Pop quiz, no lying. How many of you still have a Christmas tree standing in your living room? Don't think about how bad that is and how ashamed your mother would be of you. Just answer truthfully.

And if your answer is that you tree is still inhabiting your home, take heart, because so is ours. Yes, as of January 7, I cannot muster the will to take this thing down, partially because we got back home this week after a lot of traveling and we've been tired and busy since then, and partially because it's so pretty. It's also not real. It's a plastic one bought at Home Depot. If it were a real tree, I'd be motivated to remove it because of the fire hazard it presents, but having no such concern, I continue to gaze at a relic of last month's celebrations.

I mention this as a sort of apology for abandoning the blog for the last few weeks. I should have mentioned that Dan and I were headed to Mississippi and Texas for some time with family and friends. Technically, we've been back for five days now, so I should apologize for neglecting you since then as well. Consider yourself apologized unto, and know that, like the fact that I will, eventually, get the tree put away, I will also return to blogging.

Also, if you have taken your tree down, like the good citizen that you are, feel free to nag me in the comments section so that I can get motivated to do the same. Happy new year!

For one of my Christmas gifts, Dan signed us up for a cooking class that I have been wanting to try at the local university. It's called Intuitive Cooking, and it's about learning to just take what you have and make a meal. I am woefully recipe bound, so I'm really looking forward to trying to think more creatively about cooking. But I think tonight, my adventurous side may have suffered a setback.

I decided to make a recipe called Lemongrass Chicken Stir Fry from a cookbook published by a Very Large Cookware Company with Pretty Stores, and I was kind of excited about it, even though the recipe called for at least three things I have never had any reason to purchase before: Fresh ginger, lemongrass, and Asian fish sauce. I was somewhat skeptical of my ability to obtain any of these items at the Wal-Mart down the street from our house, so when I went to another store with a more eclectic ethnic food section, I found the items and took it as a sign that this would be a good week to make this dish. Lemongrass, check. Asian Fish Sauce, check. No fresh ginger, but I have dry ginger and it will have to do.

The cooking was going very well, and the dish was even looking a lot like the nice picture in the book, which I assure you my cooking rarely does. Then I got to the last step, where the recipe calls for you to dump 2 tablespoons of Asian Fish Sauce onto your beautiful, lemony, gingery creation. Out of curiosity, I put my nose to the bottle of fish sauce to smell it before I added it to the stir fry. And then I almost fell down. Because it turns out that they market this product as "Asian fish sauce" because it wouldn't sell as well if they called it something more truthful, like "Essence of Rotting Fish -- In a Convenient Bottle!" I have never smelled anything like this in my life except when I have passed dumpsters sitting in the blazing heat. It was stunning.

I would like to say that based on my revulsion, I skipped the fish sauce altogether, but I couldn't bring myself to rebel against the recipe enough for that,. This is why I need to take a class. So I put the teensiest little bit into the stir fry, not enough to taste it, but enough that I could justify the fact that I probably paid four dollars for this stuff. I shouldn't have bothered, because there's no way I'll ever be using that again, unless I need to lure someone's housecat down from a tree top. (Note: I am sorry to anyone who loves and adores fish sauce. I love okra. And grits. I bet you hate both of those things, but maybe we can still be friends.)

As Dan and I were cleaning up the kitchen after our brush with Death via Olfactory Implosion, it occurred to me that if I keep trying new recipes, I'm sure this won't be the last time I buy some weird product only to be disgusted by it. So if you had to save me from one culinary misadventure you have personally experienced, what would it be? I should add that Dan will thank you if you share it and keep me from inflicting it upon him. He's a brave man, but he has his limits, so tomorrow I'm making beef stew, a traditional meal to make up for the ill-fated stir fry.

If he doesn't like that, I'm going to threaten him with fish sauce until he eats it anyway.

January 16 is my birthday, and I am happy about that. I think 27 is going to be a good year. But today, I have a story to tell you. A wonderful, wonderful story. Gather 'round, children.

As you know, Dan and I recently returned from a trip to Mississippi. When we were unpacking our suitcases after our return to Albuquerque, I came across this shirt. Behold it in all its glory.

That's right. It is my mother's "Bush Country 2004 -- My America!" T-shirt. (Exclamation point rendered exactly as it appears.) I don't think there are words sufficient to convey to you the background on this shirt, but I will try.

I can only assume that Mom bought this item some time in 2004. She got to meet the president during the 2004 campaign, which was a big highlight of the year for her, since the president is her homeboy, as documented here. But 2004 or not, from the moment this shirt appeared in mom's wardrobe, we, or at least I, have come to view it as a member of the family. A loud, tacky member of the family who you don't want to take out in public.

I'm not sure why I don't like this shirt. I don't really dislike the president. I don't always agree with him, but I don't wish him any ill. I don't think it's even about the president. I think it's about the shirt. Maybe it's the exclamation point. Maybe it's the wildly inaccurate map representation of how much of the country joins my mom in total adoration of the president. Maybe it's my belief that any sentiment you can fit on a T-shirt or a bumper sticker has probably lost all meaning in the editing process. (That goes double for religious bumper stickers.)

But no matter my reasons, mom has somehow picked up on the fact that I don't like the shirt. (Perhaps it was the subtle fits of dry heaving I engage in every time she brings it out. Hard to say.) But what is beyond dispute is that she was being mean to me when, over the holidays, I asked to borrow a T-shirt while Hannah and Audrey and I were soaking our feet in the tub in my parents bathroom before giving ourselves pedicures. My mom, recognizing that I was stranded with wet feet and that all of my T-shirts were upstairs, took total advantage of the situation and tossed me the Bush Country T-shirt. She then proceeded to take photos of me wearing it. I don't know what happened to those photos, but should they ever surface on the Internet, I would like to state for the record that I was wearing it under duress.

Still, as we all know, revenge is sweet. Because as I have mentioned, I have the shirt now. I guess I just wore it up to my room and it got mixed in with all of our clothes. So the question on this, my birthday, the day when my mom cannot disown me even if she wants to, is: Should I give the shirt back, and what should my ransom demands be? Leave me your thoughts in the comment section. I'm considering some pretty lofty demands. Possibly free lodging and good food every time I'm in Mississippi. Or maybe unconditional love and great cookbooks for my birthday. I don't know what would be a high enough price in exchange for continuing to let the shirt live.

I'll keep you posted on the hostage situation as breaking news develops.

On Sunday night, we had some friends over, people who are from Albuquerque originally, as opposed to transplants like ourselves. I decided to make something called "Good Luck Soup,' which involves black eyed peas and okra. I did, just for the record, realize that I might be the only one who would want to eat this, so I made sandwich fixings available, too. But I was pretty excited about my soup, especially since it meant that a bag of frozen okra that I bought a few months ago would not go to waste. (You can't buy fresh okra out here for love or money. It's sad.)

The okra had to sit on the counter and defrost for a while, and at some point, the following unintentionally hilarious definition of okra printed on the back of the bag caught my eye:

"Okra, sometimes referred to as gumbo, is used often in the South to flavor and thicken soups and stews that are a specialty of that region. Originating in the West Indes, okra has been a prominent source of nutrients for Southerners for many years. It is a significant source of Vitamins A and C and magnesium and at the same time has a low caloric count."

It's funny to me that the makers of frozen okra felt the need to define a vegetable for consumers. "if we just ship this stuff out, there will be rioting in the grocery store aisles! People won't know what to do! We better attach a disclaimer." Also, I'm pretty sure that the exotic, foreign Southerners described in the definition have not been eating okra all these years for its nutritional value, considering that we traditionally either fry it or boil it beyond recognition. As for a low caloric count, that wasn't anyone's top concern last time I ate okra, either. And I've never heard anyone call okra "gumbo." But aside from that, great job, copy writers for Albertsons! Y'all should write for them there fancy dictionaries we hear about sometimes, down in the South.

I realized the other day that the 27-year-old me is considerably more preoccupied and possibly ruder than, say, 21-year-old me. I had this epiphany when I was sprinting out of a building at Large Local University with a Parking Shortage, which I occasionally write stories about in my job. I had been to a meeting there that lasted longer than I thought it would, and was therefore desperately late to my next appointment.

As I huffed and puffed my way across campus, calculating how much time it might save me to take the stairs versus the elevator up to the top of the parking garage, this blonde-haired, sweet-faced college boy held out a flyer about global warming to me and said "Excuse me, ma'am, do you have a moment for the environment?"

And with no hesitation whatsoever, I said. "No, I'm sorry, I really don't. I'm very late. But thank you." I was fairly apologetic about it, and if I had had time, I like to think I would have stopped and listened to him. But I think 21-year-old me would have stopped and taken the flyer. Of course, 21-year-old me didn't have anywhere to be in the next ten minutes, ever.