I took off from work today for no particular reason.
Ace had a strings recital (she takes violin in school though I’ve heard her practice it at home exactly twice in the two years she’s had it) in the cafeteria and has a half day, so I guess those are semi-particular reasons. Plus I had days to burn anyway before the end of the year, which is fast approaching.
Are you bored reading this post yet? I’m sort of bored typing it already for God’s sake.
I haven’t posted in a week (not that anybody notices or cares) and I get itchy to post when it’s been that long.
Sometimes, like right now, I just start typing whatever pops into my head and see where it goes.
I looked in my drafts folder and noticed that I have 70 drafts that I started at some point and then abandoned for various reasons. If the few that I read for inspiration are any indication, they were abandoned because they are awful pieces of crap, much like this post is turning into very quickly.
My housemates aren’t helping me either. Cool doesn’t have school on Thursdays, so instead of spending the $50 to ship them to the sitters all day, I have the Wii doing it for free. He loves this Wii machine. He loves all things electronic, really. It’s sort of creepy how good he’s always been with games and devices. I guess it comes more naturally to some than others.
Wii Wii Wii…always with the Wii…
The other one is butting heads with Carly (pup) as usual.
They kind of hate each other…
While Jojo lays around waiting for the angel of death. It’s either that or she’s waiting for somebody to feed her some sausage or ham, it’s hard to tell.
Feed me…
If you’re counting, that’s five of us all in a 10 foot area of each other, even though we live in a 1700 square foot house. There’s a lot of space to spread out, people!
Anyway, I think I’ll quit now. We have yet to put a Christmas tree up, so I may at least drag it inside, even if I don’t connect the three parts. We go with a plastic, fake tree all the way.
Maybe I’ll even add to the lights outside.
Speaking of lights, every year, there are one or two exceptionally nice, warm weekend days that suddenly appear a few weeks before Christmas.
Inevitably, my neighbors will climb onto their ladders and roofs in order to throw gaudy Christmas lights and inflatable Santa Clauses all over their houses and yards as I stand watch in my own yard with a cold beer in hand shaking my head at them in disgust.
“You’re wasting a beautiful day!” I shout to all of them, master of the obvious.
Sometimes, these warm days come before Thanksgiving, and that’s just way too early to put Christmas decorations on display.
No matter if they come before or shortly after Thanksgiving, the point is that it’s a nice day in late November or December, and nice days are in short supply so I’ll not waste them on a ladder. In fact, I think to myself, this year we will maybe do without Christmas decorations altogether. That sounds like a great idea in my head. I’m sure Wife will be on board with this because she hates wrestling with our piece of shit prelit tree that stopped prelighting, lighting or post lighting three or four years ago.
That plan sounds most excellent as I sit in my lawn chair eight beers into the warm for winter day. Alas, the next day, or the next week, or sometime thereafter, the guilt will be too much for me. All the neighbors’ pretty lights blink and glow and whisper, “Don, you’re an asshole. Your kids want lights. Put lights on your house.”
Fuck.
I know that I’m going to do it every year, but I always wait beyond those last couple of nice days and end up on my ladder and roof in the freezing cold, fumbling helplessly with clips and lights and duct tape and my beer.
This year is no exception. Ace was home sick last Monday, so I stayed home with her and got my fat ass out in the cold to toss some lights on the house. Sam’s Club had lights on sale the day before, so I bought a bunch of them so I’d not have to worry about the old strands not working.
Thankfully, it snowed and the roof was covered in ice so whatever couldn’t be reached with a ladder wasn’t going to happen. Unfortunately, today is a nice day and the snow and ice is gone from the roof. I have two spools of new lights taunting me, so I’m going to go climb onto the roof now and finish the job.
In case I don’t get around to posting before then or I fall from the roof and break my neck, Merry Christmas from the DOAT clan. Oh, sorry, Happy Holidays, in case Christmas offends you. You’re a douche if it does, but I’m still obliging because I’m the better person.
Cheers to you and yours!
It’s actually freezing cold in this picture.
