Last year at this time, I was very, very sad. 2010 had been a very tough year full of loss. I remember - vividly - walking the dogs and this song, “Christmas Lights” by Coldplay (video below) came on my iPod and I had to stop walking because I was crying so hard.

This year, it has a different meaning. Two days ago, our baby girl was born. She’s a few weeks early so is spending some time in the NICU but besides being a little small, she’s perfect (and the best Christmas gift EVER). Listening to this song today made me cry but for different reasons. Never give up hope. Never stop fighting. And may all your troubles soon be gone. Happy holidays and keep shining on.

I was a wee bit emotional the other night and this had manifested itself in crying. Hysterically. For a little while. Hubby said: “I have something that might cheer you up. It’s an early Christmas gift.”

And then he showed it to me: The confirmation number from an online order of…a share in the Packers. As in, the Green Bay Packers. You know, my team.

Immediately my sad tears turned to happy tears. Husband.Of.The.Year.

So, now that I’m an owner of the Packers, today’s game took on new meaning. When I was shouting at Aaron Rodgers to get rid of the ball, I truly believed he could not only hear me but would heed me. And when I yelled at Mike McCarthy to take the first-stringers out to avoid injury and give the second-stringers some much-needed practice, I all but searched my cell phone’s phonebook for a number for Lambeau’s sideline.

It’s good to be (partial) boss. Go Pack Go.

(Our daughter, as you can imagine, already has MORE than enough baby-Packer gear. So much, in fact, that part of her closet looks like a GBP gift shop.)

We weren’t wishing for either gender, as either would be grand.

But we recently found out that the tiny dancer is a lady. We’re THRILLED. Over the moon, actually.

But it (almost immediately) made me think of the following:

1. Miss Representation

2. This recent article

and

3. What Anne Lamott said about child-rearing: How can anyone bring a child into this world knowing that one day that child will have to endure the horrors of 7th and 8th grades?

Then I let myself ENJOY THE MOMENT and I went out and purchased a few choice girl outfits. If I get too far ahead of myself I won’t enjoy what I’ve got while I’ve got it.

This is as good a time as any to tell you, gentle readers, that the hubby and I are (finally, cautiously, JOYOUSLY) expecting a bambino in early 2012. It’s been a long, often heartbreaking road getting here, but we’re so tickled to become parents. In the spirit of parenthood and all of the surprises it will bring, we’ve chosen not to find out the baby’s gender ahead of time. Truthfully, we don’t care what we get - it’d be an honor to have either, the nursery is already gender-neutral, and we’re too lazy (and afraid of paint-fumes) to re-paint.

Anyway, today, while running late for an appointment, I got stuck behind THE SLOWEST MOTHERF*CKING DRIVER in the history of the automobile. This assface was driving 2 miles an hour and I, late for my appointment and impatient by nature, screamed at this driver for FOUR FLOORS of the parking structure.

Things I shouted at the car in front of me that I would never want my kid to hear me say:

“I hate you so much.”

“Nope, not a spot, you f*ckbag, unless you really ARE handicapped.”

“You suck d*cks for a living.”

It was after that last one that I realized: might be a good idea to clean up the language well-ahead of the Bambino’s entrance into the world. Heaven forbid his/her first word be “c*cksucker.”

So, new words to help me transition: Fuzz You! Sharkface! Anthole!

At what point are you just COLLECTING children?

Get another hobby, like doll, coin, or stamp collecting, you crazy F*cks.

She is clearly addicted to the hormones that come with pregnancy, and when you outsource most of the childrearing duties to your older kids, and are paying for said-kids by exploiting them on a reality show, it’s akin to child abuse.

As the now famous poster says: the vagina is not a clown car.

(courtesy of Barbara Abercrombie, writing professor extraordinaire)

“Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is that change when it comes cracks everything open…Two or three things I know for sure, and one is that I would rather go naked than wear the coat the world has made for me….Two or three things I know for sure and one of them is that telling the story all the way through is an act of love.”

-Dorothy Allison (Two or Three Things I Know For Sure)

“Help me to have the courage to finish what I have begun, and to begin what I want to finish.”

-Phyllis Theroux (The Journal Keeper)

Click the arrows in the lower right corner to make the screen bigger.

“[Y]ou can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” -Steve Jobs

Tomorrow night’s the big night! 5pmPST/8pmEST on Fox!

Last year, I picked most of the winners (whatever, no big deal). Here are my picks for this year:

Best supporting actor, comedy - should be: Ty Burrell; will be: Eric Stonestreet, Chris Colfer, or Jon Cryer (*explanation below)

Best supporting actress, comedy - should be: Betty White; will be: Jane Lynch

Best actress, comedy - should be: Amy Poehler; will be: Laura Linney

Best actor, comedy - should and will be: Steve Carell

Best comedy - should and will be: Modern Family

Best supporting actor, drama - should be: Peter Dinklage; will be: John Slattery

Best supporting actress, drama - should be: Christine Baranski; will be: Margo Martindale

Best actress, drama - should be: Connie Britton; will be: Juliana Margulies

Best actor, drama - should be: Kyle Chandler; will be: Jon Hamm

Best drama - should be: Friday Night Lights; will be: Ugh, Mad Men (or Boardwalk Empire?)**

*On best supporting actor in a comedy - this is a tough category. Will the 4 ModFam actors all split the vote, leaving Jon Cryer (who could ONLY win because of a split vote or a sympathy vote for all the Sheen/Lorre drama. I hate that show. They should change the title to “22 minute dick joke”) or Chris Colfer who ruled last season of Glee but how hard was that, based on the quality of Glee’s season? I LOVE him as an actor and character, but there was certainly nothing comedic about what he was going through or how they had him play it. Or might Eric Stonestreet repeat this year? His character is so flashy and it’s such a great role that he plays so perfectly… Sigh. Ty Burrell might have to wait another year.

**On best drama: PLEASE don’t let it be Mad Men AGAIN! Have Emmy voters learned nothing from previous years? If not, then the show’s creator will, yet AGAIN, get up and act surprised and like he hasn’t already prepared a speech, or worse: makes some bullshitty comment like last year when he said, “As I was saying…” in reference to how many times they’d won before. Am rooting for Friday Night Lights, of course, or really ANY other show to stage an upset.

I’d like to preface this by saying that I’ve never been to a Black Friday sale. I’ve never “camped out” for anything (even when I was at camp as a kid). I’ve never stood in line for anything longer than 15 minutes and when I did, Splash Mountain or the Indiana Jones rides at Disneyland were the rewards at the ends of those lines, so they were worth it. Knowing that, it’s possible that what follows is normal - or, if not “normal” then par for the course for such events.

I’d seen the TV ads for Missoni’s collection for Target and I thought they were very cute. I found the lookbook online and liked several items. So much so that I marked September 13th - the first day Target would take orders - on my calendar. Did I NEED that short-sleeved multi-colored sweater dress? No. But I wanted it. And for some reason I had my heart set on the clipboard. And the box of pencils. And the ballet flats. And the child’s rainboots, even though I don’t yet have children.

I thought I was pretty damn clever this morning. I had set my clock for 5am and logged on to Target’s website. I started to add some items to my cart and then poof! I lost my connection to the site. When I tried to get back on, the little Target dog, Bullseye, was staring back at me, woofing something about how they’re trying to get the site back up and running. Fine. I refreshed my page for two hours. Any time I started to drift back to sleep, I’d wake with a start, only to see that damn dog. Finally, I made what I felt was a GENIUS decision: I’d go to one of their locations! I shared this novel idea with my husband (”While every one else is waiting online for this shitty site to come back up, I’ll be in the store grabbing whatever I want! I’ll have first dibs on everything!” Then, for effect, I tapped my finger against my temple, to remind him, in case he’d forgotten, that he married a smarty pants). My husband said he didn’t think that was a good idea, but I was already out the door.

I was so impressed with myself as I drove across town to what I assumed would be the least popular and most deserted of their many locations.

I was very very wrong. I arrived 15 minutes before the opening, and saw the crowd, nay, mob. There were easily 250 people ahead of me in line, some who apparently had camped out the night before. By the time the doors finally opened, there were at least 250 more people behind me.

This is as good a time as any to tell you that I’ve never actually been INSIDE of a Target. I’ve ordered from them online, but I’ve never been lucky enough to have one near wherever I’m living. I didn’t realize how big they are. Sprawling, really. In retrospect, I wish I’d somehow studied a store-map prior to going in, because I had no idea where I was going or where anything would be. Once the doors opened, I followed the throngs of women, but it felt like a massive and poorly organized Easter egg hunt.

By the time I got in, the Missoni racks were empty. No short-sleeved dresses (in ANY size) left. No clipboards. No pencils. No rainboots for my future child. Nothing.

Well, that’s not entirely true: I found some Missoni file folders and some bulldog clips. And a notepad. I’d fashion a Missoni clipboard myself, thank you very much.

What I purchased is not the point, though. It’s what I witnessed:

-One woman stole something out of another woman’s basket right in front of her! They got into a swearing match until the one who stole it just took off - ran like a crazy person through the store! - with the “stolen” items.

-One woman stole another woman’s ENTIRE cart full of stuff! She just walked away with it! (Around this time Target employees announced over the loudspeakers to be aware of our surroundings [??] and to keep our purses close to our bodies [!!].)

-I saw a woman in a motorized wheelchair (to whom no one afforded any respect or extra space to maneuver) intentionally ramming said motorized wheelchair into the backs of other shoppers’ knees and calves. Was she trying to mow them all down? It’s entirely possible. If the world was told to take shelter for an undetermined amount of time, I’d totally hire this woman to do my pre-disaster grocery shopping and/or looting. (Side note: Target even has groceries! WTF!)

-And then, finally, I saw a woman punch another woman IN THE FACE! Over a pair of size 3 flats! No adult even wears a size 3! I’m not even sure these women checked to see the size! They fought over the box until the one lady punched the other lady (IN THE FACE!! I CAN’T GET OVER IT)!

I later heard that lots of people grabbed anything they could so that they could sell it online for a profit.

(Reality check: This happened TWO days after the 10 year anniversary of 9/11.)

So what have I learned from my first foray into what I now call fad-mob-shopping? So much:

1. Never, ever leave your house. 2. When websites go haywire, so do we, 3. Missoni’s zig-zags ultimately give you a day-long migraine, 4. Target over-advertised this collection, but didn’t ultimately have the supply (or the web support) to back it up, and 5. BITCHES BE CRAZY.

My bull-dog clips and file folders: