Merry Christmas!

I’ve been snowed in for over a week and I may be getting a little weird. I look out at the almost 2 feet of snow with ice on top and can’t even remember what it was like when we had sun and I was warm. I’m using my Amish heater I bought last year which is really good. I’ll bet those Amish people have been busy this year churning out some more. I wonder if they take them to a distributor in their buggies. They must have to make a lot of trips. I don’t even care if I ever get the mail again. Am I beginning to enjoy all this isolation? My neighbor lady across the street was almost out of toilet paper yesterday, so she made it over here where I helped her out. That’s one thing I usually have plenty of. My daughters make fun of me, but I may need it all if I never dig out of here.

Sunday was not a good day for me. I never got a Sunday paper which really pissed me off. I thought the paper always went through . . . or maybe that’s the mail. I didn’t get any mail yesterday either. So Sunday I was feeling lonely and sorry for myself and found a movie on television that I had seen before but liked. So I watched it. It was “One Fine Day” with George Clooney and Michelle Pfeiffer. What I liked about it was the music. I loved all the songs in it, especially “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You” by Van Morrison, and “For the First Time” by Kenny Loggins. I cried a little as I listened, mostly with “For the First Time.” So when it was over I came to my computer and googled the movie and the music. I clicked on “For the First Time” and it played the whole song. I sat here and cried all the way through. I felt much better after that, so went out and watched old episodes of “Law&Order.”

My family had planned to all get together today at a hotel here in town, but Teri’s flight from NY was canceled. Now she’s coming on Friday, so we’ll stay with her family for a few days at the hotel. I’m excited! Cindy and her family will be coming down from Tacoma. When I talked to Cindy before we knew Teri’s flight was canceled, she said the kennel up there was closed and she’d have to bring Charley, her huge Ridgeback dog, with her! I told her she couldn’t bring him into the hotel, but she said she’d manage! I can just see Cindy leading Charley into a very nice hotel and having the whole bunch of us kicked out! I told Teri what Cindy said, and Teri totally freaked out. She said she didn’t want to hear about it and couldn’t even talk about it. So when the date was changed, I talked to Cindy and she said her neighbor was going to take care of Charley since she wasn’t allowed to bring him. So I talked to Teri and she still didn’t want to talk about it. I was yelling, “But she’s your sister!” But the matter was closed. Sisters are funny sometimes.

I just opened my e-mail and there was one from Pedi Paws – the Incredible Pet Nail Trimmer. I don’t know them . . . how could they know me? I don’t have pets and where did they get my e-mail address? Am I going crazy in here?

Craig Ferguson

It’s been snowing all day long and weather reports say it will turn into freezing rain by early morning. How lucky can we get? We haven’t had snow like this for years here. I don’t plan to get out in it. What for? I decided to watch Craig Ferguson’s Friday night show which I had DVRd last night. I knew that would cheer me up.

I just love him! His humor is the greatest, and his monologue before the guests appear is the best part of the show. All this week the show has started with the cheeky monkey which Craig holds – hand puppet. He holds it up at the bottom of the screen. You can’t see Craig but he talks like a cheeky monkey. Last night the monkey said Craig smelled bad. Craig wanted to know what he smelled like and the monkey said it was like bad cereal – oatmeal. Craig said Friday night is the night stoners watch and are probably smoking whatever it is they smoke. So Friday nights are special.

He is so loose and crazy. There’s nothing formal about him – he’s waving his hands around, making jokes, rolling his eyes, making faces and moving all the time. He is so unconventional and seemingly uninhibited that I find him a joy to watch. He always makes me laugh and feel good. He can be very raunchy with many double entendres and all the time laughing at himself and bouncing around. He is like no other talk show host as far as I’m concerned.

He answers e-mails every night which is always crazy, and last night Tilman, a little bulldog, brought them in and put them on his desk! Craig burst out laughing and said, “Oh my God, you know the only saving grace about this show sucking so much – at least it’s consistent!”

He announced that he had made a CBS Christmas spectacular, but CBS wouldn’t let him put it on. So he showed it on his show instead. It was “Craig Ferguson’s Holiday Christmas Spectacular.” Craig is Scottish, so it had a definite Scottish theme. The announcer said Christmas day in Scotland is, “You get drunk and punch your relatives in the face” day. Craig was in the skit and it was hilarious. His skits always are. You can’t compare them to other spectaculars that seem to be on all the time – Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Donny & Marie, Christmas with Kenny Rogers, etc. Craig’s are the best in my estimation.

So now I’ll go back to watching the snow falling. I may never leave my condo.

Merry Christmas!

Here’s Teri and Cindy a few years ago, standing by our fireplace and holding onto their Christmas stockings, knowing they would be full on Christmas morning. That was such an exciting time for all of us. We always opened our presents on Christmas Eve. Before we all went to bed, we put out cookies for Santa when he stopped by in the night. On Christmas morning, there would be presents under the tree from Santa and the stockings would be full. Christmas morning the girls always rushed from bed into the living room to see what had happened. It was exciting, fun and wild. But one Christmas, things took a bad turn. When Cindy took her stocking down from the fireplace, she found it was full of switches! She was devastated and I was bewildered. What the hell happened to our wonderful little Christmas moment?

Well, this is what happened. Teri had read that Santa gave bad kids switches in their stockings instead of presents. So my sweet little Teri thought it would be a fun joke on Cindy. Teri thinks Cindy was about 8 years old at the time. So Teri went to the woods and broke off several small branches. She came home and set her alarm clock on Christmas Eve for 3:00am. Teri had an alarm clock? When it rang, she was up and out to the stockings where she emptied all the presents out of Cindy’s and filled it with switches. Teri says she didn’t expect Cindy to become hysterical the next morning, but Cindy did! Teri finally confessed after Darrell and I freaked out too. We wondered how someone could get into our house and were even suspecting one of Darrell’s football players! And how could we have slept through the whole thing?

I can’t remember what happened after that, but I know the presents were put back in the stocking and we started all over again. Teri and Cindy made up – I don’t remember how long it took, but probably not too long. That never happened again. The whole family will be together this Christmas, and I’m making it my job to keep a close eye on Teri. No one knows what she may have planned for Cindy this time.

Holidays

The Christmas holiday season is very stressful for some people whereas it should be a time of happiness and joy. We start out with such high expectations which are virtually impossible to meet. As I’ve grown older and my kids have kids of their own and are living in different cities, I don’t have the enthusiasm I used to have. We think of loved ones and friends who are no longer with us and how we miss them. We let everything get us down and finally just wait until the holidays are over so we can get back to our regular routines. I seem to be describing myself . . . but what the hell is my regular routine? Is it flossing three times a day and watching Craig Ferguson at night? That sounds about right.

The other morning I was brushing my teeth and I almost started to cry! What was that about? I had the television on and possibly there was Christmas music playing. I can’t listen to any Christmas music as it makes me cry. I was kind of down anyway as my car had been at the car hospital for a couple of days, and the news wasn’t good. I sort of slopped around the house and then talked to a friend who said she was feeling melancholy as she always does at this time of year. She was also sick and sounded terrible, so that would make anyone melancholy. She feels the same as I do about this time of year which made me feel better.

Teri is bringing our family to a hotel here in the city for a couple of nights over Christmas! We will all be staying there together which will be wonderful. I was so surprised when she told me. The family hasn’t been together since two years ago at Christmas. This will be a treat, thanks to Teri.

So as my day wound down, I looked for something on television that might make me laugh, but “Seinfeld” wasn’t on then. But I remembered I had DVRd Craig Ferguson Monday night so I turned him on, knowing he would make me laugh. But much to my surprise, it was his first day back from Scotland where he had attended his mother’s memorial service, so I didn’t expect too much funny from Craig. He did a monologue and almost broke up at one time. Then he talked a lot about his mother and showed clips of when she visited his show a couple of years ago. The entire show was so good and very touching. He even made me laugh when he was talking about his little boy and said it was the first time he had ever looked someone in the eye when that someone – his little boy - took a crap! So I felt better after Craig. The next night he had on an actress who told a long joke about poop that was supposed to be true. It seemed familiar to me, but it was still absolutely hilarious! Craig loved it as he loves to talk about poop. I’m the same way. Not everyone is like that, so you treasure the ones that are.

The picture at the top is of me at one of my birthday parties. I have always liked that picture as I look so happy, and it makes me happy just to look at it. My birthday is in June, so that’s why I looked so happy. I guess I needed that right now.

Dress-up with Dad

When Teri and Cindy were kids, they loved playing dress-up. Cindy spent a lot of time in dress-up clothes and even brought the neighbor kids into the program. There are many pictures of the doctor (Randy) in some crazy outfits with Cindy along side of him, some of which I have already shown. I had a big box of some of my old clothes which I wore back in my younger days, and they were put to good use by my girls. There was one dress that seems to be in many pictures, and I think Cindy is wearing it in this picture. I wore it to a dance when I was a freshman in high school, and I never really liked it. I guess no one else did either, as I never had another date for years. Teri looks quite good in her little green dress. I think it was a dress she had worn several years before that. It looks kind of tiny. They both looked so happy, and I loved their hats or whatever was on their heads.

So much time was spent dressing up, and sometimes the girls wanted more people to join them. Who better than their dad, Darrell? Darrell was so good with the girls; I even have a picture of him in pink sponge rollers the girls had him wear. In the picture here he is wearing what I think was a long skirt I had in college that I wore to a formal dance. I may not have had a date for a long time after wearing that skirt either. But everyone in our neighborhood wore it at some time playing dress-up. I don’t know what else he was wearing, but it was something white. I don’t remember playing dress-up with them as those were my old clothes and I was through with them. Besides, I was probably busy in the kitchen, baking my secret Spam recipe for our Christmas Eve dinner. I wish Darrell could see his girls now when they really dress up – he’d be so proud and right there with them.

Black Friday . . . and the silverware salesman

Last Friday, which was the black one, I ventured out of the house which was quite unusual for me as I don’t like to shop at all. When I told my friends what I had done, it was shock and awe! Why would I go out on that day, of all days? Well, I wanted a new computer monitor and figured that would be the day to do it. So out I went and into a big electronics store that is on its way to bankruptcy . . . but aren’t they all? I went directly to the monitors and looked at them, not knowing what I was looking at really. A sales clerk came up to me and started helping me. He looked like he was about 12 years old, and he had been working there for only three weeks. He probably didn’t know much more than I about computers. But I didn’t want to spend much time looking at too many things there, so I pointed to one and said, “I’ll take that one.” That was fine with him and he even carried it out of the store for me. Yesterday my computer guy who is really smart and puts up with my foolishness and downright stupidity came out and set it up for me. It is big and I can see it better than my old one. So I think I made the right choice. I don’t know if it was on sale or not – I didn’t bother to ask. But I’m happy.

Today I made lunch for my brother and sister-in-law. I very seldom have company that eats, but when I do I like to use cloth napkins. I have 6 which were my mom’s – probably from her wedding gifts. They’re the only ones I have, and I thought about them as I was trying to go to sleep last night. I hadn’t ironed them since I had last washed them. So I leaped out of bed, put up the ironing board and ironed three of them. I managed to get to sleep and woke up and was ready to go. But then I was trying to set the table for the three of us and thought about the silverware. Sometimes I use my mom’s silver that has to be polished, but I think those days are long gone. So I took out what I use every day and studied it. I don’t have enough matching pieces for three people! Isn’t that embarrassing? I had one place-setting of matching silverware and that was thanks to my silverware salesman I knew in Wash DC when I worked there after college. He liked me, but I had received a ring in the mail from my future husband. He was no dummy, tying me down like that when I’m clear across the country. I made it very clear to the silverware guy that I was a nice girl and had to be true to my intended. How things changed as the years went by and I grew up! So Teri and Cindy know the story about the silverware salesman, and we always wonder what my kids would be like if I’d married him instead of my husband. Would they be like my girls? Or would they be grubby little boys? Who knows? But we always remember the silverware salesman. I wonder if I can locate him on Google.