for one of my very favorite Christmas songs. It is stunningly gorgeous, and that’s an objective fact.

(Kinda scary, but I had this on cassette 21 years ago….)

Actually, it started with Halloween, but now it’s really on: holiday season! HallowThanksMas Eve.

Here I am, still recovering from Thanksgiving, (and being a vegetarian didn’t help at all – my mother-in-law is a killer cook and nearly did me in with the side dishes) and now I have to get ready for everyone to come over on Sunday for the Princess’ (and my) birthday. Then eight days later Moo turns two. Then Mr MG’s birthday bash mid-December. Then Christmas, which is over here this year. Then we host New Year’s.

Basically, the extended family should just move in for the next month.

I’ve got three birthday cakes to bake, Christmas cookies yet to finish, and the tree isn’t even assembled yet. It’s just a post standing there all naked and embarrassed in the piano room.

Oy.

I was walking by a pet store in 1994 and saw a cage full of tiny kittens. I was lonely because this sailor I was dating was off serving his weekend in the reserves and nothing comforts a lonely heart like a kitty. When I went inside I was horror-stricken. Nearly every kitten was suffering with runny, infected eyes. When I asked the person at the counter about it, he nonchalantly said that yes, he was aware of it and was treating them with Neosporin. Yikes. I picked the only one with clear eyes – a fluffy gray tom - ponied up ten bucks, and got out.

Of course, he came down with the infection a few days later and I had to ask a vet to help him with the promise that I would pay when I got the money. (I was a poor starving college student.) She gave me the proper medicine and that was the beginning of life with Wayne.

From the start he was different from other cats. He loved riding in the car when we drove across Colorado to go home on holidays. When Mr. MG and I were married and got stationed in San Diego, he loved the cross-country trip. (Except for crossing Death Valley in mid-afternoon with no air conditioning. That was touch and go.) He loved moving and was unbearable when we brought boxes into the house. He could tell by all the packing and hubbub that another adventure was imminent.

He was a terrible chewer. His first Christmas he chewed through the tree’s light string three separate times (while they were on) before I learned to coat the wires with Tabasco. And if he was angry with me, he would find something that smelled like me, something I had touched, and chew it to bits. Camisole straps, important papers, baby monitor cords, you name it. It was pure blackmail. “Gimme your lap or I ruin the lamp tonight.” he seemed to say, blinking benignly the whole time. Sometimes he would look right at me and reach over to ruin something.

For the last few months he has had bad spells. He would be lethargic and weak. I took him to a vet who wanted to do $1000 worth of tests and procedures. Um, no. So I watched him closely, agonizing each day and not wanting him to suffer. And then he’d pull out of it and everything would be fine. The old gray man acted as if nothing had happened.

And then Friday night a heart attack struck and took him away. He seized, gasped a few times and was gone. I am thankful I was there to hold him. I am so thankful it was quick. But oh, I miss my kitty. It is a terrible thing to be without his nagging, crabby, loving, cantankerous self. Even four days later I am still wary when I open the front door, lest he try to make a break for it. I rub the spot with my foot where he would sleep in front of the fire and warm his old bones.

It is a quieter, more peaceful, sadder house without you, Wayne. Goodbye.

I have said it before and my record will bear this out: I am a resource junkie. I don’t buy every gizmo, but that is only because the homeschooling market is so gigantic and my wallet is not. There are so many wonderful toys-games-projects-whatchamacallits out there, I find it hard to resist.

I knew before I started kindergarten with the Princess that I wanted a timeline. My mom had one wrapping around her 4th-6th grade classroom and I loved how it illustrated the enormous scope of time. Because of that, I knew that a notebook timeline or one that only took up a patch of one wall wasn’t enough – I wanted the centuries to have room to stretch out. It was extremely helpful that Mr. MG doesn’t mind if we have decor ala Rainbow Resource.

There are many different breeds of timelines and figures to choose from, and I settled on the gorgeous sets from Homeschool in the Woods. The illustrations are beautiful and each figure also has the date and text that tells about the person or event. A few years later, they came out with all the figures plus a bunch more on two CD-ROMs, with all figures in jpeg and gif formats. The gif figures are wonderful for printing big as coloring pages. Plus, I love buying from fellow homeschoolers. (The customer service rocks, too.)

Anyway, HSITW has a free Christmas mini-study with tons of links, recipes, notebooking ideas, and activities. There is something for every age group – even preschoolers – so go check it out. It really is too good to miss.

Yesterday I visited Korea, China, and England. Yup, all in one day. Man am I tired.

The Princess is working her way through Sonlight’s Eastern Hemisphere Explorer this year and with each country she studies, she gets to do a “Choose Your Own Adventure” project. Some are worth more points than others, all appeal to different interests, and they vary greatly on the “pain in the tukas” scale.

She has created a South Pacific island resort, folded a bazillion Japanese paper cranes, gone on an Antarctic expedition to feed our cats, and made New Zealander Pavlova (with kiwis). Somehow we fell behind and had to make up time on projects from the last couple of countries. Being my kid, she chose adventures involving food. And I felt pretty ambitious: Why not do kimchi and egg rolls on the same day?

But it is also coming on Christmas (they’re cuttin’ down trees…) and I need to get going on the cookie tin baking. Always the first thing out of the gate is my extremely delicious, fairly flammable fruitcake. Why not throw that together, too? I asked myself.

So I began chopping cabbage. The Princess salted and rinsed the cabbage five times and chopped scallions. I finely diced approximately fifteen ingredients for the egg rolls. I measured and zested and grated and boozed the fruitcake into the mixer. Into the oven with the fruitcake (in mini loaf pans for a change) and continued prepping egg roll fillings. Mix the other stuff for the kimchi cabbage. Garlic and brandy and pepper flakes, oh, my.

Somewhere in there the kids all three had dentist appointments. Also, I had to feed these hooligans lunch or they won’t stop whining. (“Mama, you’re mean! Why do you always starve us?!”) Then the fruitcake batter ran over and hardened all over the sheet pan.

When Mr. MG walked in the door, the kitchen was an international disaster area. Bowls, peelings, splatters, and burned fruitcake bits were strewn everywhere. There was no counter space left. The baby had developed the highly useful habit of picking up scraps off the floor and throwing them in the trash. And I was exhausted to the point of slurring.

But I had six salvaged loaves of fruitcake, a jar of ripping hot fermented cabbage, and a stack of about fifty egg rolls to show for it. Plus, a very happy daughter who felt that much closer to the cultures she was studying.

Oh, and I had a hubby who washes dishes. But that wasn’t my doing. He’s just sweet like that and appreciates a good egg roll.

Last night Moo piped up with, “NEW BOOKS! Maffyoo! Mahk! Luke! John! Ax! Romahns!”

I grabbed the camera, but of course she didn’t do it again.

Still, not too bad for a 23-month-old toddler.

I rolled my eyes at the new Sparks books that come with a CD. (And I am still bummed with how much they dumbed them down.) But after having it play on a constant loop in the van for the last month, I have to admit that it is doing its job.

I love Christmas.

I love the smells of cookies, and the frantic glee as I bake a bazillion different things. I breathe deep the pine and earth fragrance of the rainy outdoors. I enjoy thinking of friends and family far and near as I address cards. I thrill with every carol, both silly and sublime. It’s the best birthday bash in the universe, and it is my favorite time of year.

But today I drove by a place that had their Christmas lights up. (And it wasn’t just folks who hadn’t taken them down from last year. These were lit.) Elsewhere in town a house had a big ornament-covered wreath on the front door.

I don’t mean to be a Grinch and grumble about anyone’s fun, but come on, people. Everyone has just gotten the pumpkins and political signs cleared away. Have some decency and let the landscape recover a little. I realize that there are people who will decorate for any occasion (we know of one place that has a gigantic 10-foot-tall inflatable turkey and orange and brown votive lights that they put out at Thanksgiving time) but can we save Christmas back for a couple more weeks? Otherwise “ho ho ho” becomes “yeah yeah yeah.”

Besides, I haven’t begun baking yet, and I haven’t even bought cards. Seeing lights and wreaths out and about kind of messes with my head.

We have a pet that isn’t our pet. Pretty convenient!

When we moved to this house, I mourned quite a bit over leaving the old yard behind. Not that it was a beauty – it wasn’t. It was weedy and pitted and hilly. And it had planters scattered all over in the middle of things like a dog that is always in the way, because the last owners didn’t believe in stump grinding. When a tree died or fell, they erected a planter around the stump like a monument. Hiding the dead in plain sight. But even with all of these faults, I loved that yard. It was teeming with wildlife.

It had your average critters like garter snakes and neighborhood cats. There were also mice and squirrels who could never be satisfied with the great outdoors and were forever trying to move in with us. And the avian wildlife was an education: cross-bills, flickers, goldfinches, house finches, juncos, and one one memorable afternoon a huge hawk of some sort or another. But my very favorite of all the fauna were the bunnies.

Part of the reason they liked our yard were the weeds. A rabbit could spend all day munching dandelions and buttercups and never even make a dent in the buffet. Plus, we grew plums, blueberries, strawberries, currants, and a few stunted apples. It was good to be a bunny in our yard. They were wary for the couple of years we had Sara the geriatric lab mix, but since she only chased cats and not bunnies (she was a dog who knew her limits) they didn’t sweat it too much. And I was so charmed by them that I didn’t mind sharing the garden.

When we moved here into town I was sure my days of wildlife watching were done. (Although we live on a route to and from the local high school, that was not the wildlife I had in mind.) But before we had even unpacked we had two young deer waltz through the back yard. Since then we have had regular visits from raccoons, rats (walking around in broad daylight), tons of birds, and my favorite – we have lots of rabbits, George.

This summer we have been blessed with a regular. We may have had regulars for years but a three-legged bunny is easy to tell from the others. She has been dubbed Trixie Triad Hopalong and she is so used to us that she doesn’t run away if we are playing out in the yard as long as the hooligans don’t run right at her. I left carrot tops from the farmer’s market out for her and we watched her gobble them up from the laundry room window. and she has hollowed out several divots in the turf where she cooled down in the summer and scoops down to dry ground these days. I scan the grass for her first thing every morning and check on her throughout the day. Many times she is sound asleep right out in the open. Even as it grows cold and wet she is usually out there.

It’s a tough old world and I know there will come a time that I won’t see her anymore. But I feel so blessed to be visited and trusted by this usually timid creature and to give her safe haven from the dangers that eventually catch all rabbits, disabled ones sooner than others. I am thankful for her familiarity. And I hope she sends her cousins.

to the election. Both sum it up better than I could.

First, there is what the Princess said when I was finally able to convince her that yes, a democrat was going to be the next president. “Well… Maybe now Garrison Keillor won’t be so bitter anymore.” Amen, babe. Perhaps the entertainment industry can go back to doing its job – entertaining. I’m bone tired of the preaching.

Secondly, there is today’s post from Iowahawk: Election Analysis: America Can Take Pride In This Historic, Inspirational Disaster.

Although I have not always been the most outspoken advocate of President-Elect Barack Obama, today I would like to congratulate him and add my voice to the millions of fellow citizens who are celebrating his historic and frightening election victory. I don’t care whether you are a conservative or a liberal — when you saw this inspiring young African-American rise to our nation’s highest office I hope you felt the same sense of patriotic pride that I experienced, no matter how hard you were hyperventilating with deep existential dread.  

Yes, I know there are probably other African-Americans much better qualified and prepared for the presidency. Much, much better qualified. Hundreds, easily, if not thousands, and without any troubling ties to radical lunatics and Chicago mobsters. Gary Coleman comes to mind. But let’s not let that distract us from the fact that Mr. Obama’s election represents a profound, positive milestone in our country’s struggle to overcome its long legacy of racial divisions and bigotry. It reminds us of how far we’ve come, and it’s something everyone in our nation should celebrate in whatever little time we now have left.

Go read it all.

I’m not even going to talk about the election. Not just that election, but the other biggie, and also the whopper I never saw coming. Because if I start talking about the election, I will throw up.

Goodness knows it wouldn’t take much to trigger my gag reflex right now. Since the beginning of October it has been one crisis after another. I am still waiting for it to let up.

At the beginning of the month I was blindsided by overdraft charges. I have audited our account eight years back and still can’t find the problem. The straw that broke the camel’s back for us, though, was the fact that, after we found out things were bouncing around like Flubber and Mr. MG rushed to the bank to put in a hefty deposit, they didn’t post it for 48 hours. (Yet they posted incoming checks/debits. More bouncing fun!) After putting out that fire, we moved our account elsewhere. I’m still looking for the hitch that caused the shortage.

Then the Bear caught the cold that developed into pneumonia. For two weeks he was miserable, coughing and crying all night. He was so sick that he wouldn’t eat, and quietly said, “I don’t have my super powers anymore, Mama.” Thankfully, he loved the banana-flavored antibiotics.

Then my friend J moved. This was a blow since their whole family got along with our whole family – even the hubbies. She had a daughter just the Princess’ age, so it was a hard thing for all of us to see them go.

The Bear got better just in time for Halloween. As I shopped for a wig for the Princess’ costume, I was tipped off to the fact that someone had stolen my identity and had been shopping with my credit card. That was followed by a flurry of phone calls from auto dealerships in response to this same yahoo using my name to shop for  auto loans online all over the state. Once again we had the police over to visit, and this time it was not the Bear’s doing.

I figured things had to be looking up. Halloween was a blast, and look! It’s a new month, time to start afresh.

Then, the day after Halloween, the Bear started getting a sore on his lower lip. Now, I am known in the immediate family for having the heebie-jeebies when it comes to cold sores. I wish I didn’t, I don’t mean to, but I do. None of the hooligans has ever had one, so I was crushed to see one coming on. (And all last week, Moo had been stealing his water bottle to steal drinks. Great.) All day Sunday I was a mess, as much as I tried to chill out. On top of that stress I had to say goodbye to L, my very good friend and sister of my heart, at church. She and I have been through much baby stuff, marriage stuff, friend stuff. We lied to each other and said I’d come by before she left Tuesday, but we knew better. It makes my cry all over again to mention it.

Monday I called the pediatrician to see if they’d take a look at the Bear, and they sent me to – you guessed it! – Urgent Care because there was no room at the inn, baby. So in we went and lo and behold, it wasn’t a cold sore, it was impetigo. The doctor was a bit puzzled when I whooped. Impetigo may be gross, and super contagious, but it’s bacterial and totally curable. (A large part of my cold sore spazziness is that it’s forever.) The doc sent us to the pharm to get the topical junk to smear on it and we returned home to watch Moo for signs of a breech. She didn’t fail to come through and broke out yesterday. So now they are both are getting slimed three times a day.

Add the election results and L calling me as she headed on her way to her new station, and I am at my absolute limit when it comes to crisis management. They simply don’t make a cookie big enough to compensate for the last month-plus.