Burn, Baby Burn

Trinks helped make breakfast today and has the scars to prove it. She took the waffles out of the toaster oven, with a potholder, but managed to burn her wrist. Isn't it ugly? She's a good sport, though.

2009 Project

Just because I have so much free time, I decided to take on a new project. The four of us will explore the great state of DE over the next twelve months. I even set up a new blog to track our progress. Click on Trinks and S explore DE to the right and catch up on DE news.

Our proposed trips include: Pea Patch Island, Bombay Hook, any state park we haven't been to yet, Jake's Burgers, various museums, and numerous places in slower, lower DE.

I witnessed this

And have no idea how the driver in the Mitsubishi is still alive. There was nothing left of the car. I looked up as the car was in midair, disintegrating, and watched in horror as it smashed into the pavement. I had to pull over because I couldn't breathe. Hubby missed it because he couldn't understand my frantic pointing because I couldn't speak.

Thanks Nothing Knew - didn't catch that!

Holiday pictures

Merry Christmas!

So Christmas Eve started with a bang - literally. Hubby was allowed to leave work with me at 4:50. We hit Wawa for gas prior to picking up the kids. It was crowded and hard to find a pump. I was doing my usual back seat driving and hubby was getting annoyed. He flung the car in reverse to go back to an almost open pump. He didn't see anyone behind him and didn't hear the frantic honking as hit hit the gas HARD. CRASH! In MY CAR!!!! Thankfully there was no damage, but I drove up to my parents after we got the kids.

Christmas Eve dinner was great - a nice late turkey dinner with my parents and grandparents. I have no idea who the little boy sitting next to me was. Instead of "I hate turkey", S kept saying how much he loved everything. Then he downed two apricots, a couple pieces of pear and a cookie. I guess he was hungry. We exchanged presents with my grandparents and then Trinks read us The Night Before Christmas. Santa was given cookies and milk, carrots were left for the reindeer, stockings were hung and the kids went to bed at 10:30. Then the fun began. We quickly put the presents out and it occurred to me to hide Trinks' big Santa present behind S's Thomas set from Santa. I put the small Samantha doll in front, so it looked like that was all she got from Santa. Then I went to bed.

When the kids got up this morning, they contained themselves and waited until we were downstairs before tearing down after us. As per tradition, they started with the stocking presents. Then they moved on to the Santa gifts. Trinks was happy with just the miniature Samantha doll and didn't complain. As she moved on to the wrapped presents, I pointed out her other Santa gift. She shrieked! She didn't ask for a Nintendo DS, but loved it on sight! She was excited about the two games - Tinkerbell and Cooking Mama 2. S was happy since there were enough things with wheels, or were Spiderman. Both kids were pleased. Trinks split her time between the DS and running her dolls outside in the triple stroller that will be kept at Mom Mom's house.

The rest of the day was spent hanging out, visitng my great aunt, and having dinner at my sister's house. They got a Wii from Santa. Then hubby and I got on the road because we have to work tomorrow. Ugh! At least the kids are at my mom's house. Hubby and I have a date night tomorrow. I think we're trying out the new burrito place down the street. He's been there, but I haven't. Can't wait!

And before I sign off - guess what my best Christmas present was? S is switching classes on Jan 5. I am so happy. He should do well in this classroom. I'm also looking into Kung Fu for him. He needs a confidence boost!

You'll be with me, like a handprint on my heart

Am I wimping out, or did I find something appropriate? You be the judge. A couple of weeks ago I started a draft of a post for Karen on the one year anniversary of her death. I kept getting hung up on the unfairness of her dying so young. I am finally beyond the anger and the crippling grief. It seems pointless to harp on what I can't change. For my sake, I need to move in a positive direction. I remain sad, but I can see the blessing in having her as a friend for seventeen years. Even if it were fifty years, I would be greedy and want one day more. So without further ado, this says what I am looking to say.

I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you

Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good

It well may be
That we will never meet again
In this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you
You'll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine
By being my friend...

Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a skybird
In a distant wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
Because I knew you

I have been changed for good

And just to clear the air
I ask forgiveness
For the thing I've done you blame me for

But then, I guess we know
There's blame to share

And none of it seems to matter anymore

Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood

Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a bird in the wood

Who can say if I've been
Changed for the better?
I do believe I have been
Changed for the better

And because I knew you...

Because I knew you...

Because I knew you...
I have been changed for good.

Wii Fit

So far, I have determined Wii is a rude system. When you are trying to figure out how the hell the system works, the last thing you want is to hear nasty comments. Once I figured things out, all of a sudden, the Wii voice was nice. I would think a little patience with novices would be better.

But, in spite of that, I did a bunch of balancing exercises, some strength training, and a couple of body tests. My personal information is guarded by a password I hope I remember. I set goals for the next 3 months and got my calendar stamped. I hit several soccer balls with my head and ran through numerous gates on the slalom.

"Lighting" the menorah

We "lit" the window menorah.

Wii Wish you a Merry Hanukkah

I won the first round of bowling, and then gave up my Mii for hubby. He needed something to distract him from the Eagles' loss. The only complaint I have is sharing the controller with the kids. But bowling is fun. Trinks hit the people behind us about 15 times, and S took a game to understand when to release. By game two, they really had it down.

Tomorrow I am taking my last vacation day to celebrate Karen. I didn't think I could handle functioning politely at work on the year anniversary, so I decided to stay home. Karen and I used to go out to breakfast right before Christmas. Sometimes we would do last minute shopping together, popping into each other's car to watch the kids while the other ran into a store. It's the simple things like this that really defined our friendship. Tomorrow I will be thinking about her, posting something if I can get it to sound right and tackling the Wii Fit.

And the tree came down

It was all in slow motion. The tree slowly pitched forward and ended up as a crumpled mess on the floor. Surprisingly, only one glass ornament was broken, and it's easily fixed. Getting it back up was a little close to impossible. Hubby had to come in and help me. Then my mom pulled up as we were struggling to get it stable so I had the kids run out and tell her to leave everything in the car and come rescue us. It's still a little lopsided, but it seems stable. I think I need to find a new stand.

Evil Child?

Can a child be evil? I am convinced a child can be pure evil. And no, it's not my child. S has a classmate that has driven me crazy since they were both one. At conferences I would have to hear about how this evil child distracts S and how much better he does when this child is not at school. If S gets hit, or bitten, or kicked, it's because of this evil child. Having gone through this age with Trinks, I know this is normal to have children acting out. But this child is always tormenting my child. No other classmate has ever done anything to my son.

Things started to unravel for me after the latest conferences. Evil child started back full time, instead of the nice half days we were enjoying. A couple of weeks ago I walked into the aftermath of this child pulling my son's pants down and spanking him. Last night I walked into S crying and screaming "No thank you, evil child" Ok - he used the kid's name, but I am calling him evil child. This child had picked up S's train and thrown it on the floor to smash it. It was in several pieces on the floor and S was heart broken. I patiently told S that this child is NOT his friend because friends don't do this to each other.

On the way out, I ran into the school's director. She was getting ready to leave, so I felt badly in delaying her, but I asked if S could be removed from the class. I want him in the class across the hall with the older pre-K kids. I explained I can't leave him in his classroom because of this child. The teachers are awesome and I really hate to leave them, but I have to protect my son. There is no room in the other classroom, but when a spot opens, S will have it. I may lose patience in January and put him in another school. I hope I don't have to, but I am willing to do almost anything to get S out of the way of this child. And I know that there will always be a problem child. I just think I have been very patient putting up with this child for three years. I'm done.

I really love my new camera!

Longwood - last weekend.

Mammogram Results

I finally checked my voicemail at work. Yup - I have an obnoxious message advising I am not taking calls. But I had a message about my mammogram results from yesterday. Apparently I have benign calcification, but I'm ok. Well, I don't think so. I need more info than that. I called back the technician and left the following message:

I received my results, but I am confused. I don't understand what benign calcifications mean. Are they lucent? Popcorn? egg shell? group? cluster? linear? And how do I know that it's not Ductal Carcinoma in situ? In short, how do you know this is benign?

I didn't mean to be rude, but am I really supposed to be reassured by someone who can't tell me why I'm fine? So the tech called me back and advised it's milk in calcium and the calcifications are in my skin. I feel better. And she made the dr read the films again - I guess they don't write down the type of calcification if it's in the benign range. And I will schedule next year's as soon as they send the reminder.

So my advice to anyone undergoing medical tests - question everything until you are comfortable.

Happy Birthday to me!

I celebrated by getting McD's breakfast, killing a squirrel, turning my work phone off, getting 2 skin biopsies and having one piece of two different cakes that were made in my honor. All in all - not so bad. I even requested that tonight be junkfood night - hot dogs and tator tots. Can someone get me a salad? Now??? Please??

Merry Christmas Kathi

Today I went for my first mammogram. It wasn't as horrible as people say it is and I was giggling through a lot of it. It's not the squishing that is uncomfortable, it's the awkward positions you stand in while holding one boob this way, squishing the other and putting your arm over the top of the machine. I felt like I was playing adult twister. My only complaint is I WAITED, and WAITED, and WAITED to be seen. I think sitting around for 45 minutes before anyone brings you back is inexcusable. If a dr did that to me, I would never return. My time is too valuable to waste, even on medical tests. I'll give these people a second chance before I find another place.

Mrs. Grinch

I have been very Grinch like so far this month. This afternoon I really felt like Mr. Grinch, except it was when his heart grew three times its size. Having Forrest home after eleven days missing is a treat! And then we decorated outside and put up our three Christmas trees. Yes, a Christmas hater has three trees inside. I had a cute tree in college, which became Trinks when she was old enough. This year I sprang for a nice sized one for Scott's room. And we have my sister's old tree in the office.

Back in the day, we used to go out in the back of my grandparents farm on THE COLDEST day of the winter and wander around until we found the perfect tree. Then we would chop it down and drag it back to the car. Then, it would have to be evened out, and watered regularly. My sister and I had our own tree, possibly so we could keep all the hideous "store bought" ornaments away from the handmade ornaments. My mother has a beautiful felt and sequin Nativity Character ornament set that a secret Santa made for her one year back in the 70s. One year we took styrofoam ornaments and stabbed them with pins and sequins to make bizarre (mine) and beautiful (my mother's and sister's) ornaments. So the concept of separate trees was nothing new to me. What changed as I got older was a dislike of real trees. They give me hives and need water. I've already admitted I can't even take a vitamin every day, so watering a tree ain't gonna happen!

As I type, I see what a great job the kids did on the tree. And I see how short they are. A good two feet at the top is naked. S was so excited when we lit the tree. He squealed and clapped his hands. Trinks was able to help me in the attic - ok I made up things to do up there because she really wanted to help me bring the boxes down. She was also able to help put the tree together and string lights. This year I set up the remote for the lights. Nope - I have no use for the remote, but my mom got it for me last year and it is really fun to use it. The kids made the tree go on and off so many times it looked like we had blinking lights.

So we had a good weekend. The only major problem we ran into was S hates both types of cookies I made. So he inhaled two out of three of my pears. The third was safely stowed in my lunch bag. Tomorrow I'll make him chocolate chocolate chip. YUM!

We decorated!!!

So we decorated outside today. The kids were beside themselves. We haven't put the inflatable snowman up since Trinks was about 2. S didn't even know we had it. We got the trees last year because they looked easy to put up. They are.

My great plan of putting everything on a timer so our lawn is lit when we get home failed. I put the snowman on the timer and we'll have to activate the trees manually.

A Miracle

Miracles happen. I looked out the window this AM and saw Forrest. By the time I got out, Trinks' piercing scream chased him away. Hubby and I scoured the yard, front and back, he took a drive around to neighborhood, and still nothing. By this time I was starting to doubt what I saw. I let Stormy out and she was acting weird around the shed. I got down, flat on my stomach, on the cold, wet piles of leaves and looked under the shed. Nothing. I went back inside and did a few things.

Then I returned to the back yard and saw Forrest's head peeking around the back of the shed. I didn't approach him, but squatted and called him. He made a beeline to me. I pet him and then followed him in the house. Kitty greeted him with hissing, and then smacked him across the face with her nails. She really had a good time without him. Of course this whole time I've been crying because I never believed we'd see him again. And hubby and the kids are out, so no one can make sure I'm not dreaming. Out came the camera. Doesn't he look GREAT????

My hubby

Nothing Knew has also pointed out several times that I have been less than kind in talking about my hubby, So today I will point out sone really great things hubby does - G rated of course.

Every weekend, hubby takes the kids out of my hair to go grocery shopping. This frees me up to run though the house, vacuum, clean up and just have peace of mind.

Hubby is an awesome cook. He not only can read recipes without skipping steps (that would be me), but he can improvise with the best of them.

Hubby takes care of the trash most of the time. I don't like taking the trash out. I can do it, but I don't like it. Hubby doesn't mind it and usually replaces the bag. I do let him know if he can't do it, I will. But I usually get a break.

Hubby remembers to medicate the kids when they are sick. Left up to me, the meds would be dispensed randomly. Heck, I can't even remember to take a vitamin, so remembering kids meds (and cats' meds) usually falls to him.

Hubby is a funny guy most of the time. Sometimes the humor is off color, but it's almost always funny.

Hubby can clean the kitchen back to a pristine state, no matter how big of a mess we let it get into and most of the time he doesn't yell about it.

Hubby can swap out loads of wash when I don't feel like it. He can actually do laundry all by himslef, but I am a freak about laundry and really prefer to do it myself. Everything has to be done in cold water, with Tide with Bleach. If it's washed in anything else, I rewash it.

And that's all I can think of this minute. He is truly an awesome guy for putting up with me.

My new camera

As Nothing Knew pointed out, I have not given even one hint as to what type of camera I have. We bought a Canon G10. The G9 was recommended by hubby's brother before he knew the G10 came out. Hubby and I have done extensive research and finally decided on this one. For once Amazon came out more expensive than Circuit City. Maybe it's because they are going out of business.

Check out hubby's awesome picture of a puddle, reflecting a tree above it. We had so much fun sharing the camera and trying for some really cool shots.

TGI... TGI Fridays? Since Friendly's isn't Friendly

We have lovely plans to meet Nothing Knew and family at Friendly's after we finished touring Longwood Gardens and they finished seeing the Nutcracker. Friendly's is a great place to go with kids because it really doesn't matter what they do. And you get ice cream. So we went in and were seated relatively quickly. Not bad for a party of 8. We gave our drink order to a waitress who seemed permanently confused. She came back with the drinks and took the food order, but wanted to stop after 6 orders. And then we waited. After a half hour of watching everyone seated around us get food, we asked for our waitress. The manager told Ivy she would personally see that our order was handled. Fifteen minutes later, we were still waiting. I got up and asked for drink refills and a new waitress. Ten minutes after that, we still had nothing so we walked out without paying for our drinks. Hopefully they had to eat the cost of our food, assuming the order was ever given to the kitchen.

We walked across the parking lot to Fridays. They told us we would be seated in 20 minutes. 10 minutes later, we were seated. We proceeded to have a lovely meal, with a very competent waitress. Then hubby decided to tell the waitress it was my birthday. I was sung to. The brownie was worth it. So we managed to salvage the evening. The kids were all great throughout this whole ordeal.

I am heading off to tuck the kids in and probably go to sleep soon. I just wanted to post before Nothing Knew - I'm sure he'll have more on it later. I'll post the gorgeous pictures the new camera took at Longwood sometime tomorrow.

It sucks!

Yes, my Dyson sucks again! It's amazing what cleaning the filter does. Hubby has been lectured to never use the vacuum in the garage again. Apparently he was too lazy to use either the push broom or the shopvac, so he vacuumed the dirt in the garage up with the Dyson. GRUMBLE!

But I fixed it and gave the office a long overdue vacuuming. I could knit a sweater with the amount of cat hair I picked up! Trinks and I are working on getting the faint cat puke stains out of the carpet. I think we found a winning solution - hot soapy water and Rubba Scrubbas. Rubba Scrubbas are awesome tools because they can do anything from brush a cat, clean a bathroom, or scrub veggies. Obviously, not the same rubba scrubba can do it all, but I have three for very distinct jobs. The steam vac never got the stains out, but I think we can have a stain free carpet by the time the tree goes up.

Please waste some time

Play this game and raise money for breast cancer research.

Even more pictures

Since I was up until 1:30 playing around with the camera and doing things to the computer, it is a slow morning. In fact, when hubby called at 8 to tell me his fishing trip was cancelled (after he woke up at 3:30 to drive all the way down to the place), I wasn't even awake. Trinks had a nightmare shortly after I made it to bed and I let her sleep with me. She was very kind and let me sleep until the phone rang. S got up shortly after that and I declared movie in the morning. They started Madagascar as I slowly made my way out of bed. YAWN! I was serving waffles when hubby got home. So here are the pictures I took over the last hour.

Pictures!

I have a camera that doesn't feel like I'll crush it when I take pictures! And here are the first pictures I took. S helped with some, and posed for others. Trinks was on the phone with friends (a new development!), so I only got her in a couple of pics. This is our Diva, Kitty. Not bad for a 12 year old?



But it was junk food and movie night, so I captured S with cheetos all over his face. And got a great picture of his bagel with turkey and cheese.

Come on megapixels!!

I ordered my new camera. We collected all the giftcards in the house, pooled them together with the January cash rebate we get on the credit card and bought a new camera. I cannot wait! I will pick it up tomorrow and will have it charged for the Longwood trip.

Now as a side note, and many minutes after placing the order, I can't use the VISA giftcards on any of the purchases I made. I am beginning to think no one takes them. I guess we'll try the grocery store next since I have tried 6 different places with no success.

Dominick the Donkey

After listening to Dominick the Donkey (the Italian Christmas Donkey)about 100 times this week, I finally get the song.

"When Santa visits his paisons, with Dominick he'll be, Because reindeer cannot, climb the hills of Italy"

Of course Santa has to use a donkey in Italy. The darn cars can't get up hills, so what makes you think reindeer would be able to?

The almost end of the Funk

I may be coming out of my December funk early this year. I have been entertaining myself by downloading free MP3s from Amazon. I picked Snoopy's Christmas (second only to Dominick the Donkey, but more on him later), the 12 Pains of Christmas, and Hallelujah (from Shrek, but not THAT version). Most of the holiday presents are wrapped. Very few things need to be purchased, and what does will have to come from Amazon because I hate going to stores these days.

I should get in the spirit more this weekend. We are baking some cookies, going to Longwood and meeting Nothing Knew and family for dinner. The kids and I will decorate the house and I may remember to find menorah candles. If this weather would break, I think I could actually be happy!

Somewhat urgent SOS to LRNs and Nothing Knew

Ok - just sort of, kinda did some bad things to my computer that I take full responsibility for. I can recover. However, I am completely out of disk space and need an external hard drive. It's not in budget until January, but if you can point me in the right direction, I can start researching my options. And, BTW, don't tell hubby. He never reads any of our blogs, so I feel safe.

Hot Tea with honey and lime

I am SICK! I am actually sick enough not to be at work. I never take sick days for myself! I have a nice pot of tea keeping warm in the kitchen, so I thought I would come and do stuff on the computer until I feel I need a nap. I have no plans to accomplish anything, but a load of laundry probably wouldn't kill me. Maybe I'll finish writing about NYC. I believe I have the first two sentences.

NYC

Four adults and five children stayed in a large (NY standards only) junior suite for 3 nights and all lived to tell about it. The hotel will not be named in case they have google alerts and my parents don't need to be thrown out.

Once again, I braved the empty roads of non rush hour traffic to drive into the city. We arrived wihtout drama, which was great since waking 5 kids up, hauling them to the 17th floor and attempting to put them to bed was drama enough. Thursday morning we headed out. We started with getting tickets to the Christmas Show for Friday, hit the tree, American Girl, and Toys R Us. The kids took a spin on the Ferris Wheel. It was nice to get the shopping out of the way on a weekday. At this time of year, you can't get into the stores on the weekend. My sister and the Divine Ms M went to dinner with a friend she reconnected with through Facebook. My dad went to dinner with someone he used to work with. My mom and I ordered out from our favrite Italian restaurant. Their pizza is about as close as you can get to real Italian pizza without going there.

On Friday, we started out early and saw the Christmas Show at Radio City. It was great as usual. The kids loved it. Then we went to see the trains at Citibank. These trains are phenomenal. I asked how long it took to build the set. Apparently it would take 20 people a year and a half! To set it up every year takes 30 hours. Phew! That's a lot of work. We ended up eating at Benihana for lunch. It was a great show with really good food. My nephew was determined not to like anything, but he warmed up to trying the shrimp and was even seen laughing and smiling. Then we hit the Disney store and the kids helped an Elf earn her bells. For their troubles, they earned a jingle bell and some chocolate. Then it was back to the room so my sister and I could get ready to meet our cousin. We hadn't seen her in a couple of years and it was nice to catch up. It was also fun to navigate the subway system of NY. We almost ended up in Queens, and then over the Brooklyn Bridge.

y

Saturday was the last day of our trip. We woke up, went to the Brooklyn Diner for breakfast. Then we hit the park for an hour. Finally it was time for Mary Poppins. It was a great show. It was based more on the book than the movie. Now I want to read the book! We walked the 14 blocks back to the hotel, ate a quick dinner and loaded the car. By the time I reached my sister's house, it was snowing. It snowed the rest of the way back to DE. We arrived home late, threw the kids in bed and I collapsed. And I wonder why I'm sick today.

Things that make me sad

In no particular order:

Trinks told me when I die she will bury me with a picture of her because she loves me and knows that I love her.

S applauded when we were informed that donations made after Mary Poppins would go to support families impacted by breast cancer. He beamed at me and told me it was great they were supporting breast cancer. No four year old should know that.

Very few people were donating to help the homeless in NYC. I did my part and gave the kids some coins and bills to put in the water jug and Salvation Army buckets.

My damn cat is still missing and I can't sleep well with so much room on the bed.

The kids don't seem to miss the cat.

It's almost been a year since Karen died and I still reach for the phone when I need to talk to her.

And now, let's end with something funny. In the MIDDLE of Mary Poppins, S whispers to me, "Mommy! Bite me. Bite me hard!!!" WTF? I still have no idea what he really meant, but I shove an M&M in his mouth and stifled a giggle.

Housekeeping

So I tried to vacuum the stairs before sitting down at the computer. Someone vacuumed clumps of dirt up and now the darn thing isn't working. I still love my Dyson and I can take it apart in seconds to clean stuff out, but this has me stumped. I have no idea what to do. At some point, I will review the FAQs online and find the answer. In the mean time, my steps are disgusting!

But I took time to do some blogging housekeeping instead. I changed from a blogroll to a blog list with snippets - looks pretty cool. I'm trying to add this blog but it keeps posting the wrong one. This blog has me laughing most of the time. It makes me wonder how different college would have been if we had today's technology! And some of you know this guy - can't wait to see what he does after graduation.

And I would like to welcome Ivy to the blogging world. While her entry to this world was through a diagnosis of MS, it is still nice to read her thoughts and see how she's coping with a onslaught of information. I am learning a lot about MRIs, and tests, and drug information packs.

Outsmarting the Rooster

Nothing Knew posted about NapSounds last week. NapSounds is a great guided 20 minute power nap. I tried it out at work and was teased by a few people who caught me. I didn't care because I was really relaxed. It is a little annoying to be awakened by the rooster, though.

This week, I was in NYC. There will be a longer post about what we did and how my mother should have been kicked out of the hotel, but the purpose of this post is NapSounds. I subscribed through iTunes and had a lovely selection of naps in both the nature and classical variety on the iPod. We arrived in NYC very late, with a vanload of 5 kids. Since they all had fallen asleep at some point in the trip, they were pretty cranky and didn't want to go back to sleep. By the time we wrestled the last one in bed/on the floor, I was full of adrenaline and had a 4 year old sharing the roll out cot with me. It's been a lifetime since I shared a twin bed, but this was even smaller than a regular twin! So, out came my iPod and on went the NapSounds. I set the sleep timer for 15 minutes, a viola! No rooster. I had to do this a couple of times to actually relax enough to catch 2 hours of sleep, but it was wonderful.

Merry Christmas to me

Hubby and I rarely exchange presents on the actual holiday. Again, holidays mean nothing but horrific drives to faraway places. There is no sense in bringing more shit than we need. So we shop for each other and give each other the gift when Amazon delivers it. Hubby couldn't contain his excitement, so I've known for a while what I am getting. I now have a docking station alarm clock for my iPod. We set it up and I am completely in love with it. Now I think I can get some nice meditations downloaded and fall asleep to that instead of the TV. Hubby usually waits until he thinks I'm asleep and changes it to sports.

Missing!

Missing - a pain in the ass, sweet, lovable, awesome cat. Answers to the name Dumbass, Forrest, ReRe, hey you, and the sound of any can being opened, in hopes that it is tuna. The damn cat has been missing since last Wednesday. It's possible that he snuck out in the AM when S left the door open when he ran out to go the the bus stop with Trinks and me. Of course it's always possible he's still in the house and we'll find his dead body when it starts to decompose. Lovely.

I was in NYC until late last night, so hubby has been in charge of finding the cat. He has been to the SPCA twice, scoured the neighborhood a couple of times, and checked every closet to make sure he isn't trapped somewhere. We're beginning to feel this will not have a happy ending.

As much as we have complained about Re, he is the best cat I have ever owned, cat puke and piss issues included. The darn cat has cost us thousands in home repair, but his winning personality has made it worthwhile. I have never known a cat who can take up half a king sized bed. I also don't know of a cat who can stand being poked in the face and not react. I am holding on to a very small hope we will find him soon. With cats, you never know.