12.07.2003 - 5:16 p.m.
Sunday
It's been sort of a holly jolly
weekend, we've fully supported the crass commercialization of
Christmas in all sorts of ways.
We got our tree on Saturday
- it's a lovely Noble fir that cost sort of a ridiculous amount
of money considering we DO live in a part of the country that
has, last I looked around, a whole shitload of evergreen
trees. The BAMT came in quite handy, we just tossed the tree
in the truck bed and drove home. Much better, dignity-wise, than
what happened a couple years ago when we oh-so-cleverly lashed
our purchase to the top of the car by looping twine through the
open windows and over the roof, then goggled idiotically at each
other when we simultaneously tried to open our (tied tightly
shut) doors.
Later in the day we made a
doomed trip to Home Depot where we gazed with sorrow at the rows
of empty shelves that once held lights. "We are going to
have to go
" I started to say to JB. "No!"
he cried. "Not
" "Yes," I said sternly.
"Fred Meyer's."
Our local Fred Meyer's is a
clusterfuck on the best of days - slackjawed clerks, crazy old
ladies with fifty thousand wrinkled coupons, lines that snake
halfway through the store and move at glacial speed - but during
the holiday season it's a complete madhouse. Happily, they still
had a ton of lights, even though we had to practically climb
over people's shoulders to get at them.
"Let's go
NOW,"
hissed JB, narrowly dodging a frantic woman lunging at a package
of Christmas-themed wine charms.
Back at the house we surveyed
the roofline. Last year JB had spent a long, laborious day with
hammer and nails securing strings of lights that ultimately looked
pretty weak. They weren't very straight, they were too small,
and eventually a whole string went dead because we plugged too
many together.
Oh ho, not so this year! We
bought the larger 'C' kind of lights that easily clipped into
the gutters, creating a perfectly straight uniform line. It took
us maybe half an hour to get them all hooked up, with me handing
JB lights and freaking right the hell out about the ladder (Me:
"Be careful! It's tipping! Oh god!" JB: "I
have used a goddamn ladder before.").
Then we put lights on a small
tree in our front yard, which resulted in me scratching my head
and mouthbreathing over how you make lights blink. Notified readers
came to the rescue, and we did the thing were you unplug one
light and put in the special little pink light, but there was
a snafu somewhere and a whole bunch of lights went dark and we
spent a goodly amount of time out in the cold mumbling cuss words
and fiddling with the wee little bulbs until the whole thing
finally lit back up again, not blinking but who the hell cares,
maybe we're saving some poor unsuspecting passerby a grand mal
seizure.
Then we came in and put the
lights on our pretty Noble, and hauled out our box of decorations
that includes many of your typical ornaments but also, starting
this year, a wooden squirrel holding a string of acorns that
JB said looked like a sex toy.
:::
But, it hasn't been all
holiday cheer around the household.
DO YOU SEE WHAT I AM SAYING?
No, I mean JB has suffered
an attack/flareup/injury that may be, according to various sources:
some kind of arthritis (doctor), bulging disk (same doctor),
poorly aligned tailbone (chiropractor), sciatica (internet),
Various Horrible Maladies Resulting In Ass Amputation (more internet).
He's in a lot of pain, which
is hard - it's hard to see a loved one in pain. He did get a
decent wad of Tylenol 3s, though, so he's able to stay on top
of it. I'm just crossing my fingers he gets better soon.
As for today, I dragged my
codeine-dosed, limping, retail-phobic husband through the throngs
at Bellevue Square Mall today to do some Christmas shopping.
See? I'm just filled with the holiday spirit.
:::
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I have moved. - 1.03.2005 Obviously, a work in progress. - 12.27.2004 Happy holidays! - 12.24.2004 Listen, I am not a complete dick, it's not like I want Joe to die alone surrounded by cats or something. - 12.23.2004 Plus I am convinced my butt is extra big when it's upside down. - 12.22.2004
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