Santa Snoop

 

Not sharing. Only one reason I made the naughty list.

Since I’m not one to hover at the top of Santa’s Nice List, I’m never sure what to ask for at gift-getting time, so I end up in January with a wishful thinking list instead of December with a want list. A castle in the Alps seems like it would stretch Santa’s Comfort and Joy a little too far, and socks and underwear are a little too personal coming from a fat man who dresses in fur and hangs out with the kind of elves that make cars instead of cookies. But since pushing my luck is my favorite activity, I feel like I need to ask for something. Just in time for my birthday. Which comes up in February just in case you're putting together a shopping list. It turns out lists are handy in all sorts of situations.

This year I know just the thing. Snoop Dogg’s peanut butter chocolate chip cookies! It will take the pressure off the elves who are more suited for Worst Cooks in America than the Holiday Baking Championship and give me incentive to resume my aerobic workouts in the New Year. (Hint. That’s a lie.)

For those of you who haven’t racked up enough street cred or haven’t been near a television in the past year, Snoop Dogg is the coolest (I’m not cool enough to know today’s synonym for cool), hottest topic since Taylor Swift rode to fortune and fortune on the remnants of her broken heart. Snoop is cooler than an Artic ice floe and chiller than the last popsicle in the back of the freezer.

He’s been a gangsta, a rapper, a Superbowl halftime sensation, an Olympics commentator, and a vocal coach on a TV singing competition that I usually forget to watch until the last episode. He’s been much more, and most of these at the same time, and even if I wore ice chips in my underwear I would not be as cool as Snoop.

And now he has a cookbook. Granted, he has a friendship with Martha Stewart that has lasted longer than Brussels sprouts at the kids table, but I would expect Gaga and Brad to invite me for a prime-time singalong of A Star is Born favorites before I would look for a cookbook from jolly ole Snoop. But what to my wondering eyes did show up on my digitally delightful news feed when pretending to shop for my husband, but a recipe for Snoop Dogg's Rolls Royce Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Now I don’t like to crumble my own crackers, but I have to admit I’ve sampled a few of the best cookies around in my six-decade snack streak. There’s a recipe in our church cookbook that would jingle your bells any day of the week. But I’ve never even had a Ram tough cookie, never mind a Rolls Royce one. I’ve had a lemon, both in cookies and cars, and there’s only one of them I’d care to have again.

So, I killed two birds with one chocolate chip, which sounds like a cross between Martha Stewart and Alfred Hitchcock. I ordered Snoop’s cookbook for Bill on Christmas Eve and told him he could make cookies for my birthday. He won’t have to worry about fit or fashion when he starts searching the sites for my gift.

Because chocolate chips never go out of style.

Things Are Looking Up

It came to my attention today as I was blotting up a coffee spill with the Business section of the newspaper that

A)     If they reduce the page size any more, it will be like reading the headlines in the small print section of my Kia contract, and

B)     Rolls Royce, kiddie car of billionaires, is enjoying a boom in sales.

I’m not sure these two findings are unrelated.  Lifestyles vary between the Rolls Royce set and the “I hope it keeps rolling” set. Just look up the prices and you’ll understand the difference.

While newspapers are edging us toward the “squinting is in” theory to conserve money, Rolls Royce is doling out luxury cars like concessionaires deal $10 beers at the ball park.  To those of us still trying to work out a payment plan for the beer, the idea of dashing off a $400,000 check for a car, even one that has tiny overhead lights that make the roof look like a heaven of twinkling stars, would be like stuffing a gold bar into a birthday card for a niece we don’t have time to shop for.  “Can’t get away; buy yourself something nice.”

At the Dubai WalMart.

I realize that there are jobs that come with more perks than mine. What would I do with dental insurance that makes it possible to collect enough teeth to eat toasted pecans, enough time off to catch the red-eye flight to Paris, white-gloved butlers who serve tea with extra lumps?

The last time I got lumps at the office, I was crammed under my desk trying to figure out which wire to jiggle so the mouse would work.  Since I’m the only one there, I would get stuck up with red tape if I filed for Worker’s Comp, so I scolded myself for negligence and stuck a Band-Aid on the sore spot instead.

I’ve never figured out how to get one of those other jobs: jobs that pay dividends instead of money and come with enough compensation that you can hire someone to remember the secret password (Jeeves, what is my mother’s maiden name again?) to your Fandango account. Those are lifestyles and are referred to as something you’re into, not something you do.  (He’s into stocks and bonds or investment banking.)  By comparison, I’m not really into filing six months of committee reports, but I’ll be up to my agenda in paperwork if I don’t.

So it’s not likely that I’ll be pulling up to the office in a Rolls Royce Phantom any time soon.  But you can bet your Silver Shadow I know how to see the twinkling stars in the sky without paying extra.

Just look up.