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