On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me... A garden weasel and a tampon caddy.

Listen up fellas, partners and creatively-challenged gift givers! There’s just a few hours left to redeem yourself and come up with something that won’t force your significant other into an Oscar-worthy performance when he/she opens your present on Christmas morning.  

I hate to generalize and say more men than women have a problem selecting thoughtful and loving gifts, but the evidence points in that direction. The facts also suggest that men and women disagree on what is a thoughtful gift. An informal poll of friends and acquaintances around the country turned up a surprising number of auto-related gifts under the tree, including a gas can (Ohio), windshield wipers (Kansas) and a hurricane survival kit (Florida). One of those givers shared this logic with his wife: “You spend so much time in your car alone and I just want you to be safe.” Okay, so those auto gifts are thoughtful in a way… but that kind of thoughtfulness, as one receiver so well put it, is more appreciated if your guy brings it home on Thursday evening just because… NOT wrapped up under the Christmas tree. No mistletoe kisses for you!

Another group of “practical gifts” went the gardening route—garden scissors, garden weasel, weed whacker. “I still can't figure out if it was supposed to be a joke,” said the scissors receiver, who had to open that gift t Christmas dinner in a restaurant.

Advice: Do not EVER get your woman a household or kitchen appliance unless they specifically ask for it.  (That includes smoke alarms and battery chargers. Yes, sadly, that happened.) And “asking for it” doesn’t mean you noticed her cursing at the vacuum cleaner one day. A Missouri friend got a rotisserie one year.

“When I opened it, I looked at him and said: ‘That was the first thing you saw when you went into Wal-mart! We had stopped on the way to the in-laws so I could pick up video cassettes for the camcorder I bought for him. While I was in there, he slipped in, got the rotisserie and put it in the trunk.”

Yeah, that gift went back to the store.  An acquaintance in California does a comedy set based on gifts she’s received. I can’t wait to hear how she makes a table saw and an air compressor so funny.  

Wal-mart surfaced in another friend’s tale. She got dead roses from the Wal-mart clearance cart, as well as a dollar store candle. When she lit the candle the glass jar it was in shattered.

Which brings up another point:  Don’t be cheap. This doesn’t mean you have to spend a lot of money. You really don’t. But don’t just buy any old cheap thing, like my friend whose dad gave her mom a flip hairbrush from Walgreens one year when they were having a “no-cash” Christmas. Think, fellas! Homemade coupons for things like backrubs, chores and breakfast in bed are always welcome.

The two gifts that made me laugh the hardest are different as can be. One was a pet turtle that died the next day. If you’re going to give a pet, you better damn well make sure it’s healthy, because we gals cry when our creatures die.

The funniest gift, from a friend in Indiana, was a Tampon Caddy. (Yes, you read that right.) It’s a little thing for carrying tampons discretely in one's purse. “It's still too funny to me,” says my friend. “He got it at the grocery store in the little display of random items at the checkout. Couldn't have cost much more than a dollar--and it tickles me to think that he had the cajones to actually purchase it.” Indeed. I know my man wouldn’t have bought it. Thoughtful and practical sure, but I hope it’s not all she got that year.

Men have been known to redeem themselves, though. Several of my pals said all was forgiven last Christmas when their husbands gave them iPads, thus debunking any thoughts you might have that women don’t appreciate the latest technology. Many of us do.  Another friend’s partner was let off the hook for the low points of dictionary gifts when she got “the softest black pajamas with black and white penguins on them.”

You can say “it’s the thought that counts” as much as you like, but it’s the quality of the thought… Not just that you panicked and thought you better get your ass to CVS so there’s something under the tree. If you want Mommy kissing Santa Claus you may need to step up your game. Regardless though, if you have a good relationship, your lady is apt to overlook the occasional bombs in the gift-giving department.

A friend in Kansas says she’s mastered the "wow" look because her gifts are so far out there. But she also knows what the real gifts are in life.

“As the years go by, I become more thankful for a husband who gives me daily ‘I love yous’ and realize it really is the sentiment behind the gift. Twenty-five years together this year. That's a lot of awful gift giving.”

I will strive to remember those daily “I love yous” and other kindnesses, just in case I get an earthquake disaster kit this first Christmas in Southern California. 

LA: Is the Honeymoon Over?

My romance with LA has hit a rough patch. The affair’s not over, but I’m taking a little break to lick my wounds after yesterday’s abuse.

You probably won’t be shocked to learn it involved The Freeway. Traffic is something that’s just part of the lifestyle here, which is one of the reasons we chose to live in a neighborhood where we can walk to just about everything, which I do, frequently with my little-old-lady shopping cart in tow. I’m not afraid of the freeways, I drive on them when I have to. I just don’t happen to like that aspect of the rat race.  

Yesterday morning it had taken me only 35 minutes or so to get to the area called La Crescenta-Montrose, a picturesque community tucked in the hills about 30 miles north of Downtown. Little did I know when I left there at 2:15, it would be about three hours before I got home, and it wasn’t even rush hour. (There’s an oxymoron for you. Nothing rushed about it except, maybe, fury.)

Courtesy of LAist.com

Coming into Downtown on the 110 Freeway, the flow of traffic suddenly slowed, then stopped. Now, you always expect some stop and go here, but after a reasonable amount of time at a standstill, this began to feel, well, UNreasonable. I was listening to the local NPR station, which made no mention of the 110 Freeway stoppage in its traffic report. I flipped over to one of the AM News/Talk stations. Again, nothing explaining what was quickly becoming torturous. I heard no sirens, saw no flashing lights. There were no orange signs indicating lane closures. Hours later, I’d find out the cause…

I tried putting my windows down, but then decided there was too much exhaust. In fact a panel van a few cars up was expelling so much smoke I wondered if it had caught fire. Another car in my lane, overheated or something, was stopped and pulled as far to the right as the driver could manage. Another driver got out to peer up ahead, shrugged, and returned to his car.

Tick tock. I was patient, but my serenity was waning. I was hungry. Forgive the indelicacy, but I had to pee. And I was getting a roaring headache. I found some Advil in my purse and washed it down with water (but not too much water) from my Nalgene bottle. I fantasized about dry martinis, hot bubble baths and, for some reason, very rare Ahi tuna. As I continued to flip through radio stations in hopes of some explanation, I began to understand how folks are driven to road rage.

After about an hour and a half, my leg started to cramp up and (this is a little embarrassing) I actually cried a little bit. I was beyond frustrated, almost panicky, kind of claustrophobic. I got Siri to text my daughter Hannah who encouraged me to breathe and assured me I’d get out of this jam soon enough. Good advice! The student has become the teacher.

Once cars began to move, around 4:30 I think, the sun was at that particular angle… you know, heading into sunset and blinding you?  Somehow I squinted my way to The 10 and back to Santa Monica. Relieved, but also disgusted. Soon there was an explanation as my husband saw this notification from LAist on his Facebook feed:

Man Climbs Onto Sign Over 110 Freeway, Traffic Grinds to Halt

According the LA Times, it took 29 firefighters and a SWAT team two hours to coax the guy down. And they’d placed one of those big, balloony cushions across the lanes below… just in case. Click here for a great pic.

Who knows what the guy’s problem was. He was probably he was caught in traffic one too many times. At any rate, the whole situation was what my brother Thom calls “California Crazy.”  And love can be like that, right? I’m still crazy about you, Los Angeles, but I don’t plan on driving on The 110 any time soon.

Goodness is Out There if You're Looking...

The following piece of mine appeared in the Huffington Post Religion section on December 6, 2012

8:07 PM – 12/ 6/2012

Preparing My Heart for the Birth of Christ -- An Advent Reflection

I saw firsthand today the goodness in people, which tends to happen if I stop thinking about myself and pay attention. What I saw today was exactly what Jesus would have done and it helped me re-form my Advent intention.

I was walking in the park with my dog, Bella, as we do most days. We passed an old man, sleeping in the grass, which isn’t unusual in our city, where there is a sizable population of homeless people. The man was roused by the beep-beep of a horn as an SUV pulled up along the curb by the park. The two people in the car beckoned the old man to come over. As he approached, the passenger reached out and handed him one of those white, Styrofoam carryout containers, a sizable one, perhaps the only meal the old man would have this day.  And then they drove off, poof, like a couple of superheroes, which they are in my book.

Wow. That, I thought, is an outward and visible sign of pure goodness. I saw humanity in its best possible light. I knew then, that I needed to open my eyes. Open them wider, open them more often, to not only notice, but seek the good, look for kindness in others. That probably means I also need to stop being so annoyed, so personally offended, when someone walks too slowly in front of me on the sidewalk, or leaves their shopping cart in the middle of the grocery aisle, or neglects to pick up their dog doo.

Usually for Advent, I take on a special meditation book—Henri Nouwen’s a favorite—and our family lights the Advent candles at dinnertime. (Although we moved a few months ago and I have no idea where the Advent wreath is at the moment!) Often we have served meals or bought gifts or some other type of charity work. In all honesty, though, I have wondered about my motives. Is this for the poor? For Christ’s sake? Or is it to make myself feel like a hero?

This exercise, though, this noticing, feels like a new and intentional way for me to prepare my heart for the birth of Christ. The internal stuff, the private prayer and meditation, the candle-lighting, is important of course. But if Christianity is really about being in the world, which I believe it is, then what better way to spend my Advent than cultivating an awareness of God’s children in action and, for every good and generous act, giving Him the glory for what I see?