In A Flash

A lot has happened since last time we met.  Sorry about the lag time.

At this moment, C and I are sitting on the couch, watching the Broncos play the Steelers.  I’m usually one to hop on the underdog bandwagon, but in this case, I have some surprisingly strong feelings - mostly in the vein of having a case of the hots for Troy Polamalu (The blocking!  The speed!  The Head & Shoulders commercials!), but also… it seems that I just don’t like Tim Tebow very much.  Every time I hear something nice about him, I dislike him even more… is that bad?

I apologize - I didn’t get on here to write about the game, but the Tim Tebow Superstar stuff gets me a little riled up.  I wanted instead to give you a brief, slap-across-the-face summary of the past few weeks, which have been exciting, depressing, hilarious, and almost below zero already.  Here goes:

Pack it up!

We will be closing on the sale of our house in just 12 short days, so we headed down about a week before Christmas to try and box up our effects.  Good: I didn’t have a meltdown on the kitchen floor, an event I was positive would occur.  Bad:  There’s no food in the kitchen anymore.  Ugly:  Take-out pizza for 4 out of 6 dinners.  We needed to eat some apples, like whoa. 

Out at breakfast one morning, C “accidentally” left the pepper shaker top mostly unscrewed.  I'm sure he did it because he knows how much I like heaping mounds of black pepper on my eggs.

Christmas

It’s hard to describe how much my dad likes Christmas.  He has a real reverence for the significance of the holiday, but I’ve also never met a kid more excited for the morning than my father.  Or for Christmas Eve.  Or for whenever he can persuade us to start opening presents, which on this particular year included nose flutes.  The Good: No present was larger than a beach ball.  The bad: No beach balls.  The Ugly: No beach.

Get [chilly] Together

Each year over the New Year’s Eve weekend, we host a camp reunion for staff and students.   The weather is usually a significant factor for the success or failure of said weekend.  One year it was terrifyingly cold with lunatic winds and snow that felt like tiny hypodermic needles.  Last year it reached a balmy 40 degrees, and felt like we ought to pull out the canoes.  This year it was somewhere in the middle - a nice balance.  The Good:  No one fell through the ice.  The Bad:  I am too much of a sally to stay up until midnight anymore.  The Ugly:  I couldn’t find the right cookie cutters, so for the “Christmas Cookie Decorating” activity, the kids had to slap frosting on women in dresses, circles made from drinking glasses, and get this… pigs. 

Low & Slow

When I was ten, I was given a Christmas gift that was beyond my dreams.  Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs that morning, sitting next to the tree was a glass cage with a small Chinese box turtle in it.  Lois has been a trusty companion since then, and at 21 or so years of age, she has waddled her way into the corners of our house and the nooks of our hearts.  She has become fairly free range at this point, mostly wandering around the first floor of our cabin or my parents living room until she finds a place to take a nap.  Well, friends, she’s moved on to new pastures.  The Good: Lois is alive and kicking, and was a Christmas present herself this year.  The Bad:  She’s keeping another family up at night as she bangs into the sides of her cage like a jailed army tank.  The Ugly:  Here’s to hoping she doesn’t give them salmonella. 

s-a-l-m-o-n-e-l-l-a. . .

Other things have happened in the last few weeks as well, but I don’t want to keep you here forever.  I will work hard to post consistently, but another recent development is that I’ve started a new job, so I’ll have to get organized with my time.

I'm a pretty on-time person, so that should be easy.

Sunny With A Chance Of Tantrums

Some days I feel like a total monster.  Monday afternoon was like this.

It moves in sequence.  My head starts to hurt, my energy wanes, my attitude dips below the "pleasant and professional" line, and my expression looks like I've just been told my life's vocation will be to lick stamps.

I think that maybe I need a snack.  So l nibble on some almonds, the fit-and-healthy choice of champions. 

But now I find that I've consumed enough almonds to feed all of the squirrels in Illinois until at least August.

It all happened so fast.

I like to think that I'm a pretty happy person, you know, cheery-with-a-chance-of-rain, but every now and again about twice a week,  it's like Mr. Hyde takes over and I become a showers-with-a-chance-of-sinkholes kind of girl, which makes me pretty hard to deal with.  Usually C just gives me a look of disdain and asks how he can fix it, which only makes me more ugly and inconsolable, and then I disappear for some alone time.  And some more almonds.

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The best cure that I've found for the grumpies is a friend that doesn't care.  I have a friend like this named Amy.  Amy is terrific for a lot of reasons, but at the top of the pile is her ability to talk to me like a 27 year-old adult.  Well, most of the time.  She doesn't coddle my cranky attitude or snap at me with frustration, or even push me down the stairs like I deserve.  She just talks like I'm a normal human being (which is giving credit where very little is due), and suddenly the skies open up and the forecast starts looking crystal clear.

It's very similar to, when your favorite 3 year old falls and starts to whine, talking to them like they are fine, even happy.  Like they are riding down the slide at their favorite park.

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So the next time your friend/spouse/buddy is acting like an angry rattlesnake, get your Amy on and talk to them like they can handle a little bad weather.  

Or you could just push them down the stairs and watch them drown in their own empty almond cans, like I they probably deserve.