If Anyone Receives Gifts With Bows That Are a Bit Squished...

...I may or may not know the reason.



A Very Tiny Bit of the Bug

If you were around last year, you may remember that I had a bit of a falling down with regard to knitted Christmas ornaments.  This year I decided to make only one ornament, which would be given to my in-laws.  Last Christmas, they gave me a kit with yarn and patterns for ornaments, so they deserved to get the first ornament I made from that kit.

It's so adorable that they only reason I've been able to abstain from knitting more is that I'm currently obsessed by these.

And Then I Remembered...

It's cold and snowy here.

Nobody should be shocked by that.  It's December in the Midwest.

However, there was a news crew on my street this morning broadcasting live about (gasp!) THE WEATHER BEING COLD!!  A tiny blond woman wearing a lot of makeup, a snowsuit, and a stocking cap was flitting around our street chatting about the weather.

I was just trying to walk the dog.

She accosted me with her microphone, brightly saying, "Here comes a woman all bundled up.  You're on Fox Live!  Is it true that the only reason you're out in this weather is because your dog needs go to out?"

Are you kidding me?


"True.  We're going to keep walking now."

"Ha ha!  She's like, 'I'm not going to stop and talk to you.  It's too cold!'"

Sigh.

No, tiny woman, I am not going to stand and talk to you because:

a)  Of course it's cold.  Nobody watching the news needs to hear you dithering on about it.  We know.  We live here.

b) I just rolled out of bed, threw on layers, and am walking the dog.  I do not have the energy to chat with you about the obvious.

c) I have no desire to appear on television.

d)  Even if I did, which I don't, I wouldn't choose to do it directly after rolling off my air mattress.*

e)  My dog has to go to the bathroom.

I thought about being really irritated by this encounter, but then I remembered,

Nobody I love watches Fox News anyway.

*Yeah, that's another story.  We have an old school waterbed.  It sprung a leak on Sunday.  We've ordered a new mattress and are now sleeping on an air mattress on the floor.  It's doing wonders for my temperment.

What I See

I started wrapping presents tonight, and it made me think about the fact that we give lots of Christmas ornaments as gifts. 

This is a new tree we bought from Ikea on a whim.  I have fallen madly, passionately in love with it.  The slightest touch will make the tree wobble and ornaments slide off their precarious perches and crash into one another.  Naturally, we put it outside the cat door because we're smart like that.

Despite its dubious location, it's a great illustration of why we seem to give ornaments that are only used for a few weeks a year.  When I look at this

I see New Orleans. 

When I look at this

 I see Guatemala.

And when I look at this

I see something I made myself when I was hanging out with friends, and I think about all those people who have similar ornaments they made that same night.

Happy decorating to everyone celebrating Christmas in this way! 

I hope everyone celebrating Hanukkah had a great final night.

Whatever you choose to do to celebrate light in the midst of darkness, I hope it's meaningful and gives you joy like this metal, tree-shaped coil gives me.

Happy December, everyone.



I May Not Know Much About Horticulture...

...but when playing Jeopardy tonight at our last Master Gardening class, my team won through a combination of horticultural knowledge (my partner) and an odd fascination with our teacher's ties (me).

Our teacher wore a different tie each class, and he always indicated how the tie tied* into the topic for the evening.  Apparently, I retained that important information and knew three of the five ties pictured for our Jeopardy answers.  I think I also knew a question about evergreens and maybe one about pruning, but it was mostly his ties.

The only reasons why I agreed to play on one of the three Jeopardy teams was that a) team 3 needed one more person and no one was stepping up, and b) I had my eye on one of the prizes.

I am now the proud owner of a Master Gardener bag AND a badge with my name and "Master Gardener Intern" on it.  I have fifty volunteer hours to do within the next year before I get my certification.

For now, I'm going to try to get those knitting projects done before Christmas!

*Sorry about the pun.  How about "related"?

Magic Mushrooms

I used to have headaches.

A lot.

After the gallbladder incident, I'd met my deductible, so I decided to see how deep the rabbit hole went and try to find a way to combat the headaches.*

I'd been to my general practitioner a couple times about it.  He and I both felt certain it was a sinus issue, but the stuff we'd been trying wasn't kicking the pain.  He sent me to an ENT.  After a CT scan and allergy testing, I found that I was allergic to a lot of things, super allergic to a couple things, and that my sinuses were fine.

Drat.

I went back to my g.p., and he sent me to a neurologist.

My neurologist made me do a bunch of sobriety tests to make sure I didn't have a balance issue, ordered blood work and a MRI, and prescribed a tiny pill that was on the $4/month drug list at giant soul-sucking retail stores.  I dutifully had my blood drawn, explored the cave, and filled the prescription.

I didn't really believe any of it would make a bit of a difference.

But within a week, the pill worked.  IT WORKED.

I've been on the magic pill for three weeks, and my headaches have dropped in frequency from nearly every day to perhaps once a week.  I have one today, and it reminds me how fortunate I am that I have one today and not today, yesterday, the day before that, and probably tomorrow.

Today.  I can handle it since it's just today.

I am thankful.

*See also, "Reasons Why Our Healthcare System Is Broken"

I Feel the Earth (beat) Move (beat) Under My Feet

Today my whole world shifted.  Everything I knew to be true, everything I depended on to make sense, moved two giant steps to the left.

My colleagues and I huddle together around a computer monitor, striving to create stability in the mist of chaos.  We attempt to wrap our minds around the fact that nothing will ever be the same.  We steel ourselves to do the necessary work to take apart our old ways and calculate them within this new paradigm.  We search for tools to help us.

Dear Readers, Weight Watchers has changed their POINTS system, and a banana is now 0 points.