My feelings toward Christmas this year are distinctly meh.  We had several frigid, but gorgeous, weeks where I could have avoided the yearly curse of hanging lights on the house in tsunami-like conditions; but instead I continued to look at the box of lights in the garage and said. "Not today."  And then it started raining.  I do realize today is pretty good from a Pac NW point of view, but Christmas is only a week away (ack!) and I'm not hanging lights just so the Homeowners Association Nazis can give me the fish eye come Jan 3.  We've had the tree for a week and it's had lights on it for four days and ornaments for two.  My dad insisted on coming with us to get the tree ("we need one too") and followed the three of us out to the tree farm.  We got there, all piled into the cab of Dad's truck, drove about half a mile, and picked nearly the first tree we saw.  Then we walked about 12 more feet and picked the next one.  From leaving my house to leaving the tree farm with two trees it took an hour.  And that includes the 40 minute drive to the farm.  As my dad said, if my mom had been there we might have just been getting out of the truck.  It really cuts down on time when you have someone to be your mule and you don't have to stop sawing every 10 seconds to assure that your offspring haven't wandered off,  fell in a slough, or accosted poor, innocent tree seekers. 

Had to do the whole yearly thing.  Bill the Wonder Doc is still in Iraq, not that it would matter because neck to knees is a No Fly Zone for him.  It's not that I've known him since he was a poor pitiful first year resident that I had to pull out of a C-section his very first day on the floor for a delivery; it's that he is a whopping 2 days older than I am.  It's like having your twin brother do your pelvic exam.  No thank you.  So, since I have the world's most bestest OB/GYN she gets the duty.  She cracks me up because nothing shakes her.  Mohawks, blingee, it's all just part of the landscape.  Even on someone as outwardly conservative, and let's face it, pretty much inwardly as well, as I. 

The dog has taken to surfing.  I swore the other day that I had a cube of butter on the counter.  Since I couldn't find it, I just figured I had used it all and forgotten, so I pulled another out of the fridge.  And then found a shredded butter wrapper all over the living room floor.  At least he knows enough to eat the evidence in a room that is hardly used, thus delaying being found out.  Last weekend I made some nice tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwhiches for lunch.  Just the cozy thing for a blustery day.  I called the boys to the table and then had to step into the bathroom.  I heard the footsteps of  a thousand head of bison thunder by and then FB asks, "Mom?  Where's the other half of my sandwhich?"    He's quick and stealthy that dog. I hadn't even known he was in the room. He should do recon for the Marines.


After church last Sunday SoS comes up to me and says, "Mom!  I learned you don't do this!"  And then proceeds to flip me the bird.  Nice.  "Did you do that in class?!?"  "No!"  Well, then how did the subject come up?  I can't see your cute little Sunday School teacher arbitrarily throwing that in with "don't speak the Lord's name in vain."  No phone calls yet, but I'm anticipating.

The outlaw's Christmas party is tomorrow.  Somebody save me.  This is a LOUD ( I know, coming from me that is saying something), eating, present opening, frenzy of biblical proportions.  There has to be 40 people crammed into this early '70s split level.  It's so hot you have meat falling off the bone and no one can hear because no one shuts up long enough to let anyone else talk.  Which I usually don't mind so much, they're family, you gotta love 'em, it's written in the by-laws.  It's just that the MIL can't hardly breathe these days without making me want to punch her.  I start off telling myself to just let everything go, and then she says something so incredibly inane or references some thing about her late son, that she couldn't carry her ass 18 miles to come see when he was dying because she COULDN"T FACE THE BRIDGE, or says something about how long it's been since she's seen the boys, the offspring of said late son, whose house she passes by on the freeway on the way to go clamming, and then talks about going up to the mountain to my BIL's cabin, but can't come 18 FUCKING MILES to see her grandkids, and I sort of lose my tolerance.  Not to mention my FIL starts drinking and then turns into this dirty old man that you practically need a crowbar to get to stop hugging you.  AAAAACCCKKK!  I'm putting myself on-call at 0300 just so I have an excuse to bail out of there by 2100!