Happy Canvent, the merriest holiday of them all.

Happy Canvent, everyone!  I hope you all enjoying celebrating this special time of year.


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What, you don't know what Canvent is?  I'm shocked.  This holiday deserves a place in history along with Ludachristmas and Festivus.

Let me tell you a story of the origin of Canvent:  Once upon a time, there was a coworker with a very odd mother-in-law.  This mother-in-law thought it would be funny to bring a box of canned goods to her future daughter's bridal shower.  Yes, a box of canned goods.   With the labels ripped off.  No other gift.  No explanations or game to go along with it---the mother-in-law just laughed and said that it was a common practice.

Nothing says "welcome to the family" like a box of a cans without labels.

So what's a girl to do with a large box of unlabeled canned goods?  You can't donate them.  You don't really want to eat them...so they sat in her garage until she made a mistake of telling her coworkers about it.  

And thus Canvent was created.  Every day from now until Christmas, our office will open up one can.  Bets will be placed on what it contains.  If it's not something too disgusting, we may even eat it.  

The winner of Canvent gets absolutely nothing (except the warm, fuzzy feeling of being right when everyone else is wrong--and really, who doesn't love that?)   And the winner of the first day of Canvent is....

It's a gift.  And a curse.

Insert pun about manwich and my knowledge of it here. 

Happy Canvent, y'all.  Maybe Canvent is an elaborate metaphor for how each of us, stripped of our labels, contain wildly different things on the inside.  Or maybe it's just a good excuse to be thankful that no matter what, your mother-in-law has never given you the gift of unlabeled cans.

Unless, of course, you happen to be my coworker.

You can’t go home again. But you can always feel like an awkward, moody teenager.

High school wasn’t bad for me.  It wasn’t great, either.  I had my share of unreasonable teenage angst and questionable fashion decisions.   

I went to a large high school.  While I wasn’t one of the cool kids, it never bothered me because I had friends who were just as uncool as I was.  I was an odd combination of nerd and wannabe arty rebel—think National Honors Society, editor of the literary magazine, a bit of backstage theater work, ska-and-punk music lover, and a horse wrangler for a Girl Scout camp on occasional weekends.  Plus, I was weird and awkward.  I once wore a pair of pants with battery powered Christmas lights decorating the outside seams, and I tended to read novels behind my text books. 

I keep in touch with a couple people from my high school, as we went to college together and remained friends.   When I got the invitation to my ten year high school reunion, I had two simultaneous thoughts. 

1) Ten years?  That can’t be right. I’m fairly certain I’m still like 26.  I know I’ve been 26 for a few years now, but it’s a good age. 

2) Sparkles and I can go together, and we can get drunk and make snarky comments.  And that is what reunions are truly about.

After I bought the ticket to the reunion, I found out that the ever illustrious Sparkles had to work—and she has the type of job that you can never, ever, call in sick unless you are already dead from the plague.  My other friend lives across the country and wasn’t about to spend $500 on a plane ticket just for a reunion.  So I was stuck flying solo. I considered bringing my husband but tickets were $60.  And while I thought that I may be able to have $60 worth of fun, it was unlikely that my introvert husband would have an additional $60 worth of fun with people he had never met.

I was strangely nervous about the whole thing.  Batman pointed out that it was highly unlikely I would be made fun of, as we were all adults now.  I reminded him that with copious amounts of alcohol, anything was possible.  

Low points of the evening:  Two people called me by the wrong name.  Including our guidance counselor.

High points of the evening:  It was actually cool to see everyone all grown up.  Most people seemed about the same (which is a scary thought in itself) except, you know, older.  There was no snobbery going on, and while everyone kind of gravitated towards people they knew, I spoke to almost everyone there.  There was a constant litany of the same three questions:  What do you do?  Where do you live/have you ever left the city?  Do you have a family?

I'm glad I went.  When I got home, Batman asked me how it went.  I told him it was fun--and assured him that none of my high school crushes were remotely attractive anymore. 

One down, a hundred and twenty seven crafts to go.

You know how I had a million and one crafts I wanted to make?

I finished one!  That's a start at least.

This is my fishing game, inspired from this blog I found through Pinterest.  I used a thin rope rather than twine or leather for the fishing line, but other than that I followed those instructions pretty closely.

Mo-mo the toddler approves.  Fat Mar-mar the cat approves. (See the paw?)

After watching Mar-mar eat the fish, Mo-mo wondered how they tasted.  She was disappointed that they didn't taste like Goldfish crackers.