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Darling chocolate, how is it possible for me to adore you so completely 11 months out of the year and then develop such loathing for your all-invading presence come December?
While doing some project work at my old job, keeping busy with freelance work and finishing my final projects for school, I still try to make time each week to volunteer at the SPCA's fabulous Holiday Windows adoption event. Remember, I talked about it last year? (185+ animals adopted so far this year! Check out the live webcam.)
I find the few hours a week I spend volunteering enormously rewarding; just being around the animals and contributing to a good cause does more for me than I can put into words. Forget church or yoga--spending a few hours caring for needy animals is my escape when I've had a rough day or when I'm feeling low or pessimistic about the state of world affairs.
In that vein, I make a donation just about each year to the ASPCA. Not a huge donation, but enough to give me warm fuzzies and hopefully do at least some miniscule measure of good for the animals.
Problem is, thanks to that one donation, I get a flood of mail from every animal-welfare group on the planet. You think I'm kidding? My tiny mailbox is stuffed almost daily with pleas for money from everyone from the ASPCA and local rescue groups to outfits like PETA, the U.S. Humane Society (who even sent me a fleece blanket), the World Wildlife Fund and Best Friends (yes, there is such a group--they're in Utah and have a cute little doggy on the envelope to reel in suckers like me).
Thanks to this mountain of mail, I had plenty of adorable return address labels for my holiday cards this year. Not to mention the animal wrapping paper, key chains, magnets and stickers I've amassed. Honestly, I'd help every single one of these organizations if I could, but the idea that the ASPCA has passed my name and address on to other "please-help-save-the-cute-and-furry-creatures" groups leaves a not so warm and fuzzy taste in my mouth.
Speaking of which, today (by way of a job posting) I learned about an organization called Green Dimes, which promises (for a small fee) to remove every last piece of junk mail from your mailbox in an effort to save trees (and our sanity, I imagine).
Wednesday night, I made potato latkes for the very first time. My Safta (Dad's mother) would roll over in her grave, cursing in Yiddish, if she could see the manner in which I went about it:
I guess this means I'll finally have something to atone for on Yom Kippur. (Hey, at least it's Manischewitz and not Nabisco!)
In my defense, it had been a stressful day and I didn't decide to cook latkes until late in the afternoon, so there simply wasn't time for the potato-shredding necessary for real, honest-to-God latkes. So my goy boy and I enjoyed the American, made-from-a-box version and I vowed to never take shortcuts to authentic Jewish cooking ever again, lest they revoke my Hebrew name and make me start attending church.