What Makes a Good Day Good?

No idea. I'm having a good day today, although I'm having a fair amount of pain. I did not have a good day yesterday. Today, I showered and washed my hair, blew it out dry, and put some make-up on. I didn't go anywhere, but at least I had the means to take care of myself.

Which is more than I can say for the devices in my house. First thing this morning, my desk lamp died. Then, mid-afternoon, the TV here in the family room. If you recall the saga from last spring about TVs moving all over north Jersey, this is the huge TV that used to be R's. Anyway, I had a spare 15" TV in the basement that gets a nice, clear picture, so I don't have to run -- I use that term with caution; I can barely walk -- to get a new TV. The Hubs will take the broken one out and to recycling next Saturday; I'll deal with it after that. The little one is hooked up to cable, but not the DVD player, and on a stool in front of the TV cabinet.

I do have a few little errands to do tomorrow, which I hope I can. The Sibs says she'll take me or go with me.

Hey, I got another entry out! Go me!

WATCHING SVU :: ENTRY #1655

Back in the Land of the Living

Well. I've had a week.

Yesterday was the first day In felt close to human. Today, I actually got dressed in leaving-the-house clothes, put on some make-up, and .. well, left the house. My first trip was to the drive-up window at the bank, the drive-up mailboxes at the post office, and Dunkin Donuts. (Priorities, people!) I came home and took a bit of a nap, and woke up craving chicken. (Yesterday was the first day I started eating real food again.) Anyway, I had to get something at Walgreen's, which is a convenient almost-next-door to KFC, so I had delicious food for lunch. (I skipped most of the fried skin part.) And this afternoon, I got my claws nails done.

I still have whatever it is I've got, but it's much less debilitating. My tongue is still blistered, but most of them are healed. My stomach is still iffy. My legs and left arm still hurt horribly, but mostly in the morning, and then it's bearable for the rest of the day.

Tomorrow: not just wash my hair (it's clean now) but style it too, so I don't look like the cat lady on The Simpsons. Go to the cleaners, and maybe recycling. Be dressed. Eat food.

Thank you for your well wishes and good thoughts. As you can see, they helped.

I am seemingly back in the land of the living. I like it here.

WATCHING L/O :: ENTRY #1654

Merry Christmas!

So, I'm updating a little while I can, but I probably won't do much for the next few days. I did go to the hospital this morning, and they did bloodwork and x-rays and rules out pneumonia and all kinds of other things. It is s virus, a terrible virus, and I will have to wait it out. In the meantime, I will run a fever, have sores in my mouth, and other delights I won't even mention.

K made the Christmas eve meal tonight all by herself; I was very proud of her. I couldn't eat it, of course, but I was proud that she did it. I'm not gong to the ILs tomorrow with the Hubs and the girls. I'll be in touch with my sister during the day and maybe she'll drop in on me. Each time I remember the last Christmas I stayed home -- 16 years ago, after the brain tumor -- and I remember that my parents came and spent the afternoon with me, I get all misty and start to cry. I have been missing them very much these days.

Okay. I just need to go back and take out all the typos that I don't wan't you to see , and then I can post. At the moment, this really looks like it was typed by a monkey. (But pneumonia I got right the first time.)

WATCHING L/O :: ENTRY #1653

Didn't Want You to Think I Was Dead

I'm not, but it's not so easy for me to type, so I'll keep it short. Still got the fever off and on, and not much else improved. Contemplating the hospital tomorrow, which may be the best plan for now, since my doctor is away until Wednesday and doesn't take me seriuosly anyway. Gotta train that girl up. Okay, that's it.

WATCHING --- :: ENTRY #1652

Wee Hours

It's about 4.15. That would be a.m. It turns out that this is a clear time of the day for me, go figure. And, astonishingly, there is no Law & Order on, of any kind!

I have slept some, I've spiked a fever last night and again ... okay, that's Wednesday night and Thursday night. What day is this now? At the moment, things are under control, I'm just too hot and too awake. I went to the doctor today yada yada the tests aren't all back yet, my sister came with me, and although I'm not too sure what went on, she says it's okay. The tongue is starting to improve. The fever and it's accompanying body aches and weakneses are the pain right now.

Okay, that's it, just a note from the front for life-establishing purposes.

WATCHING huh? :: ENTRY #1652

Is It Real Or Is It Memorex?

I am feeling a modicum of less terrible today, which either means that I'm getting better or that I'm in a vicodin haze. I'm thinking it's maybe a 40/60 split. My stomach was better today. But I am very sloooooooow. I can hardly read; it makes my eyes close. And then, instead of falling asleep, I have a 30 second dream/hallucination and then I open my eyes again. It's been an interesting day.

But I was clear as a bell last night until 3 am, at which point I finally went to bed. And I was plenty happy, too. This is some weird shit, man. I was also clear enough at some point today to get bills paid. My plan for tomorrow is a quick drugstore run before I take the med, a long, loopy day, and then the doctor at 4.15. If I still can't drive by then, the Hubs said he would come home and take me. (!)

Otherwise, nothing more here, keep the traffic moving. Oh, here's my Christmas-tree filled living room:



WATCHING L/O :: ENTRY #1652

Ahhhh .... Vicodin

Well, you know I've been right here, since I'm not fit for the human world outside of my house, but I'm just slow these days. Here's a medical update; if you're squeamish, consider yourself warned.

I spent the better part of the day yesterday trying to reach the gastro doctor or his henchmen on the phone so that I could get something done about the blisters on my tongue, and when they finally called back, they said I needed to see my internist, not him. Swell. But her henchman returned my call within a half hour and said to come in right then, so I did. Here's what went down:

1. She said it looked like a stress reaction. Not emotional stress, but my body being under stress because I've had the stomach virus for so long.
2. She said it didn't look like staph or herpes.
3. She said that I should see her ENT doctor within 48 hours for a more concrete diagnosis. I said that I had my own ENT guy that I've been seeing for years -- she said fine -- but I asked for curiosity who she was going to send me to. And she said "Harry Katz" and I actually put both thumbs up and said "He's The Man!"
4. My doctor then led me out of the examining room and walked me over to see ... the gastro doctor, so he could look at my tongue, too. Hey, isn't that what I was trying to do all day?
5. Her office called Harry Katz's office and filled them in, and I got an appointment for 11.15 this morning.

Let us pause. I spent most of last evening doing salt-water rinses and feeling horrible. Oh, my back is also out, which is my body's time-honored reaction to stress, no surprise there. On to this morning:

1. I was pretty sure that Harry Katz, a very down-to-earth sort of guy, was going to look in my mouth and say "Oh, ick!" because he's done things like that before, but no. I stuck out my tongue, and he said "Oh, that's ...!" whatever he said it was, but he recognized it immediately and gave it its name.
2. It's first of all, a herpes infection, like cold sores that erupt when your immune system is weakened. In my case, they hit my tongue, because you know, my body never gets sick normally. My brain tumor was in the wrong place, and my appendicitis symptoms were not symptoms of appendicitis. Anyway, if he'd seen this last week, he could have given me an anti-viral to stop it in its tracks, but now it's too late for that.
3. Next. As my immune system continued to weaken, especially since I've hardly been eating because it hurts to eat, I developed thrush, which is a fungal infection of the mouth and/or tongue. (Repeat after me: Oooh, ick!)
4. He took a culture of it to determine exactly the nature of the fungus.
5. He prescribed anti-fungal lozenges for me and VICODIN. At the time, I thought, oh well, I'll get it filled but I won't use it; I have a high tolerance for pain.
6. He told me to eat better.
7. He asked me to call the gastro guy and tell him what was going on.
   
8. He told me that he couldn't believe it when Fred Weasley got killed, and that like I, he was just glad that Hagrid survived. (Harry Katz and I have long bonded over Star Trek and Harry Potter.)

Okay, so. I filled the prescriptions, came home, ate some pastina in chicken broth (also a childhood favorite), and could not reach the doctor's office all freaking afternoon, and didn't want to take the vicodin until I did. Yeah, that's right, I'm taking the vicodin! And you know what? My back doesn't hurt so much anymore, and my tongue is a few notches below excruciating, which is a definite plus. (I am writing this in English, right?)

So here's the kicker. I finish my pastina and take the acidophilus, the probiotic which the doctor told me start two weeks ago, and check my email and there's something from R, whom I'd emailed earlier with Harry Katz's diagnosis. Her email said "Make sure you don't eat yogurt, because it's got probiotics in it, and they encourage the growth of fungus."

WHAT?

So here I've been feeding myself fungus pills for two weeks, which I guess would normally not be an issue except I've already got this weakened immune system. Let me tell you, some doctor will hear about this tomorrow. Assuming I'm clear enough to make a phone call. (No, actually, I'm fine. I wouldn't drive, or probably even operate the washing machine, but other that that, I'm clear as a bell.) And no more of that stuff for me.

And how was your day?

You know, it hurts to talk more than a little bit at a time. Writing is cool.

WATCHING L/O :: ENTRY #1651

Juuust a Bit Better

And I have a Harry movie on and the creepy part is coming, so I thought I'd follow up on the insanity that was my earlier entry.

Even though my head is just a little loopy, which means that the med has kicked in and calmed the stomach ickies, and the Advil has kicked in so my back is hold-up-able. For however long it lasts. I even put all that pain-killing goo on my bad mouth places and ate some pop-tarts. I've been finding that it's very difficult to eat solid food without using your tongue.

Okay, so plan for tomorrow is to definitely talk to, if not see, a doctor, and to get more mouth goo and other little goodies. Although I don't generally scan the internet for details when I have a real disease -- only when I think I might have one -- I did do a little research, and dehydration does seem to be a big factor here. And if I put on enough mooth goo first, I can drink without much pain, for a while, at least. Anybody know if you can give Pedialyte to grownups? I'd rather walk around with a saline drip in my arm than drink water all day.

Anyway, putting up the tree today was happy and fun and I loved it. We have so many ornament themes: Disney (you knew that), rocking horses, racoons, glass balls, handmade ornaments, and the irreverent ornaments that my darling daughters have brought in recent years. I'll try to get pictures of those tomorrow.

I'm getting spacey now, so I'll finish up. After I posted before, the Hubs came and chatted awhile and got the full picture of my illness (during which I tearfully apologized to him for making him marry a mess, which, predictably, he said was hardly my fault and that I was not a mess anyway), and then K sat with me for the Simpsons, but we mostly talked. I felt very good then, but not in a teary way (and not physically at that point, although a little better now.)

Okay. People who are drugged up should not write on the Internet! Oughta be a law.

WATCHING HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE :: ENTRY #1650

Not Dead Yet

It's still whiney old me here, no real change, except that I'm getting fed up with this whole thing. Not going to work tomorrow again; this damn whatever I have is eating up my sick days. I'm calling the doctor tomorrow morning and asking if he has no advice other than to wait it out, if perhaps he can refer me to a doctor who will actually look at what I've got and agree with me that Hey, that's not normal! and do something.

Excuse me a moment.
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.
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I'm back.

So I'm going to whine some more, no comments today, please. I need to get it all out. I've gotten some of it out with my sister, who is a good listener, but is very insistent that I tell the doctor her three pet theories on what this could be. Okay. K is very supportive, but insists that I must DRINK MORE WATER, no matter how much it hurts to drink or eat. The Hubs is here and he put up the tree, so he's been his useful for the day.

Here's what I need to get out. I am not depressed (not that anyone here believes that) but I am becoming very emotional. I think it's a result of the fogginess from the donnatal and the lack of food. It's so hard to eat. (I just did, though, I had three soft-boiled eggs and two slices of toast.) I still feel weak, though.

Before I made the eggs, I had to go down to the basement for something. I had nothing to carry, as I almost always do when I go down there. All I have on my feet today is crocs, no socks or bandage supports or anything. I haven't gone down a flight of steps the normal way in about a month; I can only go sideways, or one foot at a time because of the tendonitis. Anyway, I said to myself, Just see if you can go down the stairs. I held onto the walls for balance and I walked down the stairs, slowly, but just like anyone else. When I got to the bottom, I started to cry, because I was so happy that I could walk down the stairs! I'm getting teary now just thinking about it.

Then I had the whole discussion with K about the water drinking, and I kind of realized slowly that she had left the room abruptly. I called upstairs and asked if she was angry with me and she said no, she was only worried about me, and I had stopped answering her -- I didn't even realize that -- so she went back upstairs. When I had determined that she wasn't mad at me, I cried again, because I was happy. Again, misting up now, thinking about it.

I feel a little fragile right now, and still weak. I know I have to drink more, but I cannot drink plain water, I never could, it makes me want to throw up. As it is, I'm already feeling reflux from the whole bottle of iced tea I just drank, and now I'm going to drink another one.

Here's what I'm reading this weekend: Art Buchwald's Too Soon To Say Goodbye, which he wrote when he went into hospice and subsequently did not die. And odd choice, I guess. I just finished The Martian Child, empress and UD, which I liked very, very much. I think I need to read something funnier, or watch a funny movie. I don't know what.

Couch time.

P.S. Just after I posted, the Hubs came into the room and I vented and shared it all with him too. So that was good. A bit unexpected, but good.

WATCHING BACK TO THE FUTURE III :: ENTRY #1649

Still Here

Holding on. My stomach is better, taking baby steps there, and I took less of the meds today, so my head is clearer. My other ailments are not improving (although the stye in my eye is gone), so they need time. If that means home again on Monday, so be it. I cant do what I need to treat the various other irritations when I'm in school; I can't even sit upright in a chair for that long. So we'll see.

And anyway, the Hubs' car, which is really my father's old car, somehow died this morning and is now in the shop. Perhaps nothing serious, but again, we'll see. My choices for Monday are to drive him to work before I go in, if I go, or to stay home and have him just take my car. So far, door #2 is looking much better to me all around.

In the meantime, the tree is up, standing in the middle of the living room, but not lit or decorated yet. R, still temporarily catless, is spending the weekend here, so we'll get to the tree sometime before she goes home. Her cat has had the worst reaction ever to being neutered, has been allergic to stitches, developed infections, so forth, but is essentially okay. The vet has vowed to keep her at his clinic until she's 100% and do whatever she needs, all at no cost to R. So, a good guy. She figures she'll make a nice donation to his animal rescue program when it's all done. In the meantime, she goes to visit every other day or so and take Trillian out to play and cuddle.

And time to go back to my couch.

WATCHING TV LAND :: ENTRY #1648

Are Eggs Dairy?

Just a brief entry so you know I'm not dead, although I probably wouldn't feel all that much worse if I were.

The doctor is checking to see if what I have is viral or not, which prompted me to stay home today to ... uh ... prepare the kit of samples for testing. He gave me some ointment to use on my sore spots, and told me to eliminate dairy, fruit, vegetables, and fiber from my diet, and see him next Thursday. Oh, and take donnatal three times a day.

I feel absolutely like a wrung out, stepped on, used up dishrag. I got my samples done and took them back to the lab this morning, and spent of the rest of the day on the couch. And it is not a nice day, snow, slush, frozen rain, you name it. They had actually called an early dismissal this morning, before school even started, not that it mattered to me. Other than the pain of what I've got, the donnatal knocks me flat on my ass. I just stood in the kitchen, slack-jawed, looking at nothing, waiting for my toast to toast.

At first, I had no idea what I could eat, but I'm pretty much having toast and eggs, with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch. (Which fell on the floor so I didn't get to finish it, and didn't have the energy to make another one.) When I told the Sibs and also the Colleague on the phone last night about my doctor visit and what I had to eat, they both asked, Aren't eggs dairy?

Interesting question. In the Kosher sense, I believe eggs can be served with either dairy or meat, but I'm not sure. In my family's sense of having "a dairy meal" for dinner, it usually meant that Jack was making us some of his incredible omelettes. But are eggs dairy? No, of course not. Dairy means "it comes from a cow." (Or, I suppose, a goat, but you know what I mean.) So I had soft-boiled eggs, a childhood favorite, with toast both last night and tonight, but I hadn't made them in so long that I had to look up exactly how. And I salted, them, dammit, because that's how I like them. And clearly, I am not on any kind of diet or other healthy eating plan just now.

So after I post, I'm going to call in sick for tomorrow, so I can let the donntal take me away, which I think is not as much fine as Calgon taking me away, but hey. I don't have the gut spasms when I take it, just a low-level steady soreness, which I guess is better, huh? Isn't is fun reading my diary?

WATCHING L/O :: ENTRY #1647

The Meme ... and More

Here's the one that's making the rounds these days:

Five Things I Just Don't Get

1. Why people don't automatically walk on the right side of the hallway or stairs, and leave room for people coming the other way.
2. Why there are so many drivers (and other people) who think that the laws and rules and posted signs just don't apply to them.
3. Why 99.99% of people with any authority at all are just assholes.
4. Why or how people can be mean to other people for fun
5. How anyone can take another person's life


Five Things, Other Than Money, I Wish I Had More Of:

1. Good health
2. Energy
3. The concentration to read more
4. Time and opportunity to listen to music
5. Winning lottery tickets


Five Least Favorite Words or Phrases:

1. Oh, never mind (when I didn't hear what was said and asked someone to repeat it.)
2. It just takes time, don't worry about it
3. Please excuse this interruption (before they make a long announcement in school in the middle of class)
4. Right after this commercial
5. Anything whined at me (that payback really is a bitch)


Five Famous People I've Spoken With in Person:

1. Alan Alda
2. Mike McCormack (Speaker of the House at the time)
3. Paul Simon (sort of)
These next two I didn't actually speak to, but my grandpa did and got autographs for me, so I'm counting them
4. Ed Sullivan
5. Cary Grant
And one of my kids ran into our Congressman at the local pizza place -- his house is across the street from it -- and talked to him for a while, and his kid goes to my school now; does that count for anything? Not so much.


Five Things I Do Nearly Daily That I Don't Enjoy

1. Take out garbage
2. Do dishes
3. Deal with stomach and other pain and discomforts
4. Wake up and go to work
5. Listen to people whine


Five Things That I Wish I Had the Chance to Do More Often:

1. See music and books, above
2. Go to Disney World
3. Go outside without a jacket on
4. Hang out with my sister (who met Howdy Doody, btw, although I didn't)
5. Be outrageously happy


Five Things I Have Actually Done That Sound Like Lies:

1. I had brain surgery
2. I dated a guy named Phantom for two years
3. I worked in a trophy factory
4. I took two math courses in college and got A's in both of them.
5. I didn't get into the state university in NJ because I didn't want to go there, so I left all the punctuation and correct grammar out of my application essay.


Five People I Hope Will Fill This Out:
Anyone who wants to. No one tagged me.

And now, the More. It's time to get *gasp* political again.

I just read an article about a former CIA guy who says that " [waterboarding} provided an intelligence breakthrough that "probably saved lives," but that he now regards the tactic as torture." Oh, yeah? Listen. We cannot ever ever ever sanction torture. Not ever not no how. The Geneva Convention was written and signed to prevent the abuses of torture, and that's beside the fact that torture is abuse itself. This end does not justify this means. And here's why:

It's all well and good if we have intelligence that helps our troops, and that's what I've heard people say: if torturing the enemy brings our troops home sooner, so much the better. Well, here's what happens. If we torture them, it's like we are giving them permission to torture us. That's how it works here, turnabout is very fair play in war. The very reason the U.S. signed the Geneva Convention was not to protect enemy troops, it was to protect our own troops. Right? If we hear news reports that any of our own military personnel have been captured and tortured, we will be outraged! And we should be! But what's to stop the other side from doing it if we're doing it to them? And if waterboarding isn't so bad, why don't we practice it on our own troops? You know why. Because it's torture, and we don't want our troops to suffer it. Let's grow a brain in Washington, shall we?

Next. Mike Huckabee has no business being the president of this country. He cannot separate church from state in his own mind and heart, and will not be able to do so in office. Besides that, he is crazy, and makes his religion mean whatever he wants it to for political purposes. (I believe it was he who said once -- I don't have the reference -- that Jesus must have supported capital punishment because when he was on the cross, he didn't say, Hey, it's wrong to execute people. Uh, okay. You know, I think Jesus had other things on his mind right then, little things, like having to decide to give up his earthly life to save mankind. He probably wasn't thinking about making political statements so that in 2000 years, some buffoon could use him for his own ends. Now that I think of it, Jesus was the one who established the separation of church and state to begin with. ["Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s."] Right? No one was more apolitical than Jesus.)

If you are not a Christian, and maybe even if you're not a fundamentalist Christian, for all I know, people like Huckabee are very very scary, and all these others who trumpet their religion above all are too. At first, Romney, pleading for understanding since his is not the mainstream Christian religion, said he just wasn't sure what place there was in this country for atheists and non-believers. WTF? Since when? He has since clarified that, saying there probably is a place for them/us, but come on: how could we see this and not be terrified? How soon will they be rounding up the people who don't go to the right churches, and can I book my flight to New Zealand before that happens?

(Ah, New Zealand. You all know how well I deal with change, which is to say, not at all. Can you imagine me moving to New Zealand? I'd have to be sedated for the flight and the first year I lived there. But it's far away from the craziness, and they speak English, and I understand it's a beautiful country. I only hope they have good cable and high speed Internet.)

WATCHING LAW & ORDER :: ENTRY #1645

Monday Morning

Wishing well to forty-plus today.

So it turns out that I was sick all weekend. Same thing, nothing new. I was supposed to go to a party of some kind with the Hubs Saturday evening, and I went out and got clothes to wear and everything, but my stomach was very, very bad all day and by afternoon I was too nauseous to walk around the house, let alone dress up, drive an hour to get there, be social for a couple of hours, and then spend an hour in the car to get home. Instead, I lay on the couch like a beached whale, and K brought me toast every so often, and water to sip. I was better Sunday, as in less nauseous, but the other aspect of stomach virus kicked in big time, so I was not leaving the house. R came by to do her laundry and went with me on my one big excursion, which was to take boxes to the recycling center. The one disadvantage of doing all your shopping online is that you have mountains of cardboard boxes that you keep needing to get rid of.

I had a few bursts of frenzied activity in the midst of all this, including wrapping most of the gifts and getting the living room in order. I had to wrap the gifts so I wouldn't need to keep a big box to have them hidden in. So now the box is gone, and the gifts are sitting in two shopping bags. I have a few DVDs and books left to wrap, but they're hiding in a Gap bag in one of the shopping bags.

I am at work, although not feeling well at all. I'm trying to decide if I should call yet another doctor, or maybe even two. But will anything come of that? If all I have are conditions that will take time to heal, why bother going? But maybe I have something else. It's the eternal struggle for me. And I have taken off so much time to go to doctors that I just don't want to take anymore. Ach. I'll see how the day goes.

I'm taking a very big step in the library this week. My old library was dedicated to and named for the man who was principal when I was a kid, a wonderful, dignified gentleman. We officially did this at a graduation ceremony maybe 15 years ago; I got to sit beside him on the platform and speak on his behalf before he spoke and accepted the honor. We had a plaaque, and two student artists created a remarkable sign that hung outside the library and that had his name on it. Of course, I took it with me when we moved. But I never hung it up, or the plaque. A few old-timer teachers asked me if I would be naming the new library for him too, but I was hesitant. I didn't know if the new library would really be worthy of him. And you know, I don't think it is.

But he called me a couple of weeks ago, to thank me for the page I have about him on the library website, and you know? The library doesn't deserve him, but he deserves the honor. So I asked the principal, not if we had to go through the whole re-dedication procedure (which he had once indicated to me we would), but just if I could put the sign and the plaque back up. He said go for it, so they're going up tomorrow or Wednesday. I feel good about doing it, and good about the library going by his name again. (It's offically like this, but with his name, of course: The Robert W. Smith Library Media Center.) It's a long name, and if kids ask who he is, well, they can read the plaque, and I'm putting up a picture of him, too. And it's on the website. And I guess on some level it's my accepting that this is where we are now, like it or not.

Hey, it's nearly lunchtime and I have received no phone calls from my children. YAY!

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.
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Later.

No, not a good day for the tummy at all. I was not so much with it all afternoon. Anyway, I came home after the faculty meeting, which turned out to a holiday party and I was.not.festive. and left as soon as I could, but then K and I had to do the food shopping we didn't do yesterday. I wasn't feeling well there, and I'm not feeling well since I got home. Among other things, very hungry but wary of eating. (Oh no, not more toast.) And I did call the doctor, the gastro guy -- don't make me spell it -- and I'm going to see him Wednesday at 5. So maybe I'll get some progress there. And it's not as if this one is going to clear up before I get there. Not a chance.

So there's my tale of woe for the day. I had a whole cute bit here about Santa, but I'll save it for tomorrow.

WATCHING L & O :: ENTRY #1644

It Was 30 Years Ago Tonight ...

So let's see, it was the sixth night of Chanukah -- as it is tonight, as was my grandfather's birthday many years earlier -- a Friday, and the Hubs and were in our first apartment, one town over from Bizarro Town. I think we had already had dinner, and I had just lit the candles, when there was a phone call: my sister was in labor.

Now, this was not right. The baby's actual due date was around January 3, but they had scheduled a C-section for sometime between Christmas and New Year's. Her three and half year old had been born by emergency C after nearly 40 hours of labor, so this one was planned ahead. She was not supposed to go into labor on December 9. But she felt fine otherwise, and her doctor had told her to come to the hospital to see what was going on.

Easier said than done! The OB/GYN that my sister and I both used at that time, for various reasons, had his office over the state line in New York, and so the hospital he worked out of was also in New York, in Rockland County, a good 30 to 40 minute drive from B-Town. By the time we got to her house, she and her husband had already left, so it was just my parents there with little JJ. (We hadn't been sure what to do with the lit menorah at home, but it didn't seem right to just blow out the candles, so we had set it down in the bathtub before we left, figuring that if it tipped over there, no harm done.)

In short order, the call came from the Sibs' husband that the doctor had decided to deliver the baby that night! We were astonished, because it was so early, but by all estimations, this was going to be a huge baby, so I guess he knew it was safe. But now we were faced with a dilemma: who was going to the hospital and who was staying with JJ? We had all been there when he was born. (Well, the Hubs hadn't been in the picture then, but my parents and I were there, and her husband's parents, who had both since passed away.) My father decided to stay home, and the Hubs drove a very excited Shirl and me to the hospital.

And did I mention how cold it was? And that it was snowing? And that when we got to the hospital, the front entrance was closed? The three of us had to walk around the outside of the building in the snow, until we finally found an open door -- the emergency room -- and then quietly snuck our way up to maternity.

(At one point during our around-the-building trek, the Hubs said to me "You know, I would never ask you to leave a doctor you really like. But if you find a doctor you really like a little closer to home before we have kids, it wouldn't be a bad idea." Which I did.)

As we got to the outer door of the maternity ward, we saw my sister's husband step out of a phone booth and turn to face us. I will never forget the incredible shit-eating grin he was wearing. So we knew that the baby had been born. My mother said "Well?" He nodded. "What is it?" she asked. (Now you have to remember here that, having a grandson, my mother was itching for a granddaughter.) Anyway, he said "Guess." And my mother said, a bit less than hopefully, "A boy?" And he smiled, and nodded, and said "And?"

My mother lost it then. "And a girl? Twins? She had twins?" and she staggered back into the wall and let her feet go out from under her, sliding down to the floor. By this point, we were all jumping up and down and hugging and kissing. We got it that everyone was fine, and no one had suspected twins until the doctor took out the boy and saw that hey, there's another one in there! (They were each over five pounds at birth, so yeah, that would have been one big baby.)

So. I've written before about the insanity that followed their birth, and that their father, so happy the night they were born, proceeded to have very little to do with them, both before and after his divorce from my sister when they were about 7 years old. That one night was his shining moment. But no more of that.

They are so extra-special to me, the nephew I call Good Guy and his sister, two minutes younger, whom I call Wonderful Niece. Happy Birthday to them, and happy sixth night of Chanukah to them, to Grandpa Sam, to all. We never ever referred to them as "the twins", but first as "the babies" and then "the kids." So, for the babies:

They were a few months old here.

One of my all-time favorite pictures, with my father at a July 4 barbecue.

The "buddy" picture they had taken at their Senior Prom.
(No, they were not each other's date.)

WATCHING PBS :: ENTRY #1643

TGIF

So, I just keep rolling along. Once again, it seems I got a ridiculous amount of stuff done after school today, which must makes me wonder why the living room is still a mess. More on that later.

The phone rings about 9 this morning -- at school -- and it's R, so naturally, my heart sinks because I anticipate crisis. No, she's just waiting for her train and calls to tell me that all is well, the cat let her sleep all night, and like that. So that's nice. Then the phone rings again around 10, and it's K, so my toes clench, but she's calling to tell me that she feels much better today, is going to campus and to do a few errands.

And I'm thinking. My mother used to call me every single morning at work (and five or six times a day, most days), whether because she was also co-dependent or OCD (which she was), or both, I don't know. She called with such regularity -- 8.30 every morning -- that when the phone rang at 8.30, the kids in the library would say "Mrs. Chai! It's your mother!" Ahem. Yes. Anyway, so the girls called this morning, and my first thought was, Oh, is this a regular thing now? And what did I have ... five years of my gut not tying itself into knots when the phone rang in the morning? Ah, well. Truth is, I had a sudden severe wave of missing my mother very much the other day, so I guess you gotta take the good with the bad. As annoying as her calls could be -- the phone also rang every afternoon as soon as I got home and sat down on the toilet -- there's very little I wouldn't give for one of those calls right now. So if the girls call, they call. Let's hope they always do.

The living room. We use our living room for very little, except to pass through to the rest of the house when we come in, and to let stuff sit on the chairs until we need it for something. And there are lots of chairs that we've acquired in there in recent years, so it's kind of like a doctor's waiting room that never has any patients. Anyway, I said something to the Hubs before about just moving out one chair and putting the Christmas tree in its space, not in front of the window where we usually put it, but easier than re-arranging everything. He steps into the living room, studies it for a minute, and goes back to cooking his dinner. "What?" I said. He goes back again, looks at the living room, and comes back into the kitchen. And says "Why don't we just put the tree in the middle of the room?"

Well. How gloriously ridiculous. We will only be using the room to decorate the tree and to open the presents. It won't be in anyone's way, really. No cats to knock it down anymore. It'll look pretty damn funny, but still good from outside, still viewable through the picture window. And we'll see all the ornaments, not just the ones on the "good" side. Damned if we're not going to do it. The girls will probably not be amused, but hey, when they buy a house they can put their Christmas trees wherever they want. I'll get a picture for you all, if I can.

And tomorrow night, I have some sort of party to attend with the Hubs' work people. Oh joy. This will do wonders for my social anxiety. And since I don't think jeans are in order, I'll have to go out in the morning and try to get something suitable to wear. You'd think I would have thought of this before today. And shoes. With me, it always ends up with the shoes.


WATCHING L & O :: ENTRY #1642

They're Killing Me

I'm not saying my kids and I don't have some sort of co-dependent thing going on, although I'd prefer to say that we are "close." Either way, I'm happy I have a good relationship with them, and that we are friends, and that they feel they can talk to me when they need someone to talk to.

All that aside, they're killing me.

It's been a tough week for them. K, as you know, is sick. She is sick because the kid she tutors Saturday mornings has a mother who doesn't know that she's supposed to keep him home when he's sick. Maybe his 13 year old immune system can throw it off, but K's cannot. This is the beginning of her last week of classes for the semester, and she's missed class, hasn't gotten a paper done, and so on. Her nose is so messed up inside that she cannot eat without choking for air, because she can't breathe through her nose at all when she eats, which I guess is what normal people do. Anyway, she's not the world's best patient, as we all know, so it's been trying.

As for the other one, who is, in fact, the world's best patient, her problem is not that she's sick. I think her problem is that she's stressed. She called me last Friday morning, having a meltdown over something or other, and again this morning. Her little cat, it turns out, is not a good patient, and chewed open her stitches the other night, having had her lady parts removed last Friday. So far this week, R has had to go in late to work twice and had to leave early twice, all for emergency vet appointments. And the cat is basically okay, and hopefully will not damage herself this time, but last night, they sent the cat home with new stitches and the warning "Don't let her lick them!" So of course, R was up all night making sure the cat didn't lick her stitches, and had to take her back this morning anyway to get a cone or something put on her. And I got the meltdown call.

Honestly, I don't know how people have their children later in life. I don't know how they have the stamina to put up with it. It isn't even just the toddler chasing when you're 45, it's the teenage thing when you're 60 -- how horrible that sounds -- and then whatever you've got for however long it goes on. I was thinking yesterday, if I won the lottery, I'd set K up in her own apartment before I even paid a bill or bought a car.

Okay, so, much later.

I had a very hectic afternoon, with one errand or another, out of the house, and in the house. I did have the luxury of the house to myself, up until the minute I was finishing with phone calls and was going to have some peace and quiet and then K came home early from class. Ah well, she went to class, and although she looks miserable, she must be feeling better because she's waaay less sick-y tonight. And R's evening is better -- talked to her twice, once she had a nap in her -- and the cat, hopefully, will deal with it all and let her sleep.

It is freaking cold out there. Possible rain and/or snow tomorrow, ick. I have so much less patience for winter as the years go by: don't wanna wear a coat, don't wanna drive or walk in the snow, don't wanna wear bulky layers and still be cold! I went to the ATM on my way to school this morning, but my window wouldn't open. Horrors! Electric windows not working is what killed my last car, you may recall. (Car was too old to get replacement parts for the third time.) But it worked fine after school, so I guess it was just frozen. Damn. That never happened before.

Oh, happy third night of Chanukah. We're doing very well this year; we've actually lit the candles all three nights and I've even said the prayer, which is not to say that I'm praying, just that I know, more or less, the right sounds to make when the Chanukah candles are being lit. My mother had a pamphlet with the phonetic pronunciation on it, which is how I learned it, although I think the prayer has two parts and I only know the first one. And unlike French or even Spanish, I cannot pull off a reasonable Hebrew accent, so it all sounds very un-official, if you know what I mean. But I say it anyway. On the sixth night, I also especially remember my Grandpa Sam, whose birthday was the sixth night of Chanukah. He only ever knew the real date of his birthday because once he got to America, he went to the office of a Yiddish newspaper and asked them to look up the date of the sixth night of Chanukah for the year he was born. (He knew how old he was, exactly, because he had been Bar Mitzvahed just before leaving the old country, so, 13.) It was December 16, 1892, just in case you're keeping track.

Well, I have rambled on here a bit more than I meant to, and now I'm off to change into my jammies and settle in for Ugly Betty.

WATCHING LAW AND ORDER :: ENTRY #1642

Extra Innings

I have been in overdrive all day. I feel like this is the first minute I've had to just be by myself and not have to do anything. And the day started out so well.

Uh, yeah. Started with the mammogram, which went into extra innings. Just go back for two more shots. Now go back for four more. Hey, know what? Forget the mammogram, we're going to ultrasound those suckers! This is a great place that we go to, and the mammograms themselves are actually painless. The ultrasound, not so much. I was in there for so long that my sister was getting nervous out in the waiting room. (An easy year for her, no retakes, all fine.) And all is fine with me, too. The radiologist is being extremely cautious and is checking and rechecking some calcifications that I've had for maybe twenty years and that have been dismissed as nothing by any number of doctors, but hey, she's doing her job. She wants me to have 'em MRI'd, too, so I'll do that over Christmas vacation. Boy, everything hurts; I kept having to turn and change position, arms up, arms down. So that was fun.

Then lunch, then to the internist, where they did a bone density test WHICH IS MY FAVORITE MEDICAL TEST EVER!! This is like Star Trek medicine. You lie on a comfortable table, fully dressed, and a monitor with a light passes over you, up and back. And you're done. It even makes noises like a gentle little video game. And my bone density is, amazingly, fine, but the doctor says that may change once I'm off the lady meds for good.

And in other news, yes, I have a stomach virus, which she says is killing off the good bacteria in my gut. Yay! Anyway, she says I need to drink more water and also take acidophilus, which is good gut bacteria in a capsule. I expect to make a total recovery by tomorrow. And yes, I have tendonitis. So no news here, really, except that I'm actually healthy, despite feeling like crap. Good, I suppose.

Came home in the light snow, where the kid is still kvetching on the couch. This is just the way she is, always has been. I appreciate the suggestion to just let her be, but this is just not the dynamic we've developed over the last 23+ years. (She is very nice to me when I'm sick, btw.) Even so, her going up to her room a half hour ago is a bit of relief for me. Not that I'm always jumping up and doing things for her, I'm not; but she sits two feet behind me looking like death warmed over, so that's hard to ignore.

My food arrived today, in a huge box (which she took in while I was at the doctor's) and it took me forever to sort it all out, check against the packing slip and my order, and so on. Part of the problem was that it came with a free week of food, none of which I got to select, so there's all this stuff that I have no interest in eating, and I had to put that aside, repack it, and get it ready to send back for exchange. I'm still not starting until Monday, since I don't have all the salad and other stuff you have to have with it, but I think I will take one of the lunches with me tomorrow. I hope it's good, because otherwise I'm in big trouble.

And that's it. I am just spent. Looooong day.


WATCHING MASH :: ENTRY #1641

More of the Same

Well, I did stay home today. I didn't have the fogginess I had when I stayed home last week; this time, I got as far as brushing my teeth, washing my face, and getting the coffee made before my stomach yelled up at me "Hey! You ain't goin' nowhere!" and I had to listen. This is growing very tiresome.

So I was home, and so was K, who has a terrible cold. The only advantage of this was that since her car was in for service, I was home so we could go out and get her some medicine and soup for lunch. Other than that, she has spent the entire day on the couch. Ah well. It's one of the disadvantages of her not smoking anymore: she doesn't take the occasional break from the family room to go to the basement for a cigarette. Oh, I'm not saying I want her to smoke, certainly. And in the midst of her horrible congestion today, she realized that she now meets the condition for getting her deviated septum fixed, which is that she had to stop smoking first. So she's going to look into that. I'll let you know when her surgery's scheduled, because then you are really going to have to pray for me. She doesn't deal well with that sort of thing, and mommy generally takes the brunt of it, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, so I went to the dermatologist, all is well, but she wants to remove a couple of dark spots -- we're a spotty people -- but I had to reschedule that for January for a variety of reasons. Otherwise, I'm fine. We'll see what the other doctors have to say tomorrow.

It's cold out. I hate the cold, I hate it like poison. The only thing I hate more than cold is wind. And we're experiencing an odd turn of events here, which is that it got winter-cold before all the leaves fell, and so the trucks that pick up all the leaves are done with their schedule for this year. But there are huge piles of leaves in the streets everywhere, and if they don't pick them up before we have a solid snowfall, there are going to be accidents everywhere, and the first accidents are going to be when the snowplows run into those frozen leaf mountains. R's train keeps coming in late every night because there are leaves on the tracks and they have to slow down! How weird is that?

I'm looking forward to going on the new eating plan, too. I find that eating a stable diet is good for the digestion, if you get my drift. Of course, I'm already trying to work on that, but I like the idea of someone giving me each meal to eat. I'm lazy that way.

WATCHING LAW AND ORDER :: ENTRY #1640

Ohhh

1:35

Oh, I am not well. I felt fine all day, pretty much, and even when I first got back from lunch, but now I am very barfy and light-headed and not good. I don't think I even have the energy to try to go home early. I have an hour until the school day is over, and then a half hour of open library after that. I'm just grateful that the meeting I was supposed to be at right now was canceled. I feel like I can't even read.

On a lighter note, and in the continuing series of epiphanies I've been having (can you tell that I love that word?), I did some thinking about weight loss and how to start down that road again. I know that the W8 Watching is the best plan, but I don't have the patience for that right now, and for the amount of daily life it consumes. I started to think about the Jennie Craig again because hey, Valerie Bertinelli looks good, but then you have to consider that Valerie Bertinelli is unusually beautiful and has been since she was a child, so yeah, of course she looks good. And there were some things I didn't like about the JC when I was on it. I hated having to go to their office every week (although I liked the woman who was my counselor.) I didn't always have room in the freezer for all the meals I would have to get each week. So I started to give NutraSystem some thought, because it's a lot like the JC (same original founders, I believe), but without the stuff I don't like. You don't have to go anywhere, all the food is delivered to your house, nothing is frozen, and you don't have to talk to anyone unless you want to. I looked online and I like some of their different management tools, too. So I registered, but I can't actually join until I'm home because it's just dumb to put in your credit card number on a public computer system, not to mention which it's against school rules to make financial transactions on the school network. So I think I'll do that when I get home, assuming I'm not too dead to live. It costs about half as much as JC, too.

I know this isn't the best way to go about it, but all I'm looking for now is a 10 to 15 pound jump start. Even that will take months, I know. Maybe by then I'll be motivated enough to do it the right way. Time will tell.

4.00

Home. I joined up and should start getting the food next week, I guess. I called and talked to someone there, too. So far, it looks like a good program, but as I say, we shall see.

Oh, my condition is much improved, I still feel barfy and now I have a sick headache, too. Funny thing is, whatever this is that I've got, my principal seems to have it too. He's been in and out, sick and better, almost as long as I have, which is since the week before Thanksgiving. Hey, it's not like I hang out with him or anything.

Tomorrow is the worst day of the year in the library, the day we're closed for the debate tournament. What happens is that we close to our own students and are an all-day coatroom for the debaters from other schools. Which totally sucks. Which means I won't feel a bit of guilt if I wake up feeling the same and call in sick. And I'm already out Wednesday with doctors' appointments, so that would make a strange week, eh?

And now to collapse.

WATCHING THE GOLDEN GIRLS :: ENTRY #1639

The Weather Outside

while not exactly frightful, is far from delightful. It snowed all morning, then stopped, then maybe it rained some ... ick. I don't think the Hubs ever got to shovel because it was never that deep, but he went and swept before. Me? I haven't been out of the house all day, never even put on a real pair of pants, just jammies.

My mission for today was my closet. Yes, I did this not that long ago, but not with the epiphany I had the other day, which was "Hey, you know what? A lot of the stuff in that closet does not fit." Oy. I'm at yet another crossroads regarding weight, which is that yes, I know I need to lose some -- can't wait to hear what the doctor says on Wednesday -- but that will take some time, and until then, the sweaters and such that I've been wearing for the last few years are just too tight.

Epiphany #1: Take those clothes that don't fit out of the closet, which is so jam-packed that I can't even see what's in there that maybe does fit.

Epiphany #2: I need a few new things that do fit. But damn, I'm already wearing extra-large. Where do I go from here?

Epiphany #2.1: They make sizes bigger than Xl, moron.
Ephipany #2.2: What is marked XL in Target is not necessarily what would be XL anywhere else.

So, armed with my new found knowledge, I did go to Target the other night and got a couple of things (XXL and Women's whatever that first size is), and then I went to the Lands End department at Sears yesterday, where, behold, an XL actually is extra-large, and fits. I even found a new winter jacket there that didn't pull across my chest and I could wear a sweater under.

And today, I pulled out everything that I can't wear anymore. Most of it I just put away, because I could, realistically, lose 15 pounds sometime between here and death, so I could use it again. Some things K took, and the rest, I'll donate somewhere. (Actually, a club at school is having a coat and sweater drive, so I need to gather everything up and then just bring it in.) I had room to put the new stuff away, and I did indeed find a few things that I didn't remember putting there at the end of last winter.

Otherwise, I watched the Law and Order marathon, did a bunch of crossword puzzles, and took a nice nap. So, all in all, a pretty good day.


WATCHING LAW AND ORDER :: ENTRY #1638

It's Beginning

bluesleepy wrote about her Christmas tree and decorating today, and Yankee Chick
(and others) did a Christmas survey, so I'm inspired.

Let me remind you that I have been celebrating Christmas only for the last 32 of my 54 years, since I joined the Hubs' family, but still, that's a pretty long time. So we have plenty of long-held Christmas traditions here in our family, although any references to childhood gifts and the like refer to Chanukah.

I love Christmas, and I love having a Christmas tree, especially. 32 years ago, when the Hubs and I were only dating, I handmade a couple of ornaments for his mother, needlepoint cubes on plastic canvas. And I made a couple for us, too. For many years, one of our tree traditions was that I hand made at least one ornament per year. Although that first year on our own, 30 years ago, I handmade a lot of cheap ornaments from kits to fill the tree up. We only still use one or two of those.

I also made sure to get an ornament, or something I could use as an ornament, from anyplace we traveled to. Some of these are very cheesy -- I went to Maine, I got a stuffed lobster -- and some are neat, like the shell I got on the beach at Cape May that was the perfect ornament shape.

We have many ornaments that the kids made, either in school or at home, and several that I made with their annual Christmas pictures in them or on them. I got at least one ornament for each child in the family from one of those mail order places that engraves names on cheap ornaments, so that's one each for my kids and for each of their cousins.

We have lots -- LOTS -- of Disney or Hallmark character ornaments. We have a really terrific Hallmark that clips onto a branch instead of hanging and is Horton Hatching the Egg from the Dr. Seuss book.

And I love glass ball ornaments. I had a set of six that I bought that first year, just clear glass balls, like bubbles, and by now, they are all gone. But when the girls travel, especially K, I get a glass ball ornament from wherever they go. I have one from Venice that is particularly beautiful.

So, as you can imagine, I have enough ornaments for three or four trees. Many years ago, I was home sick the week before Christmas, and I took the opportunity to put a bunch of ornaments we didn't use anymore into two of those big popcorn cans, to be starter ornaments for each of the girls when they need them. Over the last few years, I've distilled down into two canvas boxes the ornaments we do use, and the others are packed away in the basement. We have a very rigid routine for decorating the tree. The Hubs brings it upstairs and puts on the lights and the topper. Every ornament is hung by the girls. I take each one out of the box and make sure it has a hook, and then hand it over to one of them. Certain ornaments "belong" to each one of them, and even now, a fight will break out if the wrong sister hangs one of those particular ones.

So there ya go. Here's the survey.

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Both, mostly bags.

2. Real tree or artificial? It's real. We bought it in a real store. (Okay, artificial.)

3. When do you put up the tree? 2nd or 3rd weekend in December

4. When do you take the tree down? First weekend in January

5. Do you like eggnog? Love. It. Good with a little Kahlua in it, too.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? I got a life-size doll too, but it scared the crap out of me. I got a stuffed animal Quick Draw McGraw that I wanted very, very much and loved the fur off of over the years.

7. Do you have a nativity scene? No. The MIL does, though, and the grandchildren would always play with it, move stuff around, and so on, and I commented once that this was a very sturdy nativity set to have withstood all those years of her own children and then grandchildren playing with it. She said "Are you kidding? If my own children ever touched it, I would have broken their arms." Ah, the wonder of grandchildren. I believe she bought the set at Woolworth's the year she was married.

8. Hardest person to buy for? Husband

9. Easiest person to buy for? Both of my kids are fairly easy to buy for.

10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Endless years of pink sweaters from the MIL

11. Mail or email Christmas cards? Neither. I stopped sending cards 16 years ago, when I had a brain tumor in December. I figured no one would mind if they didn't get a card from me, and they would probably just cry if they did.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? I like It's a Wonderful Life, of course, but I'm a sucker for the Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol that was on when I was a kid. I also LOVED as a kid Amahl and the Night Visitors, which is never on anymore, hasn't been in nearly 50 years. And of course, the You'll-Shoot-Your-Eye-Out-Kid movie. The Hubs and I were big Jean Shepherd fans even before that movie came out, so it totally delighted us, and still does.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? I used to start making a list and picking things off in August, but now I won't start until after Thanksgiving, unless I happen to see some perfect thing before. And I did most of it online this year.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Not the way the question means, like re-gifting something. On the way home from my ILs, I offer whatever the MIL gave me to my kids, since it's generally something I would never use or wear.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? I don't think I have a favorite. Traditionally, we have an antipasto when we arrive at the ILs, and our first course is Holiday Soup, which I believe is more commonly known as Italian Wedding Soup. And I like a cannoli for desert, although they're not so good for me anymore. Everything in between soup and cannoli is pretty standard.

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Colored lights that blink. The ones we have came with six (I think) programs for different light settings. I have no idea how they work or how to make them work; either the Hubs or R sets them.

17. Favorite Christmas song? Least favorite song is that Burl Ives one: Holly Jolly Christmas. It makes me want to rip my ears off. There are many Christmas songs I like, and I generally like Christmas music as long as I don't have to hear it 24/7 for a couple of months. Since the movie Love Actually, I'm very fond of All I Want for Christmas is You.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? We travel a couple of hours each way down and then back up the Garden State Parkway to the in-laws.

19. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer’s? Yes. Yes I can. And at one time, I could recite "The Night Before Christmas" from memory. (The actual name of the poem is "A Visit from St. Nicholas", I believe.)

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? We have a snowflake that I made many years ago with plastic needlepoint canvas, white yarn, and white beads. We're very attached to it, but each year I wonder if it's going to make it just one more time. It's become very fragile. There are no angels or stars anywhere on our tree.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? The girls give each other one on Christmas eve. The rest Christmas morning.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? The endless commercialization, and music overkill. Also, I'm very freaked out by those reindeer lawn ornaments that slowly move their heads up and down or back and forth.

23. What I love most about Christmas? I like giving gifts to people. I like the tree and all the ornaments. When the kids were little, I loved their excitement. (I also loved that, until they were grown, they never realized that the year Daddy became a vegan, we left juice for Santa and a carrot for the reindeer instead of the traditional milk and cookies. We explained that Santa was finally watching his weight.)

Have a Wonderful Christmas Everyone…..


WATCHING HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE :: ENTRY #1637