a buddhist wouldn't want any

I am baking cookies! Rose-scented Aphrodite Cakes and good old Martha's Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies. It's somewhat early to start making holiday cookies round here, but I don't care. When I was younger my mother did this insane thing where we'd make huge batches of cookies, and then she'd carefully ration them out like we were living in the WWI home front or something because she wanted to have enough on-hand just in case oh, I don't know -- a Cirque du Soleil troupe dropped by. Imagine the embarassment if we'd run out of cookies in such an eventuality! It was a scenario of unimaginable humiliation.

So then, naturally, at the end of the holidays we'd be left with a horrible stockpile of crumbling, stale cookies whose flavours were all starting to go a bit off, and she'd be mad that they were there and throw them all out. Please somebody who isn't my sister tell me that your mother was the same way.

Also, thank you Washington Post for concisely listing all of the reasons I don't want Bush's littlest acolyte Stephen Harper *spit* to win the election. For Christmas this year, I'd like the Canadian people to decide that a non-privatized healthcare system is better than having 2% taken off the GST. I mean, really.