Life fantastic and Christmas on hold

Every year some string of outdoor lights doesn’t work. I’m not sure why…they literally sit in the garage all year without moving. Our weather is not extreme usually so what the heck? But every year it happens. This year it was the lights to the little pine tree next to the garage. We put up the rest and I figured I’d run to the store and get a short string. Sadly, neither CVS nor Dollar General had any lights. I decided to order some online. I ordered a 70 light set of bright pink lights. Why not? When they came, this is the box.

Yes, I did not simply get bright pink lights. I got lights that illuminate my life fantastic! They are LED fairy string lights too! On the back of the box, it says “ These lights will last a long time and you no need to keep on buying new ones year after year. These lights will not overheat and you can leave them on for days.” Wait, days? Despite the dubious reassurance that they won’t burn the house down, and the grammatical error suggesting a job opportunity for a proofreader or interpreter, I am intrigued by the promise that I shall not need to keep buying new ones. That would indeed be a Christmas miracle! They do look beautiful on the little tree!

Unfortunately, here east of Cleveland, Mother Nature decided to give us a white Christmas.

It was just overkill on the white. Our kids were going to drive back from NYC Friday, but since the weather forecast was for the storm of the century and we weren’t feeling well anyway, they decided not to. For once the usually way-too-dramatic weather anchors were spot on. The Ohio turnpike closed for crying out loud and that never happens. We got a fair amount of snow but it was more the blowing and cold that caused whiteout conditions. With being sick and snowed in, we watched Christmas movies and specials.

One of the specials was an “Old Time Radio Christmas.” Oh my gosh it was so bad. How bad was it? Well let me tell you…there was a bad guy named Uncle Barnaby. Alan and Jane were trying to figure out something and Jane sang a song about “I can’t do the sums” where she couldn’t do math. She was quite cheery about it. Ummm…STEM anyone??? No wonder. There was also a girl named Contrary Mary who sang about being contrary. Alan asked her if she would be contrary if he married her. She said yes. You go girl! Might as well lay it out there. They went on some adventure that I honestly couldn’t describe if you paid me. Uncle Barnaby attempted to drown them. There was a commercial about puffed wheat shot from guns. They sang “Toyland.” I think this was actually “Babes in Toyland” because they met Bo Peep along the way. Then we turned it off. I am still confused. I’m not sure what happened to Alan and Jane or Mary, they could be wandering the forest still. Uncle Barnaby went on to greater villain things I’m sure.

The snow also buried two out of three of my solar powered Christmas chickens. But one is blazing away! Chester did not go for walks for a couple days, but he had a great Christmas. He has eaten so many treats I had to loosen his harness.

Zeus and Milo got a pretty plaid blanket to curl up in, and Zeus took it over. They got treats too though and Milo is treat motivated. He is motivated to get more treats.

We haven’t’ had our Christmas yet with the kids and aren’t sure when it will happen. Truth is there are two ways of looking at Christmas. If Christmas for you is about Jesus’ birth, there is one meaningful Christmas Day. This is reassuring because no matter what happens with our family customs or weather (things we can’t control) like they say in The Grinch, couldn’t stop Christmas from coming, it came all the same. No matter where we are or what we are doing, like Mary and Joseph, Jesus’ birth gives pause. (I realize that the actual historical day may not really be on December 25, but that’s when we celebrate it so…)  But, if Christmas to you is about family and friends and goodwill, then Christmas can happen any time, and should probably not have an expiration date. Christmas day may be consistent but the Christmas spirit can roll on as long as you want it to. If Christmas is not something you celebrate, then disregard this last paragraph, it’s just what I am thinking about. I need to get out with Chester more to have deep and random thoughts while attempting not to wipe out in front of the neighbors.

We did get out today since it hit 51 degrees here! A lot of the snow is melting which sends Chester into mega sniff mode. We joked that he is receiving all sorts of messages from his girlfriends. They were buried under the snow, just like my sheet music is buried at the post office. It was a nice walk and the ice on Lake Erie was cool literally. It will likely melt a bit as we are supposed to reach 60 next week! Go figure.

Whatever your holiday traditions I hope you are doing well what with the craziness and weather and illness around. Let’s ring in a new year with hope. Happy New Year!! Be safe!

Anesthesia and white deer…

I know I missed a week in the attempted blogging schedule. I have a good reason. I had a procedure. Now I’m not going to go into it, because I can picture my nephew saying “Jeez, Aunt Martha, I really didn’t want to read this.” But let’s just say it was a multi-day ordeal that came out fine.

I only mention this procedure because I learned something new about anesthesia. In the past, I would pop up after anesthesia and say, “Wow, best sleep I ever had!” This time, I was out of it, and I do mean OUT. As in twilight-loopy for about 4-5 hours. I lay on the couch and listened to the absurd Wednesday afternoon NFL game on my phone. But at some point I drifted off, and that’s when the fun began.

I saw a little red, and it was red as in barn red, not bright red, zombie-type skull on a stick figure body. I was on some kind of platform, and the zombie thing was snapping its little jaws at my legs or the legs of the platform. It looked a little like Gollum but red. I was trying to avoid it when some girl’s arm waved a beautifully manicured finger across it and flowers showered over the zombie, blowing it into pieces. Then the skull kept snapping without a body.

This vision begs many questions. Who was the girl? Did she have a body? Or was it just an arm? If so, where did the arm get the manicure and how did it drive there? The little zombie wasn’t particularly scary—but were there more? Would it regenerate or just bounce around on its little head snapping until it found its way into some teacher’s desk with the snapping teeth?

Unknowable. I will probably have to wait 5 more years to find out. But it’s something to look forward to…sort of.

In the last two weeks, our neighborhood put away its political divisiveness and came together. It appears to be our neighborhood’s goal to use up all the electricity and signal spaceships by seeing who can put up the most Christmas lights. We were out of the contest from day one, we just put some around the windows and ledge/porch area. But this effort has inspired me to greatness. I believe we could rise in the neighborhood estimation if we had a white deer that lifts its head up and down. The other Grammy, in an attempt to lower my expectations (since I have wanted to have one for years and my husband is reluctant to say the least} said they aren’t worth it. She said that they had one and the head or the body lights would go out randomly. She said the whole thing didn’t all light at once for long.

WHOA! HOW COOL IS THAT!!??? If the body didn’t work, the head would look like a discombobulated reindeer head bobbing up and down. If the head didn’t work, it’d be the headless horse, man. The neighbor would probably try to shoot or eat it, and wouldn’t that be funny when they found out it isn’t real?! Now I want one more than ever. I suspect one will find its way into our Christmas closet at the end of the year when the ones that don’t work get returned and are on markdown. That’s my plan.

Chester has been a lucky doggie lately. He decided he likes turkey which is good because we had a 16 pound turkey to eat, and without him it would have been tough. He is a worry-wort though. His latest fixation is on the delivery vehicles that drive down our otherwise quiet cul-de-sac multiple times a day. He lies on the couch and focuses on the door, ready to run to the window and bark at the slightest whiff of a UPS truck. Below is a picture of him at the ready. He has had a couple days where he missed some though, I think he is wearing himself out. The second picture is his attitude about having to guard the house.

I am unashamedly full-on Christmas. We have most of our gifts (I would say all but that would make you feel bad) and I’m putting up the Christmas village today. Watching football and putting up a Christmas village—it doesn’t get any better. I bought new people for my village. They are Mr. Mayor and Mrs. Mayor. They probably have names but the other people haven’t all met them yet so right now it’s Mr. and Mrs. Mayor.  Have a good week!

Chester stands sits lies at attention

Make it stop…