9. That's what the temperature is. We await, breathlessly, the moment it moves into double-digits.
So, yesterday's Office Holiday Party is already just a memory. (I got an Itty Bitty Booklight in the Dreidel/White Elephant game, so I did well. One guy wound up with a SpongeBob SquarePants lunch box filled with cans of PlayDough.) There were hard-fought battles over a Starbucks coffee cup and a CD holder made to go over a car visor, but in the end, most of us were reasonably happy with our winnings.
I had one more gift I wanted to buy, but I've scoured the city (or as much of it as I can reasonably reach*) and I can't find it, so I'm just throwing up my hands and giving in. I'm bitterly disappointed and I can't think of anything else I can buy to take its place. I don't want to buy something last-minute just to be buying something, you know?
If I manage to get out of here early today, I will be making sugar cookies tonight. If I don't, I won't.
I can't find the stockings at home and I've no idea what I did with the box that holds them. I rather suspect it's the one I chose to use to prop up the tree this year (to allow more Present Space underneath). Instead of stockings hung by the (non-existent) chimney with care, we'll be having Bag O'Little Stuff Sitting next to a faux hearth.
For today, my entire planned workload consists of "write status report." I don't doubt I could reach a few people, should I bother to call, but at the moment Buehler is desperately trying to get through the work he has to do today so he can leave early to do his Christmas shopping, so I'm remaining available to render assistance.
Me, I don't understand how a man who shops as much as he does (he's a catalog shopper, there are boxes full of stuff he's ordered here in the office) can be not done on 12/23, but.... Well, as I said above, I missed out on the chance to buy one thing through procrastination, so maybe I shouldn't talk.
________________________
* Not including, you know, the Evil of Wal-Mart because I'm not giving them any of my money under any circumstances.
(Also, I've recently discovered that Amazon.com has thrown off the mask and revealed itself as a Bastion of Evil through giving something like 98% of their political donations to The Wrong People, so I'm going to have to stop shopping there. I understand that Barnes & Noble is acceptable, should I need books on-line. It's not easy to Buy Blue but I'm going to be making the effort.)
About Amazon? I read Morford's column and followed the links, and then followed more links, and there seems to be a huge discrepancy amongst the sites about how much which corp gave to whom. I'm withholding judgement until I can find something definitive. One of the sites he cites only has data as current as the '02 elections, which I don't think is good enough.
posted by: Dail on 12.23.04 at 01:49 PM [permalink]It takes a while for data from the elections to be released and compiled. (Except where a donor makes their donation public or advertises it themselves.) And to review and cross-reference numbers and interpret them.
I feel that data from the '02 elections is pretty current. I can't imagine that many corporations changed corporate policy that drastically between '02 and '04, for instance. It's not just about one election (sorry, can't resist the urge to ramble on) of course. A corporation with a history of subsidizing the Republican party, for instance, probably means a corporation that supported both Bushes and Reagan.
Corporations are free to donate their money where they will.
And I am free to spend my money with corporations if and only if I agree with where they spend theirs.
I object to handing a cooporation my money if they, in turn, are going to hand it over to a bunch of irresponsible, short-sighted extremists.
(I didn't actually get there via Morford, although I did see he had a column about it.)
posted by: Anne on 12.23.04 at 02:13 PM [permalink]I'm with you absolutely about the not spending my money with folks who do bad things with it. It's why Domino's Pizza never ever will be at my house. But when, in very limited surfing, I found three sites who all claimed to have some authority on the subject, have very different statistics, I'm going to reserve judgement about who I quit shopping with until I can find something that has more accuracy.
posted by: Dail on 12.23.04 at 08:07 PM [permalink]What did Domino's do? Not that I'm all that crazy about their pizza, but sometimes they're the only game in town. *pout*
Also, I know they don't have the selection Amazon or even Barnes & Noble have, but powells.com is always a good source of books for me, when they have what I want.
Thanks for the BuyBlue site too. I have been boycotting Fox TV and Walmart for months. I'll add amazon to my list, as much as that will probably hurt.