Of Mitten Hilarity, New Babies, Bang Suicide, Flying Gimlis, Three-Year-Old Dentist Freak-Outs, Scandalous Christmas Parties, and One-Year Ting-a-versaries

TODAY'S RANDOM RANT: Does anyone else find it really annoying when singers laugh as they're singing? And no, I'm not talking about laughter that's clearly an integral part of the song, e.g. "I love to laugh--Ha ha ha ha!" No, this is the seemingly random chuckling that usually seems to rear its ugly head in Barbra Streisand songs when she's wanting to take a stroll with you down Memory Lane. Barbra, do you honestly still think "warm woolen mittens" are funny, after all the times you've rehearsed this song?  Get a grip, woman. But who knows, maybe I'm wrong, maybe there's an inside "mittens joke" there I'm missing. Maybe when she was a kid somebody stuffed a pair of warm woolen mittens down the back of her gym shorts or something, and it still makes her blow milk out her nose to this very day. I suppose I shouldn't judge.

So quite a lot of blogworthy malarkey has gone down of late, it being the holiday season. Here is just a teensy smatterling:

• Nick and Julia had their baby, Mackean. (I'm probably slaughtering the spelling there.) Go team go. To visit them in the hospital, Alyssa and I had to navigate a raging blizzferno uphill both ways wearing nothing but rags and shoeboxes on our feet. Okay, kidding about the rags and shoeboxes. But it was a pretty scary drive. Well worth it, though. Nick and Julia, you guys probably don't read this thing, but just in case, congrats to the both of you, and God bless. You're going to be great parents.
• Thanksgiving was had. We went to my parents' house this year. Goooood dinner. Not too much else to say. Swam at the condo pool. Played with Ting-Ting at the playground across the street, which basically involved me and Ting-Ting dumping wood chips on each other's heads. (The joys of fatherhood.) Watched roughly an entire season of Merlin on Netflix. Enjoyed a rousing game of Bang! with the fam, in which I basically committed suicide by dueling Alyssa with no Bang cards in my possession. If you're not familiar with Bang!, just think back to your high school days and visualize the 90-pound astronomy club president sending the rugby captain a photo of himself making out with his (the rugby captain's) girlfriend, along with a note in which he challenges him to a wrestle-off. You'll get the picture.     
• We went to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Thingymabobber (its real name, yes), which featured, among other gnarliness, that one organ guy who plays the organ playing "Flight of the Bumblebee" with his feet; renowned opera soprano Deborah Voigt serenading us with an uplifting tune glorifying the cold-blooded murder of birds; and John Rhys-Davies freaking flying around like he owned the place. If, God forbid, Alyssa were to die now, she would do so knowing her life was complete, because she SAW GIMLI FLY. 
• Ting-Ting had her first dentist freak-out. Funny thing was, it wasn't even her in the hot seat, it was me. The moment I got in that chair, she started screaming, "Noooo! My baba!" and bawling her eyes out, apparently assuming I was done for, or at least about to be tortured by the sinister-looking guy in white with all of the pointy implements of death. (The torture won't happen for a few weeks, when I have to come back to get cavities filled. Hopefully Ting-Ting is not around when that happens...) Fortunately the dental assistants brought her back to show her what was going on, and she calmed down after that. Especially when one of them blew up a rubber glove to look like a COW. Now that I think about it, that would probably work on me too. A cow! Hyuk hyuk.
• Alyssa and I went to my work Christmas party, the less of which said, the better. Suffice to say, the night's most memorable moment involved an employee's wife ditching her brassiere for $100. Ahem. Yeah. Maybe think about using that C-note to buy yourself some Christmas scruples, baby. There were other memorable moments, but I'm going to skip those because this blog strives to retain a PG-13 rating.
• On December 11th we celebrated the first ever "Ting-Ting Day," the anniversary of our picking up Ting-Ting in China, by going out for...Vietnamese pho. All right, Greens, yeah. Way to embrace her culture by snarfing down the beloved national soup of another nation. But it was good, so I'm not going to lose any sleep.      

That's it for now. I'm sure there is stuff I'm missing, but frankly, I've been writing this thing for, like, three hours now. Bloggareenos, I bid you adieu.

Me in a Jack Skellington hat Alyssa made all by her l'il lonesome. Is it any wonder I love that girl?