The 8th Nerve

I just noticed that I’m averaging about one entry a week these days. I will have to pick up the pace in ‘07. I like how the holiday timing worked this year- taking four days of hard earned vacation time resulted in a total of 10 days off. We spent the first half of the week at Steve’s parents in far northern Vermont where we relaxed amidst all the goodies and the golden blur of Lucky and Maggie attached at the shoulder and moving at a jostling clip throughout the house. Their favorite game is “let’s mostly pretend to bite each other” FOR HOURS. I suppose it is the human equivalent of “I’m not touching you” (singsong) and tag.

Eric and Kristi spent a hellish 48 hours just trying to get here from Wyoming, with a layover in Denver, and arrived a day later than planned. The final kicker was when the suitcase with most of their clothes and all the Christmas gifts was lost somewhere in the continental US. We delayed Christmas and hours were spent on the phone on Christmas day trying to get ahold of a live person who could tell us anything useful. Finally, late in the day it was confirmed that the suitcase would be sent out on immediate delivery. We went out into the woods and got the tree.
There was just enough snow for a snowball fight.

We had Christmas and it was fun. My favorite moments were when Steve and Eric opened their “runs with lightsaber” t-shirts (something they literally accomplished during our great adventure) and when Steve opened up the dashboard ninjas.

We headed back on Wednesday, with a stop in Craftsbury to say hello to our crew there, who now have big rambling farmhouses and barns of their own. Lucky was scared of their cows.

Thursday was a fun day of spending Christmas money and gift certificates, which brings me to a fundamental difference between men and women:

Me: There’s nothing more fun than going shopping with Christmas money.

Steve: Yeah there is.

I will leave you with one of my favorite pictures, taken while we were waiting for Eric and Kristi at the airport. Look at that leg arrangement.

Tomorrow we head out to New Hampshire for a few days with my family and New Year’s celebration.

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Dec 29th 2006Everyday life & Family & Pets & Pictures

woken up at 5am for no reason and not able to get back to sleep.

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Dec 20th 2006I Peeved When

“Flowers and ponies and myspace dot com!”

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Dec 20th 2006I Laughed When

For the past three nights when one of us has walked Lucky, he has insisted on turning around earlier and earlier. The first night it was about ten yards short of where we usually turn around. The next night was earlier, and tonight we went barely a quarter of the usual walk. There is something very firm and insistent about his need to turn around. Usually when he stops or resists, a little tugging on the leash will get him going again. Sometimes, if tugged too much, he gets a little bad boy gleam in his eye that says “Don’t think I don’t know how to chew up everything you hold dear.”

This, however, is different. No bad boy gleam, no distraction by various scents or a dead leaf skidding across the road. Just a very firm belief that it is time to turn around toward home and he absolutely will not go any further in the usual direction. What is ahead in the cold and the dark that is getting closer each night? Does he sense a presence that we can’t? Is this his way of taking control of the walk? Do too many houses have Christmas lights now? Does he sense encroaching mass holiday hysteria?

The cats have taken to sleeping on our heads again, these past few nights. What is going on? Maybe they are as disturbed as I am by Bush’s decision to merely send more troops to Iraq in response to the report’s BLATANTLY OBVIOUS conclusion that the war in Iraq IS NOT WORKING. It cracks me up how surprised the media acted by the report, putting it out there in bold headlines. The report dared to state the obvious! It really is true that the Iraq war was the biggest, stupidest, most wasteful decision ever made! And the rest of us are like “We could have told you that over THREE YEARS AGO.” And Bush is like “Let me think about this for several weeks… Ugh.. yeah, it’s not working. Ok, send more troops. Let’s make this a much bigger mess than was thought humanly possible.”

But I digress. The pets are acting peculiar and my last work week before the holiday vacation is creeping along. Just a few more days!

Things that get me into the Christmas mood:

-wrapping presents
-big snowflakes drifting down
-a new one this year- a big red Rudolph nose and antlers on motor vehicles.
-blue Christmas lights.
-baking holiday treats.
-the sound of sleigh bells. My mom would ring these bells as we kids stood at the top of the stairs on Christmas morning, waiting in suspense, and the sound meant it was time to come down and open presents. So I have been conditioned, not unlike Pavlov’s dog.
-my clients’ excitement and the amazing job my workplace did in buying and wrapping presents for dozens of families.
-snowshoeing at night with lanterns to cut down the Christmas tree. This year, alas, we may be sans snowshoes, but we’ll see.

Lucky won’t get to turn around early on that one.

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Dec 20th 2006Everyday life & Pets

After the snowstorm, it became positively balmy all week. Bad for skiiers, good for dogwalkers.

How cute are golden retriever eyelashes.

Where’s Casper?

Statue in the setting sun

See Steve’s Christmas poem.

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Dec 16th 2006Everyday life & Pictures

I got the studded snow tires put on just in time. Today I crept, but did not slide, home from work at 30 mph. Then I went back out with Steve to walk Lucky. I had forgotten how snowstorms brighten everything at night as if it has its own light and you can easily see without a flashlight. The silence as the snow piled up is the kind that can only happen during snowstorms and holiday lights glowed from house to house. We got home and had grilled Cabot cheese sandwiches and soup.

Time to kick up the holiday shopping another notch. As you get older, I’ve discovered, holiday shopping takes on new phases. The first phase is when you just receive gifts (gleefully, at 5 in the morning, with your hair sticking up in all directions. You may, or may not, have shoved your brother into the bannister in order to get to the stockings first). The second phase is when you buy just for your parents and siblings. This phase is fun, as you know when you find just the perfect gift and you can’t wait to see them open it on Christmas morning. The third phase is when you get married and double the size of your family.

Then the second part of the third phase is when siblings in both families get married. At this point, you have been living apart from your parents and siblings for so long that you have no idea what to get anyone. You have no idea what Playstation 2 games your brother already owns, you have no idea whether your gift will either thrill or annoy your sister-in-law, and now that your list has expanded to at least 14 people it is absolutely imperative to begin thinking and researching gifts for hours online weeks in advance.

At this point Christmas becomes a lot like writing a term paper. It requires research, it feels overwhelming and like it will never get done, and then, somehow, it happens.

Fourth phase? Kids, nieces, nephews. Then people start talking about drawing names out of a hat.

Then the gifts I ordered start arriving in the mail and I get the wrapping paper out. I start to feel the excitement, even if on any Christmas in the second part of the third phase, I only see half of my gift recipients open them in person. (Steve and I alternate Christmases, last year was with my parents and siblings, this year is with his). Better yet is when you still hit on a good idea, maybe even the perfect idea, even if it doesn’t occur with the same frequency or accuracy as phase two.

One more weekend, and I may be in the home stretch!

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Dec 7th 2006Everyday life