It is now December, and Christmas Madness can officially begin!  Today’s Christmas madness will be the clearing of a space for Mr Castlegar and his subsequent assembling.  He’ll go in the corner where the chair no one sits in currently resides (the chair will be relegated to the office, also known as the room that tidiness forgot).  I bought eggnog and Husband is bringing home some rum, so it should be good times around here by about 8pm when we soddenly try to put together our tree.  I will of course put on the Christmas music and perhaps take some pictures of the madness for your enjoyment.  I might even be lucky enough to score a snap of Husband giving me his “Jesus you’re crazy” face when I start mooning over the tree.

Tomorrow we’re having a few family members over for the official tree decorating party.  I already have some spaghetti sauce on the stove simmering, and salad stuff in the fridge.  I’m in classes tomorrow but after I get home it should be a snap to get dinner on the table for the 7 or 8 people we’ll be feeding.  After dinner we’ll pull out all my ornaments, most of which are new, and attack Mr Castlegar with them.  I need to get some emotional stuff into those ornaments, you know?  They don’t have any tradition associated with them because they’re brand new, but I hope to kick start that process with a group decorating event.

I still don’t have a tree topper though.  Might be a wired octopus again this year.  I also don’t have much in the way of household decorations.  I got a couple of Christmas themes dish towels and a hand towel for the bathroom, but I have a huge bare mantel with nothing on it, and no wreath for the door.  Must get a wreath!

Alright, I’m better now.  Husband and I went to the Templeton for poutine and milkshakes, and the world looks okay again.  (I still hate those people who use “fraught” on its own like Oprah, but okay, everyone has a right to live.)  Sorry for the outburst earlier.  Food and Sinutab have restored me to a human-like state.

So, my practicum!  I got one!  What I couldn’t accomplish with dozens of calls and emails on my own was resolved in ten minutes by the counsellor at my dad’s school.  Upon hearing of my plight to find a site, he met with me, we chatted, and he got me three interviews on the spot with agencies in the valley.  I got two offers and then canceled my third interview because the second offer was awesome.  Now I just have to wade through my school’s red tape about getting it all set up, but other than that I’m golden.  The site seems good, my supervisor to be seems good, the client base is interesting and very challenging - I’m excited and happy.  Nervous too though, of course.  Imagine - me, therapizing the masses!  Yeek!

And the paper that’s due tomorrow?  I knocked off a good chunk of it and I think it will be in hand-in shape without too much fuss.  It may not be my finest work ever but it will be done, and thank god for that.

Now to plan for the tree decorating party, which I’m hosting this Saturday.  It’s just a family affair, but it should be a good time.  Tomorrow Husband and I will reassemble Mr Castlegar.  I can barely contain myself!

I have a cold.  I could just weep with frustration and helplessness.  I know what I need to do - sleep, lie on the couch and allow the craptastic feeling of illness wash over me, moan with self pity.  These things lead to wellness.  But they clash with other needs, such as the need to write a stupid fucking paper that is due tomorrow and which has barely been started.  I have totally lost my grip on my “I’m sick but happy!” experience and basically want to throw a tantrum.  But if I did I’d just have to clean up after myself, so what’s the point?

You know, as Husband was telling me, in the olden days TV ads about having a cold showed people staying home in bed while taking their cold medicine.  Nowadays the ads are all about perky career women zooming to the office after downing some cold medicine, and I want to fucking murder every one of them.  Since when as a society did we decide that the smart thing to do was to take our sick asses to work to infect others and delay our recuperation?  I call bullshit!  When I worked in an office, I seethed with nasty anger at those idiots who come to work sick because, you know, they just need to keep working and aren’t they dedicated?  Those selfish jackasses clearly think their desires are more important than everyone else’s, because I promise you your office mates wish you weren’t filling the office with your tainted breath - and what’s more, that they’re more important than everyone else’s health.  Does it never occur to you people that you might make others sick?  That they might not want that?  That they might have old or very young people at home who should be protected from your virus?  That they might not want to have to miss work because they’re more considerate than you and would stay home?  Aaaargh!

I am entirely too angry.  I hate the world.

p.s. - I got a practicum.

Today I went to my gramma’s house.  She was not there, of course, because she died some years ago.  I haven’t been there since.  It was kind of creepy because the house is exactly the way I remember it - grampa hasn’t changed a thing.  He even left up the photo montage of the kangaroo surfing, and framed pictures of monkeys doing various household tasks like ironing and sweeping (I loved her, but not because she had great taste).

Anyway, my gramma was hugely into Christmas and I thought, maybe I could go through her Christmas things and take some stuff.  I’m not sure why I never thought of this before!  Grampa was fine with it so I spent the afternoon rooting around under the stairs through old boxes of decorations.  Most of it was pretty junky - Gramma didn’t have a lot of money and poor plus bad taste equals a lot of plastic santas.  But there were some special items that I took: some old blown glass hanging ornaments, a lace tablecloth, tin soldier pate spreaders, and the NOEL candle holders.

These holders are a family tradition.  They are four separate items, each a candle holder in the shape of one of the letters, which put together spell “noel.”  These are older than I am.  And every year, some wise guy would swap the letters around to spell “LEON,” which drove my gramma crazy because not only was someone messing with NOEL, but they made it into a Jewish name, which is hardly in keeping with the Christmas spirit.  Or at least not my Catholic gramma’s Christmas spirit.  Of course she was in on the gag - she dutifully rearranged the letters and then wandered out of the living room, providing ample opportunity for LEON to come back.  It’s one of those bizarre rituals that don’t make sense to anyone but us.  Anyway, when I found them, I was quite touched.  Now my dad and I can argue about who gets to keep them.  For now they’re at my place but I have a feeling they’ll be at his pretty soon.

I’m very happy to have some of her things, but the more significant part of the day was being back in her house.  Going through her boxes was wild - I found stacks and stacks of Christmas cards.  She never threw out a one.  I also found boxes filled with nothing but other empty boxes and plastic bags - she was a great recycler, as many folks who lived through the depression were.  Nothing was thrown out if it had even a hint of future use in it.  It was a nice feeling to find those things.  I felt close to her.  But of course it was sad also - instead of being all over the house, her things were stuffed under the stairs in a dark crawlspace with mouse droppings and cobwebs.  Kind of makes sense, I guess, since she’s gone.

I have been a bad Blogosaurus. Instead of doing the mountains of school work I have, I’ve spent the last two days working on a quilted Christmas tree skirt. When it’s on the floor, Husband and I do the savage Christmas dance on it, complete with stomping and chanting, but apparently the Christmas gods are not appeased by mere dancing - they need blood as well. This is the only explanation I can think of for why I stabbed my finger right through with the sewing machine needle.

I was threading the needle and committed the bone headed error of leaving my foot resting lightly on the presser foot while I did so (non-sewers: this is what makes the machine go). Just as I tucked my finger under the needle to move the thread, my foot tucked down and stab! I sewed myself! I also let out with a major girl scream, because it hurt like hell and scared the bejeesus out of me. Those needles are probably two millimetres thick, and it had gone from the top of my index finger right out the other side! I also tried to leap away from the machine, but because a single foot press moves the needle just down, I was trapped. (Note to self: yanking on trapped, stabbed finger hurts - next time just hold still.)

The worst part came next, when I realized I’d have to hit the presser foot again to bring the needle up - and that’s just a horrifying thought. I did it - and surprisingly it didn’t hurt at all to remove it. Hooray for shock. But oh unholy gods, as I drew my finger away from the machine, I saw that I really did sew myself - my festive gold and green thread was neatly right through my finger from the top and looped to the bobbin thread from the bottom in a single perfect stitch. My machine’s tension was perfect for sewing fingers, if perfect stitches are bloody, because mine sure as hell was.

After braving needle removal, I just couldn’t face picking the stitch out. Luckily Husband was right next to me, summoned away from his poker game by my ungodly shriek. He snipped the thread and pulled it out, and then we got to take a fun trip to the doctor for a tetanus shot!

So now I have a throbbing, aching index finger and a billion pages of essay to type with it. This is what I get for sewing when I should be writing.

I’m doing my yearly appeal for help selecting some good fantasy fiction for my brother.  He is in grade 12, quite smart and can read just about anything.  He likes fantasy, but it’s not something I usually read so I don’t know what’s good.  Can anyone recommend to me some quality fantasy, preferably newer to prevent buying him something he already has?  Rory, I’m looking at you!

I’d also appreciate recommendations for good SF, same reasons.

By the way, last year’s suggestions were all major hits.

I just finished writing a paper for my ethics class.  I’ve become quite interested in research methodology in psychotherapy and that’s what I wrote on.  I feel very accomplished!  It feels so good to put the finishing touches on the references page and then close that mutha-fuckin’ file.  It’ll need some edits tomorrow but that shouldn’t take more than an hour, and since you can’t edit right after you write, I can walk away from the laptop with absolutely no guilt.

I am a procrastinator by nature.  I have to constantly fight my urge to put things off.  Because, I hate the feeling of knowing work is looming over me, so the whole time I’m putting my work off, I feel terrible and can’t enjoy myself.  Today I just knuckled down and got the job done, and now I have the whole afternoon ahead of me, free and clear, with no obligations.  I feel great!  Same amount of free time, but much more pleasure.  Of course I have more work to do, but today’s goal was to finish this paper, so everything else I do is gravy.

So I’m thinking I’ll head out and buy fabric to make my Christmas tree skirt.  I need some groceries too, so I’ll hit Safeway.  And, I’m sick again, but it’s pretty mild (just a sore throat and some tiredness), so I’m going to take it easy and rest.  There’s a nap in my future today for sure.

I’m feeling light and happy.  I hope you are too!

Today’s List of Bad Things:

1. I’m getting sick again.  In the immortal words of Billy Connolly: Jesus suffering fuck!

2. The billing service I use is down, so I can’t submit claims.  Of course the deadline is tonight.

3. That’s it.  But a list of two items just looks kind of wimpy, no?

So as you know, I am a moisturizer junkie. I have different moisturizers for my feet, legs, face, general body, hands, cuticles, and, actually I think that’s it. Oh wait, I also use moisturizing soap in the shower. Plus moisturizing shampoo, though I don’t know if that totally counts. And lip balm! (My little secret: Vaseline is better than any of the expensive lip balms, all of which I have tried, plus it’s about one one hundredth the price. Just no SPF, so in daytime use something else.) Okay, if we add that all up I guess I use nine or ten different moisturizers, most every day. But sometimes, like winter, it’s still not enough.

(You’re probably thinking I’m some kind of mutant human-iguana hybrid and that my skin must resemble sand paper to require so much maintenance, but you would be wrong. I actually have lovely, soft, incredibly moist skin, but you better believe this requires constant work.)

Today I was feeling that itch of dry winter skin, and I pretty much lose my mind when that happens. I had to break out the big guns: the Aveeno moisturizing oil bath. It has oatmeal! Which clearly is good for your skin! Because, it’s oatmeal! If you don’t get it you’re stupid!

Anyway, oil bath is a very delicate operation. Too little, and you have wasted precious skin moisture in the hot water without any return. Too much and you end up like I am right now: greased like an Easter ham. Have you ever noticed how impossible it is to get oil off yourself once you have applied too much? If not, I suggest spicing up your sex life and finding out. But first put down some towels because you’re going to leave big greasy smears everywhere, which is what I am doing. I’m like a big pink slug, leaving a shining train of goo behind me. I glisten.

And tomorrow I’ll have to change the bed sheets because they’ll be all saturated with oatmealy oil, but it will be worth it because nothing tastes as good as moist feels.

What?

Today has been largely taken up with reading for some upcoming papers.  In a stroke of genius, I decided to cover the same topic in two different ways, so I have effectively halved my reading needs without resorting to plagiarism.  I still have to write two papers but just think - I can use the same references pages for both, which is a major bonus as anyone who has had to compile long bibliographies according to the Byzantine rules of style can attest.

I also headed out to the grocery store, where I got the makings of a good vegetable soup, which is now cooking in the slow cooker.  Very standard stuff - peppers, celery, carrots, zucchini, onion, garlic, tomatoes, good stock, and spices.  I’ll add wild rice closer to dinner time and, paired with a few slices of cheese, I’ll have a fabulous dinner.

Now I’m thinking of beginning my Christmas cards.  I know, I know - I don’t believe in that christian stuff.  But I do like the holiday season and get serious joy out of sending cards.  So if you want a christmas card from me, email me your address and, yanno, useful data like name, favourite colour, and favourite vegetable, and you may receive official Blogosaurus christmas greetings!  I swear to keep personal data dead secret.  And, unless I suddenly discover I have more than about twenty friendly strangers (or regular friends whose address I don’t have) wanting to hear from me, you can count on a personalized response.   The usual - blogosaurusvex at gmail dot com.

What else… my hands smell of garlic, but it’s better than pee, so I can’t complain. (Also, let me say here that even though I don’t really like traveling at the best of times, I am now absolutely certain I will never go to France - thanks for the tip, I.)  I have diet root beer in the house.  There’s crime TV on.  It’s three in the afternoon and I’m already in my pyjamas.  Life is good!