Archive: December 2007

This morning, in that haze between sleep and wakefulness, I heard a muffled cry from JG. I mentally muddled through the two conceivable possibilities: either something had happened with Ted or —

“The tree fell down,” JG said as he burst into our room. “Put some shoes on because there’s broken glass.”

Oh, no.

After several stressful attempts, we managed to coerce the tree to stand upright again. JG tied the top of the tree to a kitchen cabinet to prevent another fall, and we stepped back to survey the damage. Only two soggy presents had to be re-wrapped, and we had a few ornament casualties, so it wasn’t too bad, all things considered. JG raced to get dressed for work and jet out the door as I picked up glass fragments and vacuumed up pine needles. The tree had stood up on its own for a whole ten days! What happened? It was hard to stomach the thought of re-composing the tree with only a week left before Christmas, and something about broken ornaments hit me right in pit of my stomach.

As if that weren’t enough for one day, today was the department’s annual Holiday Colloquium, which is smart-person code for Christmas luncheon. Apparently, we’re not allowed to book public meeting space for parties, so we have a colloquium instead. In my rush to leave in the morning, I had almost forgotten the peppermint patty cookies I had made for the occasion (the cheater “recipe” exposes me as a baking fraud with my illicit use of pre-packaged cookie dough), but I walked the platter down to the room amid meaty, slow-cooker smells along the way. I don’t know what I was expecting at this blessed event, but it was rather depressing. The pot-luck food was adequate, but everyone clumped up into their own groups, which gave the whole set-up an adolescent feel. I brought a camera so that I could try to document the lunch for our newsletter, but everyone looked at me askance when I drew near. It was a complete change from my old job, which had a separate Pictures folder on the shared drive for fun photos. I have to keep reminding myself that I work in a department full of lab rats, which doesn’t make for a very festive party atmosphere. After I had eaten and snapped some obligatory pictures, I retreated back to my office as soon as I could.

I’m not exactly stressed out, but I feel as though my allotted store of sparkling, festive Christmas spirit has already been drained. Maybe I expended too much of it prematurely with Secret Blogger Santa. Maybe the inherent strain of Family Time is finally rearing its ugly head. Maybe I don’t want to hang those ornaments back up on the tree. Or maybe I just need a nap.

Bah.

• On Friday, I stood in line for the free holiday staff lunch, served by the management, where I ate a serving of dry roast beef, a twice-baked potato, limp green beans, and half of a brick-like wedge of cheesecake. I was not convinced that bringing in that piece of leftover meatloaf would not have been better, easier, and just as free.
• That afternoon, I fought the food coma and attended the annual awards ceremony to recognize people who had been with the company for 5, 10, 15, 25, 30, and 35 years. Sure, the numbers tapered off toward the end, but I could not get over the fact that over a dozen people had been working at this company for longer than I had been alive. Then, my ears were assailed by the daycare children’s rendition of “The Night Before Christmas” and two nurses singing a show tune. Let me just say that I am not thrilled about the prospect of the department holiday lunch tomorrow.
• At the end of the day, a company-wide announcement came out that those of us working on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve (ahem) get to leave at noon! When you have to work every day except the corporate holidays, you take what you can get. Yay!
• JG’s blue-and-gold-themed birthday extravaganza of pizza, wings, yummy Funfetti cupcakes, and presents (UD football jersey, two CDs, and a tailgating caddy) went off without a hitch! Unfortunately, the team didn’t get the memo about it being his birthday and all, and the game was disappointing, even aside from the loss. I do not stand for poor sportsmanship, Blue Hens. Well, there’s always next year.
• After a marathon session at the coffee table, I wrote out and sent off forty Christmas cards on Saturday. Then, I crouched on the floor in one of the spare rooms (which is now covered in wrapping accoutrement) and finished almost all of my gift-wrapping. Usually, I check these things off the list much earlier, so now I feel just slightly less under the gun. At least there are presents under the tree now. If only Ted wouldn’t go for the pretty packages with twirly ribbon…
• Last night, I baked the first batch of cookies for the week; I’m delivering a silver gift bag full of them to my old office in honor of their annual cookie swap. I’m making another batch of cookies tonight for my contribution to the department luncheon, and then I’ll start in on whatever I’m bringing to my parents’ house. Next year, I need to look into freezing cookie dough that I can bake at any time — this whole business of producing freshly-baked cookies is getting old.
• Lest I get too high-and-mighty about being a competent pet owner, I was humbled last night when Ted got away from me during our evening walk. I was fiddling with something in my pocket when Ted was startled by a milk jug rattling across the street from the gale-force winds. He bolted and ripped the leash out of my hand. I shouted for him as he took off down the sidewalk; visions of Ted getting hit by a car flew through my head, and I ran for five blocks after him … right to our house. Ted had taken a direct route straight to our front stoop, where he sat, lightly panting, with an innocent look that said, “What took you so long?” Oh, Ted.

Today is JG’s birthday! Yay! We’re ordering pizza and wings to eat while we watch Delaware play in the NCAA Division 1 Football Championship Subdivision Finals. A victory over Appalachian State for the national title would be a fantastic birthday present for JG, but there will be actual presents and Funfetti cupcakes, just in case. In other words, it’ll be a par-tay, like the kids say these days.

(Oh, they don’t say that these days?)

I hope I’ve made it clear that I love JG because of the big stuff, like how he married me, how he’s financially responsible, how he’s a good cook, blah blah blah. To mix things up and in honor of his birthday today, I present a list of lesser-known reasons why I think JG is The Awesomest, which I hope will compel the World Wide Web to flood him with fun birthday wishes.

JG is awesome because he:

• Really loves math and celebrating Pi Day.
• Is always willing to reach for that high-up baking dish I want to use.
• Loves doing our taxes.
• Is a really safe driver.
• Puts up with me spouting about new vocabulary, even though he couldn’t care less how to use seraglio in a sentence or that the G is silent.
• Eats the “ugly ones” out of a batch of cookies, just to “make sure they’re okay for everyone else.”
• Drew out a sketch of the front of our house so that I could draw in where I wanted the Christmas lights to go.
• Can bag groceries faster than any of the employees at our supermarket.
• Abstains from watching football on Sundays at my request because — for goodness’ sake — wasn’t watching it all day on Saturday enough?
• Hardly ever gets lost because his brain is a map.
• Makes fantastic macaroni and cheese.
• Can rattle off a list of twenty-odd prepositions that he had to memorize in grade school because he and his siblings would race to see who could do it the fastest.
• Reads nerdy math books about famous mathematicians, breakthrough proofs, and unsolvable problems.
• Watches A Charlie Brown Christmas with me every year, even though I recite every single line.
• Salts the sidewalk early and often, because that’s how we do it in New England.
• Is a worthy Scrabble opponent. Bring it on.
• Reminds me to choose a CD (usually show tunes) to play during his NCAA football video game because he knows that hearing the Penn State fight song ad infinitum takes me to Crazy Town.
• Can eat an Oreo in one bite without looking ridiculous.
• Fights in the war against water marks on the coffee table.
• Takes great pride in completing a New York Times crossword.
• Walks Ted in the morning on the weekends so that I can sleep in.
• Appreciates an efficient spreadsheet and calls me with Excel questions.
• Has a deep love of cupcakes.
• Is dedicated to avoiding cross-contamination in the kitchen.
• Makes a point to kiss me good-bye every morning, even if I’m barely awake enough to remember it.

I think that it is fair to say that no one can surpass JG in the Awesome Factor today.

Happy birthday, kiddo! Love you!

I put up the majority of our Christmas decorations right after Thanksgiving, but the house didn’t feel complete until we had our tree in place. Over the weekend, JG and I finally went out to the tree farm to find a prime specimen. The ground was wet and slushy — certainly not ideal for lying on the ground with a bow saw — but JG was a trooper and we made it home with the 8-foot tree still tied securely on the luggage rack. It was much smoother than last year, when I craned my neck to see the tree on my side mirror and made panicked sounds whenever it made a drastic shift. After a long struggle to make the tree stand up straight, we took a break to have lunch while the tree dried off and shed innumerable needles.

JG brought up Ted from his crate to get acquainted with the tree, and I was pretty nervous. I had read horror stories about dogs pulling down trees, marking them as their territory (shudder), or chewing it incessantly. I was a big fan of “none of the above,” so I hoped that Ted wouldn’t freak out too much about the strange appearance of vegetation in the living room.

Unbeknownst to me, Ted had a strategy for showing the tree who was in charge:

1. Survey the scene: sniff the tree base.
2. Sniff the actual tree.
3. Take a nibble, but back down at a sharp word from the owners.
4. Crouch down and growl.

After that ritual, Ted has been indifferent to the tree. He watched me with great curiosity as I wrapped it up with lights and futzed around with the ornaments, but he appears to have accepted the tree as part of the domestic landscape. That gale of wind you felt over the weekend was my sigh of relief.

Come and get your (almost) daily dog dose with Rufus, Ben, Gus, and Zapp!