Driving to do some errands tonight I was annoyed at one stoplight by the car behind me weaving around, pulling up in the non-lane next to me, and then speeding ahead of me as soon as the light thought about turning green, leaving me to contemplate it’s sporty back side (complete with words, which I never did get around to reading, decalled onto the rear windshield).

“Stupid car,” I thought, “But whatever.”

I went to the co-op for milk, and then drove the couple blocks to the other grocery store in town (because the co-op doesn’t sell regular old fruit juice). But as I got out and locked my car, screeching tires made me look up and jump out of the way as THAT CAR careened into a space across from me.

“Man,” I thought, “That guy’s going to kill one of these little old ladies or the little old men onto whose arms the little old ladies are clinging.” (Ok, I admit, when I’m thinking in my head I don’t worry that much about keeping prepositions away from periods, but you get the idea.) (And yes, there were more little old couples than usual this evening, probably because after today we’re heading into a stretch of “dangerously cold” weather the like of which hasn’t been seen in this state in 3 years.)

I wasn’t in the store long. I just had to pick up juice. And soon I was handing money to the cashier, taking my change, and … the guy behind me was so eager to move into the check-writing spot by the cashier that he accidentally (I hope) kicked the bottom of my foot as I moved away!

Now, I’ve had a pretty bad day, with only a couple of hours of un-bad-ness in the late afternoon, so I admit that I gave him a withering “that was un-called-for” look before going out to my car. He never saw me look at him. Seconds later, the offending guy (dressed to the nines, I might add) emerged from the store and hopped into his sporty little car, complete with white lettering (which I still hadn’t read) decalled across the rear windshield.

A gym has it’s own culture. People are expected to keep their eyes forward and somewhat unfocused lest they appear to notice that they aren’t the only ones in the gym. The first unforgivable sin is to actually see the people around you.

There are other rules, though. There’s a veritable caste system of fitness. Those who are fit are practically required to wear as little as possible because everyone else will be inspired by their flat abs and toned extremities. Those who are less fit should never wear this type of revealing clothing lest they frighten away newcomers to the gym. Baggy t-shirts and sweats are pretty much par for the course.

Of course, fit people can also wear baggy t-shirts and sweats as long as they roll the sleeves up to their shoulders and carry around specialized equipment (such as back braces or elastic straps) that clearly marks them as highly fit. It is also acceptable for fit people to wear baggy clothing if they customize all the equipment they touch, moving benches from one machine to another or adding extra weights to the standard equipment.

This evening, as I did my best to torture myself into a sweat while wallowing in an over sized t-shirt and sweats (though not customizing anything, or carrying any specialized equipment), I committed the unforgivable sin. I kept glancing at the guy on the elliptical next to me.

No, it’s not what you’re thinking. Nothing even remotely close. No, this guy was… unique. His loafers cushioned his argyle-socked feet. Both of these complemented his chocolate brown, pleated, belted, corduroy pants and white button-down shirt. The yamaka, with it’s gold and tan embroidery, topped off the look to perfection.

I’m not sure where this fits in the gym hierarchy.

There’s nothing like the children’s Christmas program to cause heartache and stress in a church. Every year at my parents’ church the 4th grade girls wait in suspense to see which is the most Mary-ish of all. All year they give each other side-long glances in Sunday School and wonder if the Christmas program organizers are going to favor blond or brown hair this year, or whether they’ve grown too tall over the summer, or if it matters that they’ve started losing their front teeth. Can you be a proper Mary if you’re missing teeth? The pictures hanging in their Sunday school class rooms tend to show Mary with all her teeth, but they also show her with brown hair, and last year Gloria got to be Mary and she had blond hair…

The only consolation is that if you get passed over for Mary, there’s still the chance that you’ll be deemed worthy to be the Angel. And every year the Angle works very hard to redefine her concept of yule-time beauty. Soft shades of blue and that mysterious but wonderful head scarf to are nothing, nothing compared shimmering white and a ring of gold for your hair. (But maybe next year I can be Mary.)

Meanwhile the boys seem to land unawares in the roles of Joseph or the Wise Men. And, truth be told, being a Wise Man is a lot more fun because there are those cool shimmery turbans and the jewel-encrusted knick-knack boxes to carry.

The smallest kids that can be trusted to walk up the aisle and sit still in the front of the church get to be sheep. Everyone looks forward to watching the sheep perform their important roles. They typically have their lines better memorized than anybody else (they get to stand with their class to recite lines with the rest of the kids), and they perform their roles with great solemnity in the hopes that next year they’ll be able to be a cow or, most coveted of animal roles, the donkey.

These sheep are aided in carrying out their roles by three shepherds. Two shepherds walk in front of them down the aisle, and one shepherd walks behind to make sure they all get to the front of the church without mishap. These shepherds, just a couple years older than the sheep, steer the young-uns to their stations in the tableau and then spend the rest of the program exploring the layers and ropes of their costumes.

This year, though, there was quite a bit of sheep/shepherd drama. The last shepherd, the one charged with making sure they get to the front of the church without losing the sheep into the rows of parents sitting in the pews, got a little bit bored with his job. During the rehearsal he walked behind the two little sheep silently shooting them with imaginary pistols. In fact, he found this so amusing that the next morning, while all the be-costumed children waited to file into the church, he began shooting his sheep again. This time the sheep noticed and became understandably concerned. I tried discouraging the un-shepherdly practice, and then forbidding it, all with no effect. Finally, figuring it would discourage the practice if the shepherd didn’t get the satisfaction of an annoyed response from his sheep, I explained to the sheep that I was erecting a forcefield around them that would let air in but keep bullets out.

The sheep seemed doubtful. The shepherd knew for sure it would have no effect. Just to prove his point, he shot them again.

“Look,” I said, “the bullet bounced off and went right over there into the floor. Did you see that?”

Three pairs of eyes followed my pointing finger. The sheep looked at me in relief and admiration of my bullet-deflecting prowess. The shepherd looked at me in consternation and let out an involuntary, “Heeyyyyy…..”

Just to be sure, the shepherd tried again. This time the bullet flew into the opposite wall. “Heeeeyyyyyyy…..” the shepherd complained as the sheep sat calmly and contentedly within their forcefield and began comparing the ribbons and bows on their Christmas dresses.

In the face of such serenity, the shepherd decided it would be more interesting to look at the Wise Men and calculate how many more grades he’d have to advance before he’d be allowed to carry those gift boxes.

Last weekend my sister and I went to the ballet for the first time in at least 10 years. Truth be told, I’ve been avoiding the ballet. Not that I was ever one to buy season tickets or anything, but for the first few years after I quit dancing the last thing I wanted to do was go and watch people who were better dancers than me doing something I knew I’d never be able to do. So I figured, why pay money to torture myself with “what if” speculations?

But it’s been long enough now, and besides, my city’s ballet company has a new director who has been doing wonderful things with classics and new pieces alike. So my sister and I went to see the Nutcracker, and it was wonderful. The choreography was fresh and new, and even the story had been spiced up. (Clara gets the nutcracker, and she and her younger brother, Fritz, do their sibling rivalry thing. But her older sister Maria falls in love with the magician’s nephew, who later turns out to be the nutcracker prince.) In fact, the only disappointing bit was the grand pas de duex, and that was only because it was so conventionally beautiful compared to the rest of the ballet.

But going to the ballet wouldn’t, in itself, inspire an evening of typing. No. It was my seat neighbor. She and her middle aged daughter proved to be endlessly amusing. Darling daughter mentioned at one point that there weren’t as many kids in the audience is usual and wondered if parents weren’t bringing kids to the Nutcracker any more. She also spent quite a few happy minutes redesigning the theater so that fewer people would have to crawl over her to get to their seats (she was on the very end of the isle). And later she thought the viewing experience could be vastly improved if there were fewer kids in the audience.

Meanwhile, dear mama marked time. “Well, it’s 1:34,” she announced when the overture began. “A 45 minute party scene… my, my.” (I don’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.) It was 2:45 when the first act curtain went down and 2:57 when the curtain went up for the second act. The arabian couple danced for nearly 8 minutes, and it was 4:02 when the dancers took their final bows.

I hope they enjoyed the ballet as much as I did. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a version I liked more than this one, and the dancers (kids, apprentices, artists, and leading artists alike) were superb. And I thought they were just the right number of kids in the audience, and I’m pretty sure it was exactly the right length. Though what do I know. I haven’t been to the ballet in years.

The centerpiece of the town I live in is a cereal factory. Every day, thousands of pounds of cereal poor out of our town and into boxes that will grace breakfast tables around the nation. The only real downside of having such a factory in a small town is that the trains that roll through here day in and day out are longer than our town, and when they stop to drop off and pick up cereal, all traffic across town stops too.

But aside from the trains, it can be nice to wake up to the smell of crisping wheat on the wheat cereal days, or toasted rice on the rice cereal days. The chocolate cereal days remind me of baking cookies. It’s for all the world as if our town is your favorite grandma’s kitchen, and your grandma is a good baker.

But this morning the wind was coming from a new direction – the direction of the turkey farm. On turkey days I wish I were a fish, or anything that can breath something other than air. This does not smell like grandma’s kitchen. Nor, ironically, does it smell like turkey.