i've been a good girl this year

dear hannukah harry,


please don't be pissed that despite being a relatively uninformed jew for the past thirty years i still don't know how to spell chanukka.

and also, please don't think i'm a sellout because i have a christmas tree and a menorah. that tree is so pretty and when i put a piney scented candle near it, it makes me feel all forresty and wintery.

hanuka candles never smell that good.

now that i've gotten that out of the way, i'd like to ask you to pretty please hook me up this year with a new phone. you see, the last one you got me was a little outdated, and never really got good reception.


plus it started to rust after i dropped in it the snow.

so the next year i went over your head and got myself a stylish new phone all on my own. it looked like this:


but then i dropped it into a pot of watercress soup at work and it smelled like sour cream ever since that day.

the one i got to replace the soupy phone wasn't much of an upgrade and now tends to shut off automatically when it gets mad about all the baby drool on it.

i can't say i blame that poor phone. i wouldn't want to drooled on either.

what this all comes down to is simply that if you can find a way to get me a phone that performs better than little miss's table-top phone, and even has a decent camera on it, i promise you won't regret it.

there are so many wonderful things i can take pictures of and text to you that would make you smile. the other day i saw a portrait of a man who had just told a really dirty and inappropriate joke and he was waiting for me to either crack up or smack him. i really, really wished i had a way to capture that moment and share it with you. but alas, it was not meant to be.

together, hannuka harry, you and i can change the way i share crazy with the world. i'll even make you some of the best latkes you'll ever have. if that's not enough of a bribe for you to help a girl out, than i don't know what else i can do. i'd hate to resort to threats because they take so much work, and frankly, i'm too lazy for that shit. i'll just say, do yourself a favor harry, for the sake of your reputation, please don't cheap out on me. the world is watching and the ball's in your court.

i'm ready and waiting, your time starts.....NOW!


thank you and good day. with deepest regards,

lana

come and get it, it's giveaway time!!

after much flaking and painful disorganization, i have finally gotten my shit together to officially launch my blogoversary/birthday giveaway!!! i feel like celebrating my 100 posts, my six months of writing publicly, and my 30th birthday with all of you dear readers and i couldn't think of a better way to make you come to my party than to give you things.

as many of you may know, i have some issues with technology. this is not limited to, but does include blogging in general. i have put forth a certain amount of effort with this blog that surprises even myself. although i still have no idea what the little orange and white triangle lines thing on my sidebar means but everyone else seems to know so i play along. my point here is that apart from the number of people in the followers box, i really have no idea how many people may actually be taking time out of their day to read my words.

so i'm just going to assume that there's more than two of you and less than a million. and i appreciate each and every one of you more than i'm going to say lest i get all sappy and self-doubty. suffice it to say that for you faithful readers i have presents!!

i like to make things, but mostly things that i will use. i hate clutter and tend to clean up by throwing stuff out, a lot. lately i've been in a mood to consolidate rather than collect more products of my various hobbies. so i've been a busy little bee over here making presents for some lucky internet friends. it's a win-win!

first is a knit scarf. you may recall what happens when i attempt to knit things with rounded edges. clearly proven to be too much of a challenge for me, i have stuck to my comfort zone of small and rectangular to produce this eyelet scarf:

it's an acrylic blend in bright white, measuring six inches wide and about 45 inches long. i washed it in baby detergent because that shit smells so good i want to carry some around in my pocket and huff it whenever i'm having a stressful moment, and also because it makes things really soft and fluffy. personally, i think it would be great for a man or woman, white matches everything anyway. here's a close up of the detail:


next i have a two-fer. this was a little more difficult seeing as i hate baking and don't even own a rolling pin or a mixer of any kind, but i managed to make some non-poisonous pet treats. there's liver and carrot triangles for kitties and bone-shaped whole wheat cheese snaps for doggies. no fancy icing or sprinkles or other dessert related decoration here. these are bare bones, plain and simple pet treats. although monster sure seemed to like them enough to knock the scraps off the counter and stuff his face.

i put each in a plastic treat jar. they look like this:


i'd like to give them as separate gifts because i know many people have either one type of pet or the other. with each jar of treats i will also include the recipe that i used should you want to make them yourself once your pet devours their tasty goodness.

lastly i have something that i personally find to be hilarious. i wasn't sure if i was even going to offer it up for fear that no one would quite understand my sense of humor and find it as funny as i do. then i got over myself and realized that this is my giveaway and if you want shit than you can have what i give you.

unfortunately, i don't have a pic of it because it can't be truly finished until i know who's getting it. and since i can't show you, it's certainly not as funny to tell you. therefor my final gift will be the mystery gift.


i thought i'd run this giveaway pretty much like how miss yvonne did when she gave away her fancy insult gum. it was really the most fair way i've seen to do things. to enter, you can either comment on this post or email me at pearlhider (at) gmail (dot) com and let me know which gift you'd like. if you post on your blog with a link back to this post, that will get you a second entry. i will be drawing names for the prizes and posting the winners thursday the 17th.

i hope you enjoy my bribes and that they make you giggle and clap. and also that they make you come back here every once in a while to lurk or comment, whichever you prefer.

and the winner is... (there's nothing to win, but nothing to lose either)

i was watching this tv show the other day about a loser. this man is broke, divorced, and lives in a tent in his own backyard. so naturally he attends a seminar on how to employ his natural talents in a profitable way. except that the only innate 'winning tool' this guy could come up with about himself was the fact that he's hung.

right. because the only direction this show can go is for him to become a hooker.

so it got me thinking about what my winning tool was and how i could put it to work for me, without involving prostitution in any way.

the first thing that came to mind is that i'm a decent cook. but then i realized that a million other people can also do that as well. not to mention that i'm lacking both the massive start-up capital and spare hundred hours or so a week needed to ensure that your culinary skills will ultimately become profitable.

i can also knit pretty well. but again, a trillion other people can do that. and i'm way too lazy to maintain an etsy account. besides, i'm also learning that yes, you can have too many throw blankets. and then, maybe i can't knit so well because i can only make things that are square or rectangular. this is what happened when i tried to make a hat for the fuss:



it was a little big.

so what the fuck else am i good at? (besides throwing unnecessary sweary words into sentences)

my moment of clarity has arrived.

i am an awesome negotiator. or i guess you could say i make good bribes. but i like negotiator better, it just sounds slightly more badass.

this is a skill i've had to hone over the years. it wasn't always so sublimely refined as it is today. when i was in college, the power of my skills used to even blow my own mind. like, for example, when i would go out to the bar with a fiver in my pocket and come home wasted and with about thirteen bucks stuffed into my pack of marlboro reds.

there was also the time that my piece of shit nissan sentra exploded on a major interstate, at 11:00 at night, on my birthday, in those dark days before cell phones. somehow i managed to convince the state trooper, who found me crying in a ball fifty feet from my smoldering vehicle, to drive me the forty plus miles to my house instead of following his orders to drop me at the place where they were going to tow my car to. he even let me use the radar thing to clock speeders. it looked like a tv remote from the eighties.

as i matured, so did my ability to reign in my power.

just this morning i successfully convinced the fuss that playing with the maraca i made out of plastic cups, hot pink duct tape, and quinoa is way more entertaining than chewing the nest of wires underneath the desk.



as anyone who's ever had the pleasure of a teething nine-month-old's company can tell you, this is not an easy thing to accomplish.

and if you wanted even more evidence of my winning tool at work, i will now predict that i will become, literally, a winning tool over at yo mama's blog. i'm pretty sure i can convince miss yvonne to send me a care package of insult gum, a handmade card, and maybe some cookies by spreading linky love for all you out there in blogland. i know you want to be a winner too, and you just may be if you head over and check out her contest.

whew. all this talking about myself has tired me out. what about you, dear reader, what's your winning tool*? i ask in part because i care about you and want to get to know you a little better, but also because i want to get some ideas for different ways i can exploit things to make bags of money. alright then, let's hear it.



*please don't creep me out by being perverted. i may be using a dirty pun, but i'm hoping for clean answers.