prev long may she wave next
2001-12-04 | 4:54 p.m.

Driving around in my sister's car for the last two days while my car is in the shop. Remember I told you there is a bumper sticker in the side window that says "If You're Not With Us, You're Against Us"? and that I thought it might be directed at me? Well, now that I'm driving the car, I guess I AM the us. It feels weird to imagine that I am directing bad vibes toward peaceniks like myself, if anyone is paying attention to such things, which probably they are not. There's also a little mini-shrine of American flag pins and a red, white, and blue Hawaiian-style lei (!!) wreathed around the passenger-side sun visor. The crowning touch is a hard plastic American flag, about four by five inches, mounted on a suction cup and a spring, which "waves" at the people behind me as I tootle along.

You see what I am reduced to.

But I won't complain, because at least I am safe driving her car (unlike my own). And we are getting along pretty well; she just moments ago brought me a present: a heart-shaped rack that displays holiday cards. I'm trying to figure out what to get her for Xmas. I want to get her the Clinique 3-step "cleansing trio" or whatever they call it---I bought one for myself, but didn't use it, then gave it to her and she LOVED it. She loves anything that comes from a department store makeup counter. I kid you not. I gave her a $20 lipstick in a Nordstrom box one year, and the way she acted, you would have thought it was a gold brick. Two years ago we gave them (my sister and my mother together) a nice television and I don't think she was quite as impressed by it as the lipstick. The lipstick was a winner. I think I gave her another lipstick the year after, but haven't since, so maybe it's time to do it again.

She quit her job housecleaning for an agency and is going out on her own, but she's trying to buy a particular vacuum cleaner she needs that costs $300. So I may try to help her get that since it's a practical thing. I'm big on practical gifts. I've gotten too many whimsical gifts that I didn't know what to do with, so I hate to think of my money going down the toilet that way.

I don't know what to get my niece or my nephew. He just proposed to his girlfriend so I'm probably going to have to lay out some serious cash for them before the year is out. Last year, I got him and his long-distance (former) girlfriend matching phone cards. My niece is the one with four sons. I can never think what to get her because she is indifferent to almost everything. Too bad they no longer make T-shirts that say "too pooped to party."

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