December 2007 Archives

For those of you who were wondering what, exactly, the Infamous Christmas Card of Aught Seven looks like - here it is, complete with black boxes to save me from permanent mortification. Unfortunately, blanking out the eyes means you can't see my somewhat dazed and confused expression, nor the fact that The Boy is smiling so hard his eyes are invisible, but you're an imaginative bunch, so I'm sure you can fill in the blanks.

Have a good 'un! 

 

So last night as I made my way homeward from the Church Thing - which actually was quite lovely; handbells and a live nativity, luminaries, food, hot chocolate, carriage rides, the dramatic doohickey I was involved in and an open house at the Parsonage - I got a phone call.

Hublet:  The Boy says he feels like he needs to throw up.

Me:  Has he?

Hublet:  No, but he says he feels sick.

Me:  Does he have a temperature?

Hublet:  I dunno.

Me:  I'll be home at 8:30.

 

So, home at 8:30.  Guess what?  Fever!  Guess what part 2?  The Boy had his customary warm milk before bed!  Do you know what that means?  Fever + Warm Milk in Tummy = VOMIT!  Yay!  And a mostly sleepless night!  And me going to work this afternoon (after switching with Hublet) so I could participate in the interviewing process for some job applicants in the office!  And more fever when I got home, with a nice side dish of respiratory goo, such that the Albuterol and inhaler and vaporizer and Vick's Vapo-Rub have been busted out along with the Motrin and the Dimetapp!  And Hublet's main concern?  That The Boy might miss the Davidson/NC State game tomorrow night.  My main concern?  That our neverending cycle of phlegm/drainage/sinus trauma/respiratory virii/random virus crap will end up wiping out my entire family over Christmas.

 

Also, may I just state for the record that every single person here at Villa BAW is truly sick of being sick.  It's been a MONTH, people.  One solid month of Sudafed, and Puffs, and other random over-the-counter drugs, and vomit and exhaustion, and I. Am. Done.

 

Oh, PS - I still haven't wrapped a single daggone present.  At this point I'm thinking I'll just pile all the crap under the tree, cover it with a blanket, and pull the blanket off on Christmas morning while yelling, "Have at it, people!"

Or, why you won't be hearing much from me until, oh, sometime in 2008.  Let me summarize my weekend and the upcoming week for you:

• On Saturday we traveled to Camden for the annual "See Every Cousin I Have and Eat Way Too Much" festival, complete with tiny biological weapons referred to affectionately as "the third cousins of DOOOOOOMMMM!"
• Leave Camden with draining sinuses.  Thanks, tiny bioweapons! Return home, go to grocery store, do laundry, prepare Boy for school.
• Monday.  Already?  Need $3 gift for book exchange, endure Official Holiday Luncheon Festival where the Vice Chancellor exhorted us to "engage in socialization and fellowship"-- those were his exact words.  I think the new VC is a bit of a weirdo. Prepare List O' Crap For Hublet to Accomplish, leave work early, fetch Boy, make dinner, make sausage balls, wrap $3 gift, contact Room Mom to be sure that Hublet can attend First Grade Christmas party on Wed., ignore eleventy-million phone messages from woman attempting to sell me Galvanic Facial Mechanism that Electrocutes The Wrinkles RIGHT OFF!
• Drainage has progressed to full-on cold.  Sudafed, Allerplex, Flonase, Alka-Seltzer - what the hell, I'll take all of them, because...
• Tuesday.  Have to work.  Have to go on Super Top Secret Mission For Dad at lunch, plus stop by Barnes and Noble b/c Boy had a fit over stuffed Knuffle Bunny that I gifted to Feral Girl's darling child, so okay, stocking! Plus, it's just occurred to me that I forgot two people on my list and I need a couple of "just in case" gifts. Also, tonight is dress rehearsal for churchy thing that I have to help narrate - did I mention the drainage?  It's going to sound like Kim Carnes on helium, if this continues.  So Hublet and Boy will have to meet me at church tonight, Boy will get to bed late, and I STILL haven't wrapped presents or cleared out the Staging Area (guest room) in preparation for family.  Must finish addressing cards.  And must wrap gifts for teachers.
• Wednesday.  Dear God.  Church thing will eat my life.  Hublet will bring Boy to church after First Grade Christmas thingy. Must mail cards.  You know, the scary photo cards that will probably only succeed in alienating everyone who gets one?  Yeah.  Those.  I'll let you know if any friends schedule an intervention in their wake...also - CLUTTER!  DAMMIT! 
• Thursday.  Do lunch with Feral Girl.  Contemplate making it a liquid lunch. Must make more sausage balls.  Also - laundry, gift wrapping, make big ol' list of groceries for Hublet to fetch, and put all the Goodwill donations that we HAVE TO GET OUT OF THE HOUSE SO WE'LL HAVE ROOM FOR FAMILY AT CHRISTMAS into some semblance of order.  Also, must relocate certain presents, since Boy will be sleeping in our room on the blow-up bed which he may now be too big for, but oh well, I didn't get a chance to get to Target to buy a bigger one and at this point as long as the kid doesn't have to spend the night on the front porch I'm going to call it good. I'm fairly certain that I STILL will not have wrapped a single gift.
• Friday.  Departmental lunch.  This should actually be fun. Boy and Hublet will go to a basketball game.  I will run around like a crazy person disinfecting the house, because probably at this point the drainage/cold will have evolved into a full-blown sinus infection and I will NOT be responsible for wiping out my entire family.  Also, a quick stop by the Doc-in-a-box for antibiotics might be in order.  I wonder if I can just skip it and tell them to shoot some penicillin directly into my butt?
• Saturday.  Ya know, I wanted to make some food for Christmas.  Wonder if I'll have time to do that between the cleaning, disinfecting, ordering Hublet hither and yon and WRAPPING THE STUPID PRESENTS!  I really hate wrapping gifts.  Mostly I buy bags and cram some tissue paper on top.  It's free stuff, people.  Deal with the appearance. Seriously.
• Sunday.  Family arrives.  I think we'll go out to eat.  I have stocked up on beer, wine, and the fixings for Irish coffee.  I, at least, will relax.
• Monday. I will relocate to the kitchen for about 80% of the day. There will be a crock pot full of chili involved, as well as a breakfast casserole for the next day.  And did I mention the beer?
• Tuesday.  Fun!  Then I'll make enough food to feed 900 people!  Then the family will leave and we'll all relax for about 8 hours, until...
• Wednesday.  Pack and drive to parents' home.  Spend night.
• Thursday.  Drive to Asheville.  Visit people.  Do more Christmas with in-laws.
• Friday.  Lather, rinse, repeat.
• Saturday.  Marathon drive home, with brief stopover in Winston for lunch/nap before heading back Raleighward.  Unpack.
• Sunday.  DEAL WITH CLUTTER!  At least I won't have to wrap any gifts.
• Monday.  Hunker down and pray for the year to end quickly.

 

So remember the conversation The Boy and I had about the proper lyrics to "Deck the Halls?"

Yeah, well his little Elementary Christmas Songfest hoo-ha was Tuesday night.

Guess what one of the songs was called?  "Shop Till I Drop."

Guess what part of the lyrics were?

"Deck the malls with all my money, falalalala, la la la la.  I'm so broke it isn't funny, falalalala, la la la la."

 

On another note, sorry the postings this week are light.  I am officially in Out Of Control Mode, work is getting very weird, and all I want to do when I get home is play Toon Town and do laundry.

Plus, tonight is a new episode of my TV boyfriend and his TV brother traveling the country and shooting evil in the face with rocksalt, so I DEFINITELY won't be thinking about pithy blog postings this evening.

You do not want to get between me and my Thursday night Supernatural viewing, is all I'm saying.  Tonight the brothers Winchester take on an evil Santa. Yes, I do realize what I just typed, and I am AWARE of my age, thanks.  I don't care - I am all excitement!

Is displayed in this conversation right here.

Favorite comment?

Ok....I was watching a boring pirate movie and suddenly Braveheart broke out....

This is why I am just better off not knowing.  I have the first one on DVD and if I ever feel the need to continue the saga, I'll make some crap up myself and just post it on fanfiction.net.  Because really.  The second movie both defeated my attempts at making sense of the plot AND sucked the fun marrow from my bones, so I had very little hope for the third.  Then I read a plot summary (with complete spoilers) and was like - WHAT?  NO!  WAIT?  CHINA?!  CALYPSO?! Give me the last 5 minutes of my life back!!!

Then I imagined multiplying that times thirty. 

 

 

 

Well, today is a day off for me - not because I've decided to take a vacation day to put the guest room, or as I like to call it in December, the Staging Area, to rights, but because The Boy's body decided yesterday that copious amounts of vomit were in order.

Hopefully this is just a 24-hour thing, and he'll be able to perform at the little Christmas show tomorrow night at the elementary school.  Or maybe he'll end up on America's Funniest Videos as the kid who projectile vomits on Santa Claus during the performance.  Either way, I'm charging up the video camera.

Will make me SUE YOU!

Or form a clique to bury your blog posts, or harrass you anonymously on the Intarweb.

Scary, scary words!  Sometimes they say things that I disagree with!  Make the scary words go away, mommy!

Gah.

 

You know those Fathead commercials on TV?  The ones with the be-suited guy describing the Fatheads and featuring a fire-breathing grizzly bear?

Every time that man says the phrase, "Smack you in your earhole," I giggle.  It's just the funniest thing ever to me, and I don't know why!

Won't someone rid me of this troublesome commercial?!

Also, I'm secretly fond of the "Messing with Sasquatch" commercials, because they have NOTHING to do with the product being advertised.

I need a hobby.

 

So The Boy is ramping up for the elementary Christmas pageant at school, which means he's occasionally bursting into song.

Yesterday as I was fixing his lunch I was treated to this gem:

"DECK THE HALLS WITH ALL MY MONEY, FALALALALA, LALALA LA!"

"Son, what are you singing?"

"It's for our Christmas thing."

"Oh, you're doing 'Deck the Halls' as part of your performance?"

"Yep."

"I think the words are a bit different, son.  It's not 'deck the halls with all my money.'"

"Yes it is!"

"No, it's 'deck the halls with boughs of holly.'"

"What's a bough of holly?"

"It's basically a branch of a kind of tree."

"I thought they were saying 'all my money.'"

"Well, that's because you'd never heard the other phrase before, so it didn't make sense."

"I like mine better."

"It's probably more appropriate nowadays, that's for sure."

To the "This is Why You Get Mocked" post below.

News article from the Chronicle about the recent Anthropologist's meeting is here.

One of the motions passed was this one:

The association resolved that it "opposes any covert or overt U.S. military action against Iran, condemns any public-relations campaigns designed to convince the U.S. public to support military action against Iran, and urges President George W. Bush and members of the U.S. Congress to refrain from using any covert or overt military action, including air strikes, against the country or government of Iran."

Which prompted this comment below the article:

Thank Goodness the anthropologists are taking a stand against an invasion, either clandestine or open, of Iran. It's about time. This should be more widely publicized.

So what do you think - is the comment sarcastic or serious?  Because that's EXACTLY the comment I would have posted, and I think we all know exactly how I would have meant it.