A Happy Ending to a DMV Debacle...

Victory!!! And it only took 9 weeks and 6 cumulative hours at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Aves-vous Saks?

Ahhh, the holiday season has arrived.
I've made my cranberry-pear relish

and have also watched Love Actually, White Christmas, and The Thin Man.

And the other day, my Saks Holiday Catalogue arrived! [insert holiday choir singing "Hallelujah!"] I don't know if I mentioned this previously, but I have an addiction to word games: Scrabble, Boggle, Catch-phrase, cross-word puzzles, mensa quizzes -- if it's a word game, I have an internal mandate to master it. Those of you who know me also know that my mom and I lovingly refer to Saks Fifth Avenue as "the mother ship", so I think that sort of explains the extent of my shopping addiction. Thus, you can imagine my elation when I received my Saks Holiday Catalogue and found ONE HUNDRED SIX word game brain teasers sprinkled throughout. The sheer genius of this marketing concept is still awe-inspiring to me. The genius lies in the fact that, presented not only with pages of bedazzled holiday goods but with a challenge to your intelligence, you feel compelled to number a piece of paper from 1-106, start on the first page, and not stop until you're finished. When you get to the end, you inevitably have left 20 or 30 answers blank and must go back through over and over until you've completed each and every brain teaser. I actually had to put the quiz away for a day and come back and finish it, combing through the pages of Juicy Couture tchochkies (pink underwear in a pink candy cane, pink heart shaped USB port key chain, pink mini digital camera, pink gumball machine, pink...); swarovski-encrusted perfume bottles from Bond No. 9, a swath of neon (?!) from Ralph Lauren, Toy Watch, Marc Jacobs, and Prada; and jewel encrusted blouses, bangles, jeans, i-pod ear buds, -- even bedazzled zip drives. After combing the magazine 4 or 5 times to finish the quiz, I checked my answers against the key and happily found that I scored 89/106. The funny part is that I was so intent upon the quiz that I really don't remember much about the clothes, which means I'll have to go through the catalogue again...

PS. You know what else is genius? You can make your own church sign! http://churchsigngenerator.com/

Francie's Christmas Movie List

The leaves are falling and the air is crisp and cool, ushering in my favorite time of year: the holidays. While I remain part of the unemployment statistic, I am bound and determined to focus on the silver lining of the situation and all of the great moments that would not be possible if I was employed -- my favorite being the "Weekday Holiday Baking and Classic Movie in Pajamas" day. The perfect WHBCMP Day needs the perfect classic holiday movie, and so I find myself in the midst of a great internal debate about which of my favorite holiday movies to pop in the DVD player. Here are my options:

1) White Christmas, 1954 (Danny Kaye, Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney): This movie typically marks the beginning of the full swing of the Christmas season for me. I love it. It has been somewhat of a ritual for me and for my mom to watch White Christmas together and drink mulled wine, so it holds lots of nostalgia. Post-WWII entertainers chase two sisters from NYC to Vermont and revive a floundering ski lodge owned by their war-time general. Lots of fun and music and, in my opinion, vastly superior to its predecessor, Holiday Inn.

2) The Thin Man, 1930s (William Powell, Myrna Loy, and "Asta"): Not a typical holiday movie, the Thin Man series is probably my all-time favorite movie series and the first two of these comedic murder mysteries take place during the holidays. William Powell and Myrna Loy are perfection as Nick and Nora Charles. This first installment in the series takes place at Christmas-time in 1930s New York City. The Thin Man solves the disappearance and murder of an old friend during the holidays while drinking no fewer than 7 martinis in one sitting.

3) After the Thin Man, 1930s (William Powell, Myrna Loy, Jimmy Stewart, and "Asta"): After solving a murder at Christmas, Nick and Nora return to San Francisco hoping for a quiet New Year's Eve only to find that Nora's cousin, Selma, has been accused of murdering her carousing husband. Nick and Nora spend New Year's Eve sleuthing in old San Francisco dinner clubs in search of the murderer.

4) The Bishop's Wife, 1947 (Cary Grant, Loretta Young, David Niven): Cary Grant stars as angel Dudley, who comes down to answer the prayers of a bishop, played by David Niven, who is trying to raise funds for a new cathedral at Christmas-time. Rather than helping with the cathedral, Dudley inspires the bishop to remember the true meaning of Christmas and to gain new appreciation for his wife, played by Loretta Young. A truly charming film.

It's a tough choice, but I can ponder the decision while I go to the grocery store, which means I have to change out of my pajamas -- damn.

Exercising the Right

I just sent in my absentee ballot. I have to say, voting from my dining room table was a much better experience than the usual elementary school cafeteria voting experience. And I would not have had the opportunity to vote by absentee ballot for Texas if the Louisiana DMV wasn't making it so difficult for me to get a new driver's license, so I guess there's a silver lining to everything.



I didn't get to vote in the 2004 presidential election. I went to court for a docket call first thing in the morning with little more than a legal pad and a pen, and because plaintiff's counsel reneged on an informal but long-standing settlement agreement, I ended up having to pick a jury and help the partner start a trial. So, I never made it to the polls that day because I didn't go home from office until it was "tomorrow." Not that my vote would have made a difference in Texas, but I was miffed that I didn't get to participate in the process. This time, I would not be deterred. And once I sat down to vote in my robe and slippers, I realized how uninformed I was about many of the choices. It's so easy to get caught up in the presidential horse race and ignore the other elections, but they say that all politics is local so I'm kind of disappointed in myself for not becoming more informed and for wasting too much time on the candidates who will directly impact me the least.



I won't say who I chose for president, but I will say that my ballot choices included democrats and republicans and at least one libertarian (simply because he was the only individual running against my incumbent US Congressman who I dislike immensely). I also voted for a candidate for sheriff named Lupe simply because I have a friend named Lupe who I adore and I liked the idea of having a sheriff who is a woman. I also voted for a couple of people because I had heard of them before -- that was their only qualification. Then there are those political positions on the ballot that I've never heard of and I have no idea what they do -- like Public Safety Comptroller Commissioner (I made that up), so those choices were basically a coin toss. I wasn't sure what would be worse: to not vote for a position or to make a totally arbitrary decision. So, I chose the latter. Scary, right? I'm sort of embarrassed to admit that my undergraduate degree is in political science.



I didn't feel bad at first. But having had several days to think about it, I kind of feel like I've let down my early 20th century sisters (and contemporary women who live in oppressive patriarchal societies) by taking my voting rights for granted and failing to be a more active participant in educating myself about the candidates before taking pen to ballot. So I've decided that next time, I'm going to be fully prepared for voting. I'm going to appreciate this right that many people in contemporary cultures around the world still don't have. I'm going to start by finding out what a Public Safety Comptroller Commissioner is. So my apologies to Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Sojourner Truth -- next time I won't let you down!