Sleighride home

On my flight yesterday, a portly old man with a white beard and long, curly white hair sat in my row. He was dressed in a bright crimson jumpsuit with "S. Claus" embroidered in white on the front. On the back was more white embroidery: "NORTH POLE FLIGHT SCHOOL."

When kids approached him (and why were there approximately 90 kids on my flight?), he entertained their questions directed at Santa Claus and he played the part of a Santa whose annual business has just ended and was ready for a break.

I wanted desperately to snap a photograph of him, but I thought it would be weird. He probably wouldn't have minded, but I wanted to catch him enjoying the rum and cokes he ordered.

Movie note: Avatar

FOUR STARS

What a long piece of animated leftist propaganda!

Holiday sloth

You guys, I've been so lazy! During my two weeks in California, I basically sat in front of the television, ate a ton, saw a couple of movies and slept in. I tried to go to the gym once or twice, but really, the only thing I really managed was getting through some of my netflix queue.

And upon returning to Boston yesterday (thank goodness I missed the big blizzard), I decided to skip work today and use one of my vacation days. I could definitely get used to this.

Movie note: The Lovely Bones

TWO STARS

I remember liking the book. The movie, not so much.

Movie note: Easy A

FIVE STARS

A new classic! I watched this twice in two days and I think I love Emma Stone.

Chasing the wild goose

Yesterday, my sister and I spent the morning running errands (groceries, Christmas gifts for our father, etc.) and doing a little shopping for ourselves. We visited a store where I receive a generous employee discount and she found a butter-soft leather bomber jacket that she liked. The only problem was that it was available only in a size 2.

So, the very helpful saleslady directed us to a nearby store that had a size 10 in stock, and thus began our dayof chasing the jacket around the country. When we arrived at the other store, 30 minutes away, it turned out the size 10 didn't fit properly, and neither did the 12 petite.

The salesladies called stores all around the country in search of a size 12 while we ate our lunches, but when we returned, all the other stores turned out to be liars and we weren't able to locate the elusive leather bomber in size 12.

So in the end, we traveled around the Bay Area for no reason, but we really had nothing better to do, anyway.

Movie note: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

TWO STARS

If I were an HR director for this movie franchise, I would put Kristen Stewart on a performance improvement plan. Or promote Anna Kendrick to lead.

I'm like a bird

As part of my cityside vacay, Roommate J, Beetle and I went to see a matinee of "Black Swan." And since, I've had images of glass shards and cracking bones dancing in my head. No sugarplum fairies in this ballet!

Basically, I spent the entire movie clenched up in my seat, peeking through my fingers and making variations on pursed lips. And after the movie, I think I spent 45 minutes just breathing. Before pulling myself together to get a drink!

San Frandisco days, San Frandisco nights

On Friday, I took Caltrain for the first time to escape from suburbia and return to the land of the living in San Francisco. The train journey was pretty easy, and I thought it was a deal at $6, but I realized some people use it to commute round-trip every day!

So, for four days, I enjoyed visiting with friends, celebrating the holidays, doing a little maxxing and relaxxing and eating everything in sight. It was a self-indulgent few days, but I deserved it!

Whenever I come back to SF, I sort of slip back into a routine. I may hit the gym. I definitely enjoy drinks at the bar with Beetle, Roommates A&J, Mahogany Sparkle and Lucy Ricardo. I end up on at least one big night out (this time courtesy of Blanca and Mattress). I eat Mexican and Japanese food. I get to meet recently born babies. I even end up doing some work-type activities.

I do miss my SF life.

Soccer mom Panda!!!!

Something I detest about spending the holidays in the 'burbs is that I am without a vehicle. In a city, this is a relatively minor irritation, but in suburbia, it's akin to being a prisoner!

After meeting Wang and her family for breakfast, I promptly had to high-tail it home so my mom could take her car to an appointment while my dad was at the dentist with his car. Fortunately, my mother works within walking distance from the house, so I'll be able to use it most of the time, but when both parents need their vehicles, I have nothing better to do than work or watch the netflix I brought with me.

My mom, it should be said, drives the ultimate bougie suburban soccer mom car: a silver mercedes m class. Picture Annette Bening in American Beauty but with much less pent-up rage (Whatever happened to Mena Suvari, anyway?). So, here I am, trying to maneuver this gigantor car around town. It certainly handles differently than my little Ford Fusion, but fortunately the California roadways are made for SUVs, not horse-drawn carriages like Massachusetts.

Holiday rush

Because I've accumulated a bunch of "comp days" due to work travel, I technically don't need to return to work until February, when our next Fiscal Year begins. So, I'm taking two weeks off to return to California tomorrow. You know, visiting the fam and stuff.

Sadly, no one else is on the extended vacation schedule I'm on, so work continues to pile up and it looks like I'll be dialing into conference calls next week when I'm back home. Plus, I've been asked to work on goals for 2011, which seems to be a necessary evil of corporate America. We make these goals every year and barely look at them throughout the year, let alone review them at the end. And if we don't get a bonus, what's the point except to take up my precious time?

It's also been a busy few days on the social side. VALedictorian is in town and staying with us, so we've been hanging out in the evenings. Her late arrival into town forced me to miss a dinner party at Puppy's friends' home, which was sad mostly because he returned home with a santa hat!

Somehow, I've got to get through it all and pack all my belongings and figure out my plans for the holiday. This must be what people mean when they say the holidays are a stressful time of year.

I probably should try Toastmasters

For the past few weeks, I've been working with our Chief Supply Chain Officer to develop a presentation for our company's quarterly all-employee meeting. These meetings are typically "state-of-the-business" type presentations where our executive leadership team give updates on their respective areas of the business. Like a re-cap of our earnings calls to shareholders, but kind of dumbed-down for all employees.

I think our Chief Supply Chain Officer realized the meetings can be kind of dry, so he thought it would be nice to spice up his presentation by including me and giving me the stage to discuss some of the more "heartwarming" work I'm in charge of.

So, I found myself in the position of creating a presentation and video to show off my work, heavily edited through many, many, many rounds of review. I believe we landed on version 15 of the presentation and version 9 of the video.

In any case, when I walked into the meeting room yesterday to practice with the A/V, I kind of got very nervous. 800 chairs were set up for all our headquarters employees, two giant screens flanked a big stage with two podiums and a very pretty backdrop of gold-painted branches adorned the stage (It's the holidays, after all!). Very intimidating for this panda.

I got mic'ed up, took a seat, and waited for everyone to file in. Because of my presentation, I sat in the very front row, next to our CEO and other members of the executive leadership team. And since my presentation was about an hour into the meeting, I had plenty of time to psych myself out. By the time it was my turn to present, my heart was racing and my palms were sweaty.

I felt like I raced through my slides and at several moments, I could hear my voice quivering. I tried to ignore the camera that was trained on me, broadcasting my presentation to employees in other locations around the country and I tried to remember to breathe.

When it was finally over, I basically ran down the stairs to get off the stage and returned to my seat in the audience. I thought about all the things I forgot to say and the things I could have said better, but in the end, I think it went very well. Our CEO congratulated me for being a "natural" at public speaking and many employees either came up to me or e-mailed me to say that it was one of the more inspiring or interesting presentations they'd heard at one of these meetings.

I received an e-mail from a colleague in our New York office who admitted that mine was the only presentation that received applause. And one employee, who was recognized for 35 years of service to the company earlier in the meeting, e-mailed our CEO to say that the supply chain presentation made her feel even more proud to work for our company.

I guess all the work, the rehearsing in my car and the nervousness about what I would wear paid off. It certainly was the largest (and most important) audience I've ever presented to, so let's hope it reverses any damage I may have done my career in the past.

Movie note: Before Sunset

THREE STARS

Ethan Hawke's face and teeth serve as a good PSA for the dangers of meth! For whatever reason, I liked this much better than the first.

Of dumbbells and dumb blondes

The other night marked my triumphant return to the gym on weeknights! It was the first time I visited the gym on a weeknight since we returned to standard time so many weeks ago. It's hard to go outside when it's dark, y'all! Stop judging.

Much to my dismay, it was one of those nights I hate, where the gym tries to be all too-cool-for-school and throws a party. The DJ's music was too loud, the vendors were in the way and the two drunk girls who were playing with dumbbells and taking up my much-needed floor space were way too irritating.

These two, dressed in heels and dresses, were singing to the music, giggling, admiring their hair in the mirrors and playing with weights! I was hoping that one of them would drop a weight on the other, ending their revelry.

The worst part of this was that none of the staff seemed to care! I believe these girls might either work at the gym or be friends with someone "influential."

Another wintery meal

My Monday night plans didn't seem very bold: get home from work, go to the gym, return home and watch television. However, when I returned home from work on the later side (these days, after 7pm is late), and there were a few little snowflakes in the air, I couldn't motivate to get to the gym.

Plus, Puppy had made plans to eat with SexMex and Jimmy Jam and when I walked through the door, I could smell the makings of some yummy chicken and dumplings! So, I ditched my workout plans (yet again) and I sat down for a delicious, season-appropriate meal.

It was nice to catch up with friends, but Puppy must have made a knock-out of a meal since SexMex spent much of the evening lying on the couch, falling into and out of sleep, unable to resist the after-effects of dinner!

Movie note: House Bunny

THREE STARS

Who knew so many "musicians" wanted to be "actors"?

Festival of oil

To celebrate the arrival of Jillian's new baby boy (and Hanukkah), some of us gathered together at her home on Sunday for a little feast. Jillian made potato latkes, Flabs and her clan brought some rotisserie chicken and dessert, and I was in charge of a side dish.

Since it's the Jewish Festival of Lights, I started to research some appropriate side dishes. I decided against kugel because Puppy doesn't care for raisins, but there weren't many other options. Especially ones with vegetables. One item that kept coming up, however, was the donut. This perplexed me, because I had no idea what donuts had to do with Hanukkah.

So, I asked around and no one seemed to have a definitive answer, but people guessed that it had to do with the oil. In essence, anything deep-fried is a Hanukkah-appropriate dish!

Well, I didn't deep fry anything, but I did douse some vegetables in plenty of oil before roasting them in the oven. It seemed like a healthier alternative to bringing a bag of Dunkin' Donuts over.

Melt-a-meal

The winter coldness has set in, and after a day of Christmas shopping yesterday, I had a hankering for fondue. I mean, what could be better than melted cheese for dinner? There's a Boston outpost of this fondue chain I went to when I used to live in DC, so I called up, made a reservation and anticipated the melty yumminess!

The restaurant was as I remembered it - each table had a burner and the server would prepare the fondue in front of you. We had all three courses: cheese, meat and dessert, even though neither of us was very hungry when it came time to eat the dessert course.

Puppy and I decided that the meat course was kind of a letdown since all you essentially did was poach the meat. Instead, some grilled meats would have been nice to dunk in the cheese course. Why hasn't anyone thought of that?

Movie note: Elizabeth

FOUR STARS

One of those stylish, beautiful movies I wish I'd seen in the theater. And who knew Lily Allen once wanted to be an "actress"?

And I suppose you want me to actually use my utensils

At my last job, I came into contact with a communications firm that works with executives to find appropriate platforms for speeches. As I understand it, the firm basically keeps a calendar of conferences and suggests ones at which their clients present. I sort of cannot believe companies pay for this type of service, but there you go...

So, this firm has been moving into the corporate social responsibility arena recently and is based outside of Boston, so the founder continues to reach out to me in order to tap into my network. I, of course, am not at a senior enough level to actually qualify as a client, nor does my company pay for such foolishness.

After several months of chasing me down for dinner, I finally gave in and met up with the founder and COO last night at a French restaurant near my house. The company founder, an older gentleman who's always in a suit and has thick, tortoise-shell spectacles, was seated at his favorite table (where we met for lunch several months ago) and the COO, a woman about my age, sat next to him, also in a suit. I plopped into place in my jeans and sweater.

It's so awkward spending dinner with people who are so formal with each other. Ms. COO kept doting on the founder, serving him and offering him bread, water, etc. The company founder took it upon himself to order for the table, even though I had not shared with him what I wanted to eat. So, I had to correct him and let our waiter know that I did not want the skate fish. Instead, I wanted the moules frites. Frites!

And once our meals arrived, the two of them inhaled their food and left me picking at each individual mussel. When I was nearly done, I felt like I was holding everyone up so I pretended that I didn't want my French fries and left all the delicious, soupy sauce to sit in the bowl (normally, I would have dunked the bread into the sauce, using it to sponge-paint my tastebuds).

But our forced conversation was so aggravating! Everything was "lovely" or "exquisite" or "divine." I had to endure phrases like "We have been summering on Block Island in the same charming cottage every year for the past 25 years" or "We take an annual trip to a delightful island in the Caribbean that imports mussels from Bretagne every Thursday."

I am very glad to be leaving Boston for a West Coast getaway in a few weeks!

Acronymous

Kids these days! I am an old geezer who can't quite get used to typing "u" for "you" or "b" for "be," even on the texts or the IMs. I appreciate when something's labeled as "NSFW," but can't get into writing "ROFL." I do, however, throw in an occasional "LOL" or "OMG," but rarely do I use "TTFN" or "TTYL."

Roommate J just wrote "BBL" which makes me think "bubble." I sort of like it as a closing sentiment. "I'm heading into a meeting. Bubble!"