding her scooter through the flakes, mouth open to catch them on her tongue. Then I took the camera out to try to record some of this magic. Of course there is no way to pin down magic but it's fun to try. 

Now don't get me wrong, by the seventh snow I'll be complaining and by the 30th I'll be done with winter. But for this moment I was happy. For this moment I was more than ready for winter. Here are a couple of the shots I took. I've noticed that falling snow doesn't photograph well but it does video well. I love the mixing of snow with leaves. I'm particularly proud of the red one. And the pumpkin reminds me that autumn moves into winter. My neighbor still had hers out and it was collecting snow fast. 

Knitting Night

My little sister taught me to knit about two years ago. She patiently explained the stitches to me and then helped me along as I screwed up. She and I have been knitting together weekly since that time. I've only done a couple of projects. I tend to knit very slow and don't do a lot of knitting at home. Over the last couple months we've added a number of new people to the group. We meet at a different coffee house either Monday or Tuesday and talk and knit. I am always amazed at the number of people who stop by to say how they used to knit, or how they've always wanted to learn. We believe in the "more the merrier" so everyone is pretty much invited. 

Of the nine people that are currently on my list, only four or five can make it each week. It's always a different mix of people. The one constant for most of the group has been my project. I have been working on a rather long scarf for the last 8 months. (did I mention I'm a slow knitter?). Tonight I finally finished the project. I just have to brag. I started on a hat this evening and have a great start on it. I even remembered how to join. But for my little sister, who I know reads this, my scarf is above. I'm sorry you won't see it. I'm giving it to my friend tomorrow morning. And I'm so excited. 

Book Review: Nature Girl

I love Carl Hiaasen. Okay well I've never met the man but I love his writing. There is something about the ability to take a dozen or so oddball characters and weave them together into a hilarious story. When I first read John Irving I thought that he was the best at combining characters but Hiaasen takes it to a higher place. This book is filled with no less than a dozen characters who are all fascinating in their own right. And he manages to bring them all together on one small island to see what will happen.

Nature Girl follows Honey Santana, a single mom in the Everglades who is off her meds. She hears mismatched songs in her head constantly and reacts often violently when things displease. Well she is displeased when a telemarketer calls one evening and then calls her a name. So she sets about to track him down. Now the telemarketer is having an interesting week as it is. His mistress is about to dump him for being too boring, his rich wife is planning to divorce him, and a private investigater is tailing him. So when he gets a fake call from Honey offering him an ecotour in Florida he jumps at the chance. So the telemarketer, his mistress, and the private investigator all head down to Florida.

There they meet a Seminole Indian who is haunted by a tourist he didn't kill, a college girl who is bored with life and is just looking for something fun, a fish vendor who is stalking Honey, and Honey's ex-husband and son. And that's just the beginning. Imagine all of these on a small island to get an idea of the almost slapstick quality of this novel. He sets things up beautifully. There are so many kidnappings in this book it is hard to keep track of whose prisoner is whose. Each character is played up to the max. Boyd, the telemarketer, is just scum in the worst sense of the word. Honey is crazy but still very likable. Sammy, the Seminole Indian, just wants to be alone and can't seem to catch a break. Even Boyd's soon to be ex-wife is just a little crazy.

Hiaasen writes all of his books about Florida and particularly about wild Florida. When I was on vacation a couple weeks ago I read his The Downhill Lie, about golf. I'm always impressed with the subtle environmental message that he hides in his books. The bad guys hate the outdoors, the good guys revel in it. The swamp always wins. And these are hidden in the book. Anyone who reads his work will come away thinking about how hilarious a writer he is. They may not even notice any sort of message. The plot on this books is wild but somehow the reader is willing to follow. The characters are just too interesting to turn away. In the tradition of the best train wreck, we just have to keep looking.

This book was a perfect antidote for me. It has been weeks since I've done any real reading so this was a quick read filled with enjoyable characters. I devoured it in little over 24 hours. The perfect beach book, I could also see spending a cold snowy day curled up on the couch with this book. Just be careful who's in the room. I guarantee you will laugh, probably out loud, possibly shooting food out your nose. Yeah he's that funny.

Bishop Allen!!!!....or not

One of my big excitements for my birthday this past weekend was going with my sister to Ames for the Bishop Allen concert. I had bought the tickets months before when I first found out they were coming. Since she introduced me to their music it is all I've been singing. I'm driving Jeff nuts walking around singing "News From Your Bed" and "Choose Again". So when she mentioned seeing David Sedaris, I mentioned seeing Bishop Allen. Of course we both jumped at the idea.

So Sunday I wasted most of the day until Em showed up at my door at 5:30. She was supposed to pick me up at 6 but was too excited. We jumped into the car and headed north. Ames is about 35 minutes north of Des Moines. We stopped in Ames to grab dinner at this wonderful little Thai place. The decor of Thai Palace wasn't anything special but the food was very tasty and very filling. Mmmm massaman curry. Then we stopped into a little bar for a beer before the show.

When we got to the venue at show time there was no one there. They were just starting to set up the stage. We picked up our tickets and then wandered into the student union to kill some time. The show was supposed to start at 8 with two opening bands. We wandered back at about 9 to see a printed sign on the door. "Show will be starting at 11ish". We were told that the band was having car troubles and had broken down. They were just barely in Omaha. After reading their blog I found out that they had broken down in Colorado but one of their opening bands had picked most of the band up and drove in.

My sister and I debated options. If we stayed, the opening bands would take the stage at sometime after 11. Bishop Allen would probably take the stage around midnight. And then we would be driving back home at 1 or 2 in the morning. Of course if we left, we'd miss the show we'd been waiting for for months. Plus we would have to kill the two hours in between which I knew probably meant a bar at that time of night.

After a bit of debating we made up our minds. Perhaps I'm getting old. We went out with some of Em's friends who had come up for the concert, drank a beer, and then eventually drove home. No concert. Bleh! I checked Bishop Allen's website (www.myspace.com/bishopallen) to find out that they went on shortly after 11. By that time, Em and I were hanging out at my house playing video games and laughing our heads off. We did Mario Racing and had a ball. I missed the concert but still had a great time. Thanks little sis!

What's Opera Doc

There a huge number of cartoons that I can remember word for word but very few of them quite like the Warner Brother's What's Opera Doc? I can sing along with that little gem and pretend for a moment that I actually know what Wagner's Ring Cycle would sound like. Of course I'm missing a couple hours of it. But that Bugs Bunny cartoon was one of my first introductions to opera although not my first introduction to classical music. 

So I was thrilled on Saturday when I got to go see Bugs Bunny on Broadway with my parents and sister. You honestly can't even begin to describe how much fun it is to watch a 100 piece orchestra play the opening introduction to a Bugs Bunny cartoon. From the initial slide sound to the clopping blocks it brings a huge smile to your face. I was laughing before they even began to show the cartoons. 

The show is a brain child of George Daugherty and has been running in symphony halls for almost 19 years. The idea is that Warner Brothers sampled a lot of classical music when making their cartoons. Of course the most famous being What's Opera Doc which uses Wagner's Ring Cycle and the Rabbit of Seville which uses Rossini. But there are numerous Road Runner cartoons that also uses bits of classical pieces cut in such a way to make them recognizable but abbreviated. Remember a cartoon is only seven minutes long and classical pieces tend to be a bit longer than that. So on Saturday I was treated to a full orchestra playing Rossini, Mozart, Wagner, Strauss, and Smetana while watching some of the funniest cartoons ever made. What could be better?

I was really surprised by how well they pulled this off. The musicians timed their starts and halts perfectly. The conductor used a click track, an invention of Carl Stalling's own (Warner Brother's composer and conductor) to keep track of every little stop and start. And they had to time it beautifully. The orchestra, which gets about a week to rehearse with the new music, did amazingly. Almost every seat in the Civic Center was filled. There were tons of kids there who seemed to love the show. I'm sure for many of them this is their first trip to the symphony. 

My sister and I, along with Jeff and my sister's fiance, laughed harder than most. We've all grown up with these cartoons. They make up our childhood. And as Daugherty said in his opening introduction, it is difficult for many of us to hear the Ride of the Valkyries without thinking "Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit". This music was introduced to us by cartoons. The cartoons when created were done with a full orchestra behind them. And this show brings all that together for one incredible evening. So much fun. 

Sleeping In

For the last two months or so I've been dealing with a frustrating case of insomnia. I have no problem staying asleep. It's the falling asleep that's the problem. I go to bed at 11 or so on work nights and then lie awake until 1 or 2 in the morning. When the alarm goes off at 6 I tend to be dead tired. It's frustrating and stressful and hopefully curable. 

Yesterday was my birthday and my family kept asking what they could get me as a gift. You can tell how old you are by how practical the gifts you ask for are. One year I asked for a file cabinet. Another year I asked for a vacuum. This year I asked for a white noise generator. Yeah I've become seriously old. 

Here's the odd part, I love my gift. I slept with it last night and I slept like a baby. I turned the thing on to night noises, crickets and wind, and dropped off within minutes. I was woken at four by my noisy neighbors coming home and leaving the engine running. While that would normally keep me awake with anxiety for hours, I fell back to sleep in minutes. I woke up to realize that I'd slept over 8 hours. It felt fantastic. I think that may be the best gift ever.