It was very kind of several of you to inquire as to my well-being after the death-by-cookies post. You were worried that the delay in follow-up posting meant I did indeed die in my kitchen as all women should, and I appreciate your concern. To the dozen or so of you who actually called 911 and had ambulances sent over, however, I'm a little irritated at you. That was a bit over the top.

The truth is, I didn't end up baking after all. I still have all the ingredients sitting in my kitchen, openly mocking me, but so far I've skillfully avoided doing anything with them. I meant to, I really did! But we spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day with Brian's family, and on the day after Christmas, Brian had surgery. (Sex change? Vasectomy? Partial colostomy? You decide.) I used Brian's surgery as my weak excuse to say I didn't have time to bake, what with all the caretaking I had to do for him afterwards. (In reality, "caretaking" ended up meaning "not asking him to do household chores for a whole day," but still, it was the best excuse I had available to me at the time.) Tonight I had a Pilates class to teach, and then bright and early tomorrow we leave for Corpus Christi, where we'll be spending a few days with more of Brian's family. (I knew I should have followed my instinct and married a guy with no family, but apparently most of those kind of men are on death row or in meth labs in the back woods of rural Missouri. Which doesn't make them undesirable, just harder to meet.) Actually, the trip to Corpus was my reason for wanting to bake cookies in the first place--I wanted to take them for the family to enjoy. Later, it occurred to me that there's very little about vomiting that's enjoyable, so I realized the family would appreciate me more if I just stayed out of the kitchen.

At any rate, you won't hear from me for a couple of days while I'm out of town, so you'll have to content yourself with internet pornography and shoplifting like you did before we met. Here's the part where I should say something like, "Here are some links to a few great bloggers you can read while I'm gone--I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!" I started to do something like that, but then I realized no other bloggers are as interesting as me, and I didn't want to offer you less than the best. I'm that committed to bringing you the best quality entertainment possible.

Okay, I'm kidding. Here, read these, if you're that desperate to avoid talking to your spouse:

Watching someone spiral into madness and depravity is always interesting, in spite of its sadness.

Some chicks are smart and funny and will mail you presents at Christmas, if you suck up to them all year.

Why do you have to read mean stuff all the time? How about trying someone who's just plain lovable?

I didn't make this guy's list of "blog crushes." But mark my words, I'll weasel my way onto that list in 2007, if I have to start posting nude pictures of myself.

That should keep you occupied. See you when I get back.

Labels: Holiday hell, The internet--it's more than just pornography, The Karlababble Household