Happy New Year from my mom and her festive hat, and my brother and his stylish coveralls:

Dear Kevin McHale,

As you are well aware, I love you and your organization with all my heart. You have enriched my life greatly since I became a basketball fan five years (or so) ago.

I have a Kevin Garnett snow globe on my desk. I have a Kevin Garnett beanie bear on my shelf, and a Wally Szerbiak one, as well. Those weird nesting dolls? Yeah, we've constructed a shrine out of them—Wally and Mad Dog on top of the TV, next to the KG and Crunch bobbleheads. Last year I glued a mini-Crunch doll to a gold star, and it hangs on our Christmas tree now.

I got teary when I saw Fred Hoiberg up and walking around at the Target Center, because I've been so worried about him. Most of my passwords for various things include the letters "KG" or the number 21. You were kind enough to send us a Christmas Card, albeit a business-y, non-personalized one that went to all season ticket holders, not just us, but I love you so much that it is displayed proudly on my file cabinet. For the love of everything holy, I'm a 42-year-old woman who owns, and sometimes even wears, a Kevin Garnett jersey, and I wore my Timberwolves santa hat to the last two games before Christmas.

Since you read my blog every day, you know how I respect you and the Timberwolves very much, and write happy, positive posts about basketball on a regular basis. Because you and I are so close, Kevin, I feel like I can ask you this:

HAVE YOU LOST YOUR EVERLOVING MIND? ARE YOU NUTS? DID YOU START SMOKING WEED RECENTLY? ARE YOU EXPERIENCING EARLY ONSET DEMENTIA? IS THIS SOME KIND OF JOKE? DID LARRY BIRD ONCE GIVE YOU A KIDNEY, AND NOW YOU OWE HIM A BIG GINORMOUS FAVOR? DO YOU ENJOY IRRITATING THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF KEVIN GARNETT?

DON'T YOU LOVE ME, KEVIN MCHALE? AFTER ALL THE LOYALTY I'VE SHOWN YOU?

What makes you think that you and Glen can handle Ron Artest's psychotic personality when you guys couldn't even handle Spree's slightly off-kilter one? If that was a "failed experiment," what is your hypothesis on this one?

I understand that the Wolves need something. Somebody who can score (Like Latrell Sprewell, but I'm not bitter, much). I understand that you have to give up something to get something. It's a sad fact that you may have to trade Kandi, or McCants, or, though it pains me greatly to even think of it, Eddie Griffin. But don't do it unless you can GET something decent in return, and not somebody who is destined to end up at the St. Peter Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

Please, Kevin! I beg you! If you love me even a little, please withdraw that offer to trade Kandi, McCants, and Eddie Griffin for that nutball Artest, and then do whatever it takes to soothe the wounds you created by making the offer in the first place.

Sincerely,

Suzi McDonough
Loyal Timberwolves Fan

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So, guess what shwas in my Christmas stocking? Give up? Okay I'll tell you. Courtside seats to tonight's Timberwolves-Suns game!

It's likely that the only one who will be interested in this event is this guy, because he is also a basketball fan, but since it's my blog, I'm going to tell you about it anyway. To spare you, I've created a separate slide show, which you can see if you click here.

Let me just say, OH MY GOOD HEAVENS! How I love sitting at courtside! Tonight we were right under the basket in front of the Timberwolves bench, which isn't necessarily the best vantage point as far as seeing the entire game, but who cares?! The part of the game you *can* see is pretty damn spectacular from there.

Firstively, here's a very cool thing. Shawn (Sean?) Marion fouled KG under the basket, and my vocal sports fan husband objected. As they lined up for the free throw, Shawn (Sean?) Marion looked RIGHT AT us, smiled, and said, "What? Come on! He's seven feet tall, I'm 6-7. What do you expect me to do?" and then he smiled and winked for my camera, while they were playing basketball! How great is that?

Secondively, how did I not notice, for the past two years, just what a handsome man Michael Olowakandi is? Holy geez! He hurt his elbow, so he was sitting on the bench in a suit, ala Rick Fox, and sitting on a bench in a suit is how he very looks best.

Thirdively, if you look at the slide show, notice my pretty red coat that Rose gave me for Christmas. Love it, don't you? What an awesome daughter she is.

Okay, I have to go to bed. Some people have to WORK tomorrow, you know.

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That's all. Oh, wait. Here is Alex's actual Christmas card. I posted the second choice earlier. I wouldn't want you to think he was so crass as to actually send the naked frat boy one. Oh, no. Rose acquired that for me. No, he sent this much classier version of himself and his housemates with their festive Christmas tree…made of beer kegs.

…and all through the house, the mom was laughing inappropriately at the improper Christmas greeting that her daughter's boyfriend put together with his housemates:

Ahhhhh, college.

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Boy, that was fun. If you have the opportunity, I highly recommend you go to New York City at Christmas time, okay? We had nineteen kinds of fun, and you know how people always say, "ahhh, that's been fun, but it'll be good to get home"? Yeah, well. That didn't apply. I love my home, but I would have happily stayed.

We did all the touristy stuff, and have the photos to prove it. Firstively, we saw the Radio City Music Spectacular, and let me tell you…spectacular! Laurie had purchased VIP seats tickets, so we got to go in the special door-without-a-line and were seated six rows from the front. We were this close to the Rockettes, not to mention midgets! And you know how I enjoy me some midgets!

Secondively, we saw the ginormous Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. I am precisely as old as the tree. We counted the rings on its stump and compared that number to the number of wrinkles on my face, and they were equal:

We walked around some more that night, and then had dinner at Smith and Wollensky. Steaks like buttah. I think the was the point at which the first of many Gray Goose dirty martinis was drunk in Robert's honor. Robert is Laurie's husband, who was supposed to be in New York with Laurie, but had to back out, which is how I ended up getting to go. He's a gentleman and a scholar, and we drank to his sense of responsibility and character that would keep him in Boston, and so we toasted him heartily and often.

After we finished, we walked around yet some more, and popped into the bar where Laurie and Robert got engaged. If I could remember the name of it, I would provide the link, but I cannot. Castle-something. We felt obligated to drink one more toast to Robert there, and then we walked around and around and around some more, before retiring to our room for a good night's sleep.

Laurie was exhausted, so she slept in a little, while I got up at 5:45 CST because I cannot ever wake up at a different time, now that I'm on my schedule. So silly, but I was happy to be up early. I took a quick shower, got dressed, and went out for a little walk through Central Park, then down Broadway and into Times Square. I stopped for a latte and a banana and sat in a little coffee shop while I read the NY Times. SO relaxing to watch people walk by, all New York-y. At 9:00 I got in the line for discount tickets at TKTS, which opens at 10. By 10:20 I was back at the hotel, having scored a couple of tickets to The Light in the Piazza at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center. It was okay, but man! I'm surprised it won so many Tonys.

We encountered Cruella Deville there, interestingly enough, and stalked her to a greeting card store in the area so I could take this picture:

I would edit out her face, but come on. . .if she is among my six regular readers, she'd recognize herself, anyway. Only one human could possibly have that hair.

That night we had dinner at Shelly's, where we drank more martinis and ate a two-tiered seafood project that included crab legs, lobster, cherrystone clams, shrimp, and oysters. And you, my friends, get to witness a first: me eating a raw oyster. I have never been able to make myself put one of those in my mouth before, and the reason for that is simple. Years ago I worked for a veterinarian and assisted in the operating room, where dogs routinely have their testicles popped out of their scrotum and removed. An oyster reminded me of a dog testicle floating in snot. So, after much consideration (consideration=vodka), I decided to eat one, and found it not at all like the snot-testicle mixture I'd imagined. It was actually quite okay, but I don't really need to eat another one anytime soon.

Eating at the bar gave us the opportunity to enjoy some live music, and to see this lady whose drink matched her extraordinarily hideous Christmas sweater:

On the way back to the hotel, we saw this elf photographing Santa and the Missus, under the watchful eye of Donald Trump, who was impersonating a gerbil:

And there you have it. Tomorrow, if I get to blog, I will tell you about the interesting people I met while on airplanes and in airports. They include:

A not-quite-right guy who escaped from his watchers

A guy who is the kind of Jewish that requires him to wear a special hat

A labor mediator who had opinions about the imminent transit worker strike

Garrison Keillor

An unaccompanied minor who sat next to me and had to be the person upon whom this character is based:

An obnoxious lady who went holy frickin' apecrap crazy when the plane took off twenty minutes late, and who ordered chardonnay and then freaked out because she wanted RED chardonnay, not white.

Good heavens. If you've read this entire long, boring entry, I thank you. That was above and beyond reader duty.

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Wouldn't it be just nifty if your friend from Boston called you one day, and asked if you could meet her in New York City the next day? And wouldn't it be cool if it happened at Christmas time, because New York+Christmas=Wonderland? And how great would it be if she already had tickets to Radio City? It would be swell if there were flights available from Minneapolis, but wouldn't it be extra swell if you could use the free ticket voucher they gave you when you got bumped from your Phoenix flight last spring?

Then, wouldn't it make it even more enjoyable if your 14-year-old announced that she had a choir rehearsal at 6:45 a.m. on Friday morning, and asked if her friend could spend the night Thursday because of transportation issues? Is it wrong of me to feel a teeny bit happy that HE has to get up early because I have been doing this stuff for 20 years?

Ah, it's good to be me. See you Sunday!

See how nicely these kids are getting along here? See how they're all snuggled up, and the big brother is helping the little sister learn to play her new game? Isn't that just warm and snuggly?

Sadly, it didn't last. To remind you, the little redheads are my most excellent nephew and niece, whose photos and stories you can find throughout this web site.

So, we celebrated Sophie's 5th birthday yesterday, and they were both little darlings until the very end. There was an altercation over the fair and reasonable length of turns using Sophie's Gameboy with the OH BOY GRANDMA JUST WHAT I WANTED THE LINDSEY LOHAN HERBIE! game. Let's pretend it's not even alarming that my sweet five-year-old baby doll knows who Lindsey Lohan is, but I digress. JohnHenry felt slighted in typical not-the-birthday-kid fashion, and started to needle Sophie about her pathetic lack of Gameboy skill. Of course, Sophie found this most insulting and began to wail.

My brother bundled up both kids and buckled and tied them into their respective seating devices within his car, then came in to say goodbye to our parents, while I went to the car to kiss JohnHenry and Sophie. I took the opportunity to remind them that they should be sweet to their daddy, because firstively, he is a really nice daddy, and secondively, because it's awfully close to Christmas, and Santa is watching.

Both kids immediately fell silent, and their faces registered two distinct and completely different emotions. Sophie: smug satisfaction. JohnHenry: Distraught horror.

JohnHenry then started his own dramatic wailing, smacked himself in the forehead, tipped his face toward heaven and yelled, OOOOOOOH, NOOOOOO! Then he put his head in his hands and sobbed, WHAT HAVE I DONE?

Beautiful. I assured him that he was probably still okay, that he had two weeks to turn this around.

Just talked to my brother. The kids have been model citizens all day long.

I wish teenagers could be manipulated by Santa.

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Okay, I've been mostly absent from the wonderful world of blogging lately, and that has to do with two things, mostly: Christmas and working.

Firstively, I shall tell you an amusing anecdote about my job.

I work for a company that makes stuff, and we do a lot of our own printing. I wear a few hats, as it turns out that my particular set of skills matches well with the things that need to be done around there. I work in Photoshop a lot, and it also happens that I very love talking to people and encouraging them, and that is how I ended up wearing the Person-Who-Goes-to-Meetings-in-Other-Cities-to-Introduce-Our-New-Products-to-Groups-of-Sales-Reps hat. Before I left for Seattle, my boss made me some business cards and we printed them right there, since we have all the equipment that job requires.

I went merrily to Seattle and presented our new pretty things, and passed out my swell business cards to all. When I got back to the office on Wednesday, my helpful coworker had taped a business card to my computer monitor, and she had lovingly highlighted two things: my incorrect email address, and a tragically beautiful misspelling in my title.

When I'm being the Person-Who-Goes-to-Meetings-in-Other-Cities-to-Introduce-Our-New-Products-to-Groups-of-Sales-Reps, my title is Associate Sales Manager. The title on my business card reads ASSOIATE SALES MANAGER. That's right, kids. Say it three times fast, and you get ASSWIT SALES MANAGER.

I laughed so hard that I choked and cried, which is what asswit sales managers do.

Secondively, I hosted the annual neighborhood ladies' drunken cookie exchange on Friday. It was lots and lots of fun and merriment and eating and more eating and DeNae sharing inappropriate stories about bananas from her college years and more eating and more cranberry-Grey Goose-champagne punch and more fun than a sack of monkeys in Santa hats. And the cookies! The cookies, if arranged in a single-file line, would span the distance from Burnsville, Minnesota to Lima, Peru, and back again. I have never had so many cookies under my roof at the same time, but guess what? At this writing, a mere 48 hours after the event, the cookies that remain have been consolidated onto ONE plate. Just one. The others have been ingested by Kelly, Rose, Pat, Grandma Betty, and Frank. Frank is Grandma Betty's long-term hot young boyfriend, and they are visiting all the way from Calleefornee, and Frank can pack away more cookies at a sitting than Santa himself. It's truly amazing!

So I was looking through my pictures in iPhoto and came across this sweet photo of Halie and Kelly:

Is that just pure maple sugary sweet cuteness, or what? I love it, especially when I compare it to the other seven hundred photos they've taken of each other, where they strike the standard teenager-posing-for-the-camera posture with their lips half-pursed in a badass kind of kiss, and flash that generic suburban wanna-be faux gang sign. I'm sure anybody with a kid between the ages of 11 and 18 knows exactly what I'm talking about.

Hey, thanks for missing me during my brief disappearance, you guys! Your emails made me happy as all heck.

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I have never. ever. not once. ever. in my life had such a full week. Nothing that would be of interest to anybody, I'm sure, but I went on an actual business trip, hosted a Christmas party/cookie exchange, worked, and welcomed my in-laws for a visit. I don't actually have much time to blog, but I will soon.

So I went to Seattle early in the week, and one morning I ordered a delightful room service breakfast, a quesadilla with NO KIDDING salmon in it. In Seattalian, "dessert" means "ketchup," evidently:

Did I see any important sights in Seattle? I did not. I didn't see the space needle (well, I saw it, but not up close). I didn't see the fish market where they throw fish at each other. I didn't see Mount Ranier because it was cloudy. I did, however, see the most wonderful part of Seattle, which is this: Archie McPhee. That's right. I now have a "livestrong" bracelet that says APATHY.

I'm going to blog more. So help me. I miss you guys. Maybe tonight after the Timberwolves game.

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