brrrrrr
The nice lady who donated her accounting services to my bookstore had made this abstract tree in shop class or art class, in college, and she gave me it. And i had some kind of display cage thingy that a storekeep had thrown out by the dumpster in the little mall where i worked after college. So viola, i made a strange little entry way display for xmas. And the boys loved to go out there and mill around. Kazzy is walking behind it -- just so y'know, i'd never put my baby in a cage. Laurie put a present for them there. You can see they had their tails all fluffed up gor the festive occasion. It was at our Douglas Street apartment in ye olde hometowne.
Since I now have no shortage of hand-selected holiday retro festivities for your clip viewing pleasure, I went back and added posts for the first couple days of December. Isn't that cute isn't that truuuuuuuue?
Birthday shout outs for Pearl Harbor Day - it's somewhere around now is the bday of Grandma Pipetti who woulda been 117 now. And my friend Deb D. who worked at the lab and tells everyone she's straight all the time, i think this day or this week is her birthday. "Yes, i even noticed it was cold out today and I'm straight!" That's a typical deb quote. Great gal though, and i miss her since she moved to florida.
Okay, so my holiday shopping is done, fortunately i did it by mail order and the items for my dad and sister have arrived now. Much as i love to give gifts during this season, this year, with only the one job at the relay plant, i have to limit my giving to the immediate family. But it's worth it to be a little careful with the fundage because i'm happy, having time to relax and enjoy the holidays, avoid the malls, etc. is done. Yaay.
For those of you who want to have a stress-free shopping experience this year, why not visit my friends
Hank and Deb
at 20th Century Books! If you are busy and don't have a chance to get over there in person, or if you don't live in Madison, you can do mail order. They have a great selection of items for all ages, to please anyone you might be shopping for.
In addition to Kevvy and Laurie spending generous amounts of time with me last weekend... Great talks with several folks last night, including Tammy Whammy in the twin cities, my cousin, Kim Czasz, and my hometown pal Julipuli. All were awesome and fun and i feel much bettier having talked to them. Earlier i looked outside and thought someone had stolen my extension cord off of the patio xmas lights. Turns out when i unplugged them last night, i just didn't hang it up on the rafter hook like i usually do, and the wind blew the cord around the side of the wall so i couldn't see it from in here. We've had so much theft at the relay plant lately that i was jumping to creepy conclusions!
Great talk with the colleague tonight. Atlanta Bread Company has hired some much nicer people than they had there when i first moved to this neighborhood. And the music was mostly chamber music, and the screaming children left soon after we arrived, so it was very nice. I feel very lucky to have had the chance to have a good long talk with my wonderful colleague, and update each other on our lives, jobs, concerns, etc. She is so insightful and fun and we always have a lot of laughs but we get to talk about serious stuff too, and sometimes you just need to talk about everything. It was freezing cold out but i felt like having a good talk sort of thawed me out emotionally.
Also it's important to convene and review current sunshine rewind institutional goings-on, because research in isolation can be daunting. For example, in finding a bunch of you tube clips for december i watched a few minutes of that brady xmas movie clip, and the colleague recently had re-viewed the variety hour dvd, which as those of you who have viewed it are well aware is challenging, but worth it! And then of course they have the footage of Mike Lookinland and Susan Olsen talking in the special features part, and it was fun to hear them reminisce, as it is in the home movies dvd.
The colleague only has to work with jerks one more day, then off to a much nicer gig elsewhere. And i only have to wait less than a week probably to get more health tests done myself, and be happy about what will probably not be bad news, but rather a big relief. So a few short days from now, life is probably gonna be a lot easier for all of us. And Little Laurie is going to a physiotherapist soon that will i think help her a lot, and she is already doing bettier just in the last few weeks. So things are good, winter will be over in a few months (which always seems like about two years to me), and i think there is much reason to be optimistic, in general. But dang i'm so grateful not to have to be isolated right now. As we discussed, some of my faraway friends want everything i say to be a punchline, and i just shouldn't have to live like that. Talking to folks on the phone last night, last weekend, and the great visit with the colleague today, make all the difference in the world.
Those of you who went to Pipettiland High School will note that Heat Miser closely resembles an English teacher named Bernice.
Click to viewFeel warmer now?
