Buckets, Knuckles, and Hex Codes

Humor, Inspiration, Life and Other Existential Problems, Month in Review, Parenting, Writing, , ,

December (Not Quite the End of the Month) Month-in-Review

It’s been a year since I’ve done a month-in-review post. I’m sure you are all very excited to have me draw back the curtain again. Well, joke’s on you. Behind this curtain is a trove of canned goods and a mysterious bucket no one remembers buying and no one is willing to throw away. “Never discard a mysterious bucket” might be some sort of unspoken family rule. THAT joke is on me.

After this reasonless hiatus, I’m resurrecting the month-in-review because sometimes it’s useful to return to a familiar container and rattle around inside it for a bit. Will the month-in-review posts continue in 2026? MAYBE.

Before any sticklers jump into my mentions without even offering me a cookie, I am well aware that the month is not over.

However, many of you mentally end the year sometime in mid-November, based on how many “Wrap-ups” and “I’m ready for 2026” comments are floating around out there. Look, you do you, friend. I was taught to run through the finish line.

But, sure, we can call this the “Not Quite the End of the Month Month-in-Review.” Not fussy at all.

ANYHOO, Happy Holidays. Let’s begin with an injury.

Earlier this month, I busted my knuckle open (not a euphemism). A few people noticed and asked how it happened. “Fighting crime,” which no one believed. Then I said the untrue but plausible, “I was just walking around.” Everyone believed that. Thanks, people who know me.

(Between you and me, I used a little extra oomph putting on a sweater and slammed my hand into the door jamb after successfully locating the arm hole.)

Please don’t be freaky and ask for photos of my (admittedly sexy) busted knuckle. It’s hard to photograph your own hand while recovering from getting dressed all by myself vigilantism.

There were wonderful parts of December, for sure, despite my ability to get hurt by doing nothing and also by doing things. (See: colliding with furniture in my own house, ambient exhaustion, December.)

One of my sons has begun making Jeopardy! games for the family. In the last five weeks, he has made three.

These are not casual games, nor intended to make us feel good about ourselves or our inability to quickly access our knowledge base. These are utterly lawless events fueled by a natural understanding of humor that routinely takes us out.

The categories alone injured me once because I rolled off the couch laughing. (Note to all of my ex-boyfriends: I still got it!)

We’ve had Prehistoric Fish, Former FBI Director James Comey, and Shades of Red (a block of color labeled with its hex code). This so thoroughly aggravated my husband that the next game had the category Tints of Red. In one game, he created a category called Who’s That?, which involved identifying people from photos. The first image was of Millard Fillmore. The second was Dilbert. Two questions later: the same picture of Dilbert.

We considered ourselves lucky that the Dilbert questions were straightforward. Half the fun this kid has is in figuring out the most obtuse ways a question can relate to the category. And I will add that at least once each game is a question that simply says, “Touch the dog.” Which, yes, that is not a question, but we all run to Buddy like maniacs. He likes it. It’s got this vibe.

For my birthday, he shamelessly calibrated the game to some of my alleged areas of expertise, including Kurt Vonnegut, the family dog, Danish Butter Cookie Tins, as well as an entire category based on photographs of his school lunches.

Somehow, I lost.

Somehow, my husband won with a final score of –2400.

This game has it all: Intellectual chaos, hostile specificity, everyone yelling “WHAT IS GOING ON?” while the dog enjoys his celebrity and hopes Final Jeopardy is “Belly Rubs.” (It is not.)

So December has been largely survived up until this moment, and my knuckle is healing.

Does anyone know what that bucket is for?

Until we all figure it out, here are some

Splashes of Marvelous from December 2025:

  • Fellow Snarkians, I had no idea this was still a thing. I am delighted to be wrong. Entire stretches of my childhood were spent drooling over these guys.
  • If you ever have a chance to go see/hear the Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus, do it! I went to the Holly Dolly Christmas show and remained in an excellent mood for 2-3 business weeks.
  • It might technically be too late to prep for Jolabokaflod, but every day can be Jolabokaflod if your heart is pure. Or you feel like it. I’m making the rules now. If you need some ideas, I’ve got you.
  • Related, I would like to formally propose an evening where we gather around a fireplace, eat treats, and read. Silently. Shhhh. Let’s make this introverted bibliophile’s dream a reality. And if you talk, I’m cramming one of these in your mouth, and not gently.
  • This is the only type of “conversation piece” I’d ever want to wear.
  • The Best Simple Stuffing Recipe | Bon Appétit Trust me.
  • I baked three dozen cookies for school, another 900 dozen (give or take) for home. Emergency preparedness is important. This is why I have a small bag of sprinkles in my purse at all times. (True!)


After I sent those cookies off to school with my boys, one of them came home and brought me…a cookie. Not one I made, but a snickerdoodle. And before you have a problem with that, NO YOU DON’T.

  • The “two inches that were actually six” of predicted snow on 12/7. Insert jokes as you wish.

Well, what do you want? A cookie? (I may have several hundred dozen.)

Enjoy your week and watch your knuckles. (Maybe a euphemism).

Subject: MOM SPIRIT WEEK(!)

Humor, Life and Other Existential Problems, Parenting, , ,

An Email from the Universe

This week has been heavy. I wrote this to make a little space, and hope it gives you a brief moment of respite or silliness.

Graphic with the title “Subject: MOM SPIRIT WEEK(!)” above a simple drawing of a stick figure holding a long to-do list, surrounded by tangled holiday lights. Subtitle reads “An Email from the Universe.”

Hello. This is the Universe. Yes, that Universe. You know, stars, gravity, tacos, fluids, tardigrades, and whatnot.

Let’s just get this out in the open: the number of things that must happen right before the approaching Winter Break is unreasonable. This is a failure of math. It’s nice, for once in your life, for math to fail you rather than the other way around.

I kid, I kid.

Anyway, I, The Universe, am pleased to announce MOM SPIRIT WEEK (!), a morale-enhancing initiative designed to support seasonal cheer and operational continuity. This week recognizes your continued parenting, working, time management, keeping the car’s gas tank just full enough, and functioning as a human reminder app and emotional shock absorber.

Please note the daily themes below.

Participation is optional but also assumed.

MONDAY: PAJAMA DAY!

Wear your most comfortable pajamas while you pack lunches, search for shoes, sign forms, answer emails, check the calendar, re-check the calendar, and run five to seventeen other errands.

What I, the Universe, require of you today: Joy as you deal with everything. Especially the aggressively pleasant coworker who overshares about their digestive system and uses a coffee mug that says, “Wine O’clock.” This is fun. Thank you for not crying.

TUESDAY: PAJAMA DAY!

Wear pajamas that have pockets. The week is now in full swing, and so are you.

If you’re doing it right, based on yesterday’s tasks, you’ll now have meeting lists, errand lists, carpool lists, grocery lists, gift lists, revised gift lists, emergency gift lists, volunteer-commitment lists, lists of chores that must be done and another list of chores that should probably be done, lists of messages to answer, lists of texts you answered incorrectly, and lists of emails you are sure you already replied to but someone is still awaiting your response. Feel free to combine them into one list called “laundry,” but that may make you cry, and it’s not that clever anyway.

Write down the lists. All of them. They are legion. Then stuff those lists into the pockets of your pajamas.

While you’re out and about, pick up some children’s medicine. Rumor has it that Influenza A is going around the school. It’s okay, though. Your kids told you they’d wash their hands. They also told you they “don’t know” where their winter coat is, and that “yes, they’d checked” the lost and found.

What I, the Universe, require of you today: Joy, especially if someone thanks you for your “great energy,” while giving you something else to do. Write that down, too. Thank you for not crying too loudly in the bathroom.

WEDNESDAY: PAJAMA DAY!

Wear footie pajamas as you manage last-minute changes, forgotten items, schedule shifts, work responsibilities, family logistics, emotional regulation (yours and everyone else’s), final cleaning, spot cleaning, cleaning Spot your dog, re-cleaning the spot you just cleaned, menu planning, backup menu planning, confirming plans, reconfirming plans, answering messages that could have been emails, cleaning surfaces, clearing rooms, hiding piles, rediscovering piles, and arranging everything so the house appears welcoming and effortless, and wondering if today is Friday. (It’s not.)

Please remember to tend to the emotional states of people who cannot explain why they are upset, but are confident you need to be involved on one level or another.

Also, run to the school and pick up your kids’ coats from the lost and found.

Prepare for a Spatial Impossibility Situation, where at least two of these obligations will require you to be in different locations with incompatible parking situations. You may have to run. This is where the tread on the footie pajamas comes in.

What I, the Universe, require of you today: Joy, for morale purposes. Thank you for scheduling your crying in a way and a place that does not disrupt anything or anyone.

THURSDAY: PAJAMA DAY!

Wear the oversized pajamas with the oversized hood.

All you have to do today is find the tape.

Pull up the hood of your pajamas and scream into it as needed. Do this away from other people, that kind of stuff is contagious, much like the Influenza A currently sweeping through your kids’ school.

What I, the Universe, require of you today: The tape.

FRIDAY: PAJAMA DAY

Congratulations, it’s Friday. Keep it jolly, motherf***er.

Pick up whichever pair of pajamas you’ve put on “the chair.” Make sure it comes close to passing the sniff test. Have you even showered since Tuesday? Put on a hat while you’re at it.

Today, you launch into Winter Break with drop-offs, goodbyes, transitions, schedule adjustments, snack calibration, emotional recalibration, and the realization that your children are now home full-time for the next two weeks.

Now you finally have time to unwind and recharge while continuing to provide meals, structure, activities, supervision, emotional support, and holiday magic.

Keep tissues up your pajama sleeves — Santa might just be bringing Influenza A for the holidays!

What I, the Universe, require of you today: Joy. Again. This requirement expires in January.

Best,
The Universe

Nestled. Stacked. Mashed. Cosplay.

Cooking, Creative non-fiction, Humor, Life and Other Existential Problems, Writing, ,

Food-in-Food Ad Nauseam

I just made several dozen cookies using cookie butter, essentially folding finely ground cookies into other cookies. This was after I contemplated making Oreo-stuffed chocolate chip cookies.

Maybe it’s the season. Maybe it’s my brain. Most likely, it’s the eggnog that leads me to share these thoughts.

Once upon a time, food had a certain dignity. I don’t mean to romanticize the past – the food wasn’t necessarily good, but everything sort of stayed in its lane, just as God and Ina Garten intended. Pies and cakes didn’t go seeking thrills inside one another’s layers. A turkey wasn’t trying to form some sort of poultry Voltron with a duck and a chicken. And you could enjoy a donut without fearing it would attempt a surprise flank maneuver on the croissants.

(We’re just going to take a moment to pour one out for the troubling put-everything-in Jell-O era, okay?)

Image via Molded Memories (moldedmemories.food.blog)

Do yourself a favor and do not look up photos of the final product.

ANYHOO. BeJell-Oed fish aside, these were orderly days. Predictable.

Naturally, this didn’t last, because America, God bless her goofy heart, just had to ask things like, “What if this were two foods?” and “What if this were three foods wearing a trench coat?”

And we just had to answer, “Let’s find out!” We even had the temerity to be enthusiastic about it.

Long story short, everything started declining.

It’s not total collapse. Not yet, at least. Decline takes time. Decline is a gentle slope you slide down while clutching a cocktail weenie.

First came the turducken. Fine. Well, not fine. Terrible. But it was a novelty, a kitschy one-off we could pretend was harmless.

Along barreled the cronut, then entered the piecaken, and at that point the Universe quietly ducked out for cigarettes.

Of course, the Tofurkey strutted in trying to claim creative credit for all these food mashups. Pretty bold for a plant impersonating meat with more commitment than half the actors on the WB in its heyday.

Now, for those preparing to storm the comment section of this VERY SERIOUS AND HIGHLY ACADEMIC TREATISE to inform me I “misunderstand food” and to quote from the Book of You Got Chocolate in my Peanut Butter, I say unto you: NAY. NAY, ESTEEMED SCHOLAR. I am not speaking of such blessed unions

I speak of “Your chefs were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” I speak of culinary unions baroque and unsound, where a food is nestled inside another food, occasionally mashed with a third, and often pretending to be a fourth. I speak of the insult added to injury via portmanteau.

You may ask, “What ho, Malvolio?”

Which is a weird question right now. Why are you asking that?

A better question is, “What comes next?”

I (or maybe it’s the eggnog) have taken the liberty of imagining exactly that. (Oh, no.) I’m not saying these will happen, and I’m not saying they should.

Except they will.

And still, they definitely should not.

So, what horrors await?

A pork tenderloin tucked coyly into a soufflé, resulting in the Souffloin? The Brûléurger, a burger with a cracked sugar crust, because separating dinner and dessert is a real time waster?

There is, I fear, a genuine possibility of a Sushperd’s Pie, sushi nestled beneath mashed potatoes. This is the sort of thing you serve only to your nemesis.

Our pastries may develop pork issues (Baklavacon), and our Fritos may develop pastry issues (Fritocotta).

Let us not pretend we are prepared for the arrival of the Chocochimachattorellacci (Chocolate + Chimichanga + Cacciatore + Cappellacci).

Any faith in humanity you’ve been clinging to may at this point be folly.

Now, this is the part of the essay where I write some sort of takeaway. (Pun not intended, unless you laughed, in which case pun intended).

Ahem.

This is the part of the essay where I make it about me.

Look, maybe culinary monstrosities are born of loneliness and/or an impulse to unnecessarily break something, hot glue it back together, and call it innovation.

Maybe we keep stuffing food inside food because stuffing feelings inside feelings is harder and definitely not something to bring to an office potluck.

Or maybe some influencer is issuing gastrointestinal dares to shoppers as they enter the grocery store. I don’t know. Theories abound.

What is certain is that someone, somewhere, is going to read my jokes and think, “Bisquisketbabka? Challenge accepted.” And suddenly I’ll be forced to eat some sort of bisque in a brisket in a babka, and it’ll be my own damned fault.

But there’s still hope for you, dear reader.

If someone produces a Quesoquichewich, or a Mortarollini, or a Bouillabiscuitryanibatten, rise from your chair, walk to the door, and leave without looking back.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, my Salisbury Schn’moruflakanaki (Schnitzel + S’mores + Soufflé + Saganaki) is calling.

No, wait. That’s the eggnog.

I’ve named it Malvolio.