Scrooge Says

It's about that time of year again, where I get to bitch about how people are acting like it's Christmas when it isn't even Thanksgiving yet. Can you wait?? Can you wait a few lousy weeks??? Because, the thing is, I went to some serious trouble last April to take my Christmas lights down. I'd really like to wait as long as possible to put them up again.

Nonetheless, it is beginning to feel a lot like Christmas, inasmuch as I had to bring in all the plants today in anticipation of the first possible killing frost tonight.

There are kind of a lot of plants.

These are just the ones I put in that end of the living room. There's another big plant at the other side, two hanging plants in the kitchen, several more in the utility room, and sheets draped over the ones that live outside - much to the crazed befuddlement of the cats, I might add, who don't seem to know if they're supposed to pounce, sit on the sheets, crawl underneath, or just yarf on the kitchen table. This is going to be a long winter.

Walgreen's is all decked out with Christmas stuff today. I may stop shopping there. I go solely for primping supplies, but they've phased out the cheapo brands of makeup, and now only carry such big names as Revlon, Maybelline, Cover Girl, L'Oreal, and Almay. I myself am partial to NYC, which they have now stopped carrying. NYC has perfectly good mascara that you can get for $1.99. Maybelline wants twelve bucks for the stuff. Is there a difference? Not as far as I can tell. It's black goo you smear on your eyelashes; why drop a lot of money on it?

Especially when you consider that, back when I was in college, mascara came in all kinds of fun colors like hot pink, electric blue, navy, teal green, and purple. Do you see what this means? You could actually color-coordinate your eyelashes to your outfit. How cool is that?? And none of it ever cost more than a buck-fifty, either. Nowadays it comes in four shades: brown, brown-black, black, and very black. And it costs a fortune.

They have also, I don't mean to gripe too much but this is really a serious problem here in my world, discontinued my shade of powder makeup base at Cover Girl. They have Ivory, which is too pale. They have Classic Ivory, which is dark enough but has no pink in it. They have Creamy Natural, which has pink tones, but is too dark. And they have Natural Ivory, which is exactly right. Guess which one they discontinued?

Before anybody starts complaining about the female problems enumerated in this post, I'd like to point out that Bill Gates paid me a particularly rough visit this week and I have plenty of choice things to say on the subject, and you know what? I haven't.

Not going on about intensely personal feminine problems on my blog: there's my gift to you. Merry Christmas!