DO NOT Go to Hallmark!

Or, at least don’t go without either a thick wallet or a strong resolve. Hallmark always has cute stuff for the holidays, but this year I think they’ve kicked it into overdrive. In fact, I can’t recall a year in recent memory where there have been so many cute things all at once.

The mother and I went to our local store last night for a few cards – and spent an hour looking at all the goodies before we even cracked open a single card! We came home with some, too. (Yeah, my resolve is weak even if my wallet isn’t that thick.)

If you’ve got someone on your list that you have to regularly do a hand-smack on to keep them out of their gifts, you’ll love this “peek buster” bag which can help you out. It sounds an alarm when the bag is disturbed. And if you want to send a very special message, they even have recordable cards with music!

You can get a special deal on this adorable lighted, musical gingerbread house (and we did – for a gift) and this snowman globe was cute, too, though I could resist him. You may not be able to!

But my favorite thing – which I had to have – I can’t even find on their site. It’s a collection of tap buttons (think of Staples’ Easy button). Some play music. Mine? It’s the “Naughty or Nice” version. Push it and Santa give his personal assessment of your behavior for the year. It’s too d*mn cute and is now on my desk where some of my coworkers are sure to test it out before the day is over.

So, be warned. I’ve only touched the tip of the iceberg of the adorable holiday cuteness that awaits you inside Hallmark!

Tuesday ToolTalk: Cool Tools

I don’t get to watch TV very often. It’s always on, mind you, I’m just usually doing five other things at the time, so occasionally, I listen.

But that wasn’t the case over the holiday weekend. DIY was having a Cool Tools marathon. I love that show, but I try not to tune in too very often because, well, tools being an addiction of mine, it’s not always financially healthy if you know what I mean.

But I watched a few back-to-back episodes and then caught a few more periodically before the weekend passed. During that time, I came up with what I think are some fantastic gift ideas. So, for the next few weeks, I’ll share some Cool Tools that made me stop what I was doing and take notice. The best part about this batch: they’re under $100! And, other than bargains, what do we love at This D*mn House? Multi-functional! Check these out.

Knee blades. ($89.99) All I want to know is “Where were these things when I was putting in the laminate floor last year?!” Oh. My. God. And who says you can’t have fun while you work? They are literally knee pads on wheels! I spent more than a week scooting across the floor between tearing up the carpet, removing all the associated nails and staples, and then putting in the new floor. Tell me these couldn’t have made that job easier. You can even use these to scrub and wax the floor or wash your car.

Knee Blades can be used in many professions such as painting, plumbing, mechanics, construction, electrical, maintenance … so it’s a gift that could make someone’s day job roll along a lot more smoothly!

Fast Cap 3rd Hand. ($35-$40/each) – I’ve always thought that having just two hands was a serious design flaw. This product helps take care of that. It’s a handy dandy pole that telescopes from 5 to 12 feet. It can be used to hold molding, ceiling tiles, or cabinets in place, apply pressure to glued down flooring, secure drywall, or hold up backdrops for photos. Very versatile and compact. I think they’re something that should be bought in pairs, too. Make sure you check out Amazon as they had a good price on them.

No Ticket Required

As I was walking to the bus last night, I spied a young family checking out the Macy's Christmas window display. It was a couple and a little girl casually strolling around the building.

I couldn't hear what the little girl was saying, but she was chattering in a high-pitched voiced a mile a minute. Maybe 5 or 6, she was pointing frantically, skipping back and forth in front of each window. She would look at each of her parents individually and sometimes tap on the glass to get them to acknowledge something she had noticed in the scene. It was a delight to see.

And it occurred to me that I hadn't continued to share photos from the display that I'd promised back with the first window. So, here are some shots from Window 2.

The Wrong-Way Bus

The day is wrapping up much better than it started. As I type this, a beautiful and very vivid sunset is streaking behind the skyline. I love views like this!

The day began cold, blustery, and snowing. It was trash day, so I got semi-drenched taking the trash outside. When I left for work, it was really starting to snow. I hustled across the street to the corner where the bus usually stops for me in the morning. I waited. And waited. And waited.

The snow came down harder, the wind whipped up stronger, and I was starting to get really cold. I looked up in just enough time to watch a bus – I’m guessing it was my bus – go down the main thoroughfare a block away. That’s its normal route. Except right now, that route is CLOSED about four blocks down. (Which is why the bus now goes directly in front of my house.)

Maybe that was an extra bus or maybe it was a late bus making up time, I thought. I waited five minutes and then called the transit center. “Has the No. 5 switched back to its normal route?” I asked.

“No, ma’am. That road is closed,” came the answer. Duh.

“OK. I know that. So why did my bus just drive down that road about five minutes ago?”

“I’m not sure. Where are you and we’ll get somebody out there.”

I ran back home where the mother greeted me at the door. “What’s up?” She had apparently been watching me all this time. I quickly told her what I knew. It gave me a minute or two to warm up. Then I just stood on the porch which at least kept snow off of me and cut the wind a bit.

The next bus would be along in about five minutes anyway by this time. Then, I saw a bus come off a side street, go right past my house – and proceed down the closed road AGAIN. (I think the driver probably got chewed out for going the wrong way, got told he had passengers waiting on the route he was supposed to follow, and then tried to go back.) By the time that bus turned around and came to the proper side to pick me up, the other bus was already ahead of him. I boarded the other bus. Leave me out in the snow, will you?! Hah!

There were tie-ups everywhere even though we got very little snow. People are just stupid. They drive like maniacs and think they aren’t going to slide. I saw a report that said state police reported upwards of 60 wrecks this morning. Crazy.

A Surprise and A Compromise

Trees! That's both the surprise (that I alluded to the other night) and the compromise.

We picked up these little 3.5-foot beauties during Friday night's shopping excursion. It was a major surprise to me and a pure impulse buy on the mother's part. They were $20 for the pair, regularly $30. And they're a lot nicer than several others we'd seen recently, some costing a whole lot more.

The compromise: Sadly, they won't be in the gaping middle spots out front. No, those sad-ass Martha Stewart trees will still be out there. But ... these are going on the front porch. And, it looks like they may actually get to be plugged in!

I have Lawrence to thank in part. He backed me up on the safety perspective, saying that we'd be more likely to spark a fire using my miter saw than to have both of those trees plugged in.

The mother didn't sound very convinced, but since then she's been asking me how I'm going to hook them up. So, that sounds like a good sign for my side! I haven't quite figured out the answer yet beyond "with some extension cords," but I'm workin' on it. Stay tuned.

Soggy Sunday

It's been raining off and on since last night and the threat of snow is in the forecast. Not much snow, mind you, but any snow is too much snow in my books.

It's chilly and damp and I'm still worn out from yesterday. I know I've got a mess awaiting me down there. I really need to clean it up and put things back. Mudding and taping can wait.

But you know what? I've decided that ALL of it can wait. The thing that was the final push in that decision: my Twitter message from the Daily Act of Kindness Challenge. I've not made all of them since it started a few weeks ago, but I've made most of 'em. Today's though is one I'll have no problem fulfilling:

Be kind to yourself today and get some extra sleep. Take a nap or go to bed a bit earlier than you usually do.

I think that it might have been written for me.

Cubist Swiss Cheese

I should know by now that the dominant rule at This D*mn House is that nothing is ever easy. I now think that even the Lawrence believes this. But you have to love his ever undaunted nature.

It started out early this morning with Lawrence and the return of his ginormous drills bits. He started drilling from the dining room into the basement family room to run wire through for a new outlet. (This was the one he didn't have time to do back in August.)

It was my intention to do a step by step with Lawrence on how to do this job. We would hit so many snags though that I can't do that. It was too overwhelming and too, too much. So, my apologies to those looking for advice on adding an outlet. You won't find it here.

I knew we were going to have to cut out a section of ceiling in the family room so I wasn't at all disturbed when a rectangle the size of a Marathon bar (remember those from the '70s?) came out of the ceiling next to the window downstairs. After a while though, it became clear that that wasn't going to be enough space to work in. So out came a bigger hunk. The space now looked like this.

I still wasn't that upset, because I spotted a hole in the space that I could now see into. Not the one Lawrence had been drilling though. I pointed this out to him. We began rooting around in the hole with a hanger, with me upstairs seeing if it poked through. It didn't, but it was trying to so we were able to stop drilling upstairs. (You can see the hook of the hanger on the blue window trim.)

That's where the problems started. And why there were a series of holes from a previous attempt to do exactly what we were doing. There were 3 other holes. And we soon saw why whomever had drilled the original holes had stopped: Joists. Joists. And more joists. We cut through one and there was another. This was supposed to be a single hole. So then we graduated to a second and even bigger hole in the ceiling.

OK. This was good. It would be fine. We would drill through here and then just push the wiring over into the unfinished part of the basement behind the fireplace. Except that didn't work.

And that led to a third hole. The third hole led to a DOUBLE JOIST that I didn't think Lawrence would ever be able to drill through but he did. "OK, now we should be able to drop it over there," says Lawrence. Except when I looked behind the fireplace from the tiny closet beneath the stairs that's not what I saw. "Are you sure?" I asked.

"Well, no," says Lawrence as he stepped onto the ladder, flashlight in hand. "Hmmm," I hear him say next. "Looks like you were right to wonder."

I'm not always the brightest bulb in the pack but instead of trying to drill through and run wire back into the laundry room, I had to ask if we couldn't just run it to the closet. There's an outlet and a box there. Would that work?

I had Lawrence's attention now. He was getting incredibly tired of drilling holes in the ceiling. I was getting incredibly tired thinking about the holes I would ultimately have to patch in my ceiling that was starting to look like cubist Swiss cheese. If we weren't planning to do redo the ceiling next year anyway, there's no way I'd ever let it get this far. But since we were ...

He looked at the setup and deemed it acceptable. While he drilled through one more joist, I had two shelves of glassware and knicknacks to move. Fun times.

We fed the wire into the last of the holes. Then Lawrence went upstairs to make the upper connection while I went outside to find some scrap wood to use to put the drywall back into the ceiling. He was downstairs working on the boxes in the closet by the time I finished.

A little while later, we put the drywall pieces back into place. The rest of the remaining Lawrence projects would have to wait for another day. We were both pretty worn out from the wiring adventures. I started picking things up downstairs and making sure Lawrence had all his gear.

He had gone upstairs where he had two battery chargers in place. When he came back downstairs he said: "I plugged my charger into that new outlet and the darndest thing happened. It worked."

Up and At 'Em!

After a day of cooking followed by a day of shopping, today is a day to get active with something more directly impacting This D*mn House. Having said that, Lawrence will be here in the next hour or two.

He's got a short list today though one of the two projects, installing another outlet, could take a while. I'm going to try and talk it through with him since my last post on his installation of an outlet is always such a popular one. It's not a particularly helpful one, just very popular due to its topic.

Let's see if I can fix that.

On an unrelated note, while I slept, the mother unboxed one of yesterday's purchases. I can't tell you what it is yet, but I will tell you that I'm very pleased. Not sure if she is or not, so that will have a big bearing on where it ends up. Stay tuned ...

Round Two: DING!!!

The mother and I just completed a second and final round of Black Friday shopping. Just stayed local for this round and managed to hit four places in about 90 minutes.

There just aren't a lot of deals to be had. Understandable. A lot of places either didn't have as much merchandise or what they did have went out with their first few dozen customers.

And it was certainly nothing like the madness in other parts of the country. Even this morning, at the height of our madness, I'd say there were barely a handful of the rude and overzealous with an occasional whiner thrown in. (Whiners shouldn't even come out on Black Friday. They should stay home.)

No, most people were very polite and relatively patient. We laughed and joked in line and sometimes people would "cart-sit" if someone got a call that would require them to go scrambling back through the store. Even the mother managed to meet up with some nice ladies to chat with, one of whom loaned her a phone.

All in all it was a pretty good bunch.

Adventures in Shopping

You can check out any time you like
But you can never leave. -- "Hotel California," The Eagles

In bed: midnight. Out of bed: 3 a.m. Less than 30 minutes later, on the road.

We got to Kohl's and ended up in line about 50 feet from where we started last year. We spent less time waiting for the store to open than we did in line to check out. Enter store: 4:03 a.m. Exit store: 4:58 a.m. (About 35 minutes in line)

Down the road to Wal-Mart. Enter store: 5:08 a.m. A few minutes before that, I let the mother off at the door. I told her to go to the toy section as the bulk of our list was for the cousins' kids and my charity program. Don't leave the toy section until I get there. It was evident from the number of cars on the parking lot that it would be hard to get through it, much less find each other.

Do you think she listened to me?

It took me at least five minutes to get through the crowds to the toy section. No mother. I had even stopped in electronics on the way (trying to get a 4G memory card for $10) but those were long gone. I quickly scanned the toy aisles for the dolls and Hot Wheels we were after. Empty shelves.

"Can I help you find something?" a voice behind me asked. It was a sales associate. Say what? She directed me to the toy dept manager just a few feet away. Boo-yah! He couldn't help me -- but a shopper standing next to me, who would later end up in line directly behind me, did. Not only did he send me right to the Hot Wheels (well outside the toy section) when I got there to grab some, there just 10 feet away was the mother!

She had the dolls, the Hot Wheels, and a shop vac, all of which were on the list. I was floored. The moral of this story: Never underestimate the mother. Unless she's asking about checking out. People were lined up in jewelry as we passed through so she (supposedly) asked if we could check out there. Why yes. So we stood in line.

Twenty minutes later, a checker asked if we were waiting for a Wii. "This is a Wii line. You can't check out here." Ten minutes later, we finally made our way into a checkout line. It was unreal. In all the years we've done this, I've never seen anything like it.

Unbeknownst to us, Wal-Mart opened at midnight -- without announcing it. So, all these people were there. They had sucked up most if not all of the sales merchandise, and they were already lined up to check out by 5 a.m. WHAT flippin' genius thought THIS sh*T up?!

Not only could you barely get through the store, finding a line, much less getting in one, was ridiculous. Then, of course, there was the wait. Exit store: 7:10 a.m. (About 90 minutes in line, including the Wii line.)

But I left the store -- without the mother. About 30 minutes into the line from hell, I told her to go sit on a bench toward the lawn center. I thought she'd try to find me before I had to go look for her. Guess again.

As I finally neared a checkout, still no mother. Once I checked out, I thought: Load the car. Then, find the mother. Before I could reach the car, my cell rang. It was the mother. A lady she was sitting with loaned her the phone. She told me where she was. I told her where I was: Go out to the front of the store. I'll come and pick you up.

I loaded the car and pulled out front. And waited. And waited. And waited. Then a cop showed up so I had to move. Now where the hell is she?

As it turned out, all she heard was "I'll come and pick you up." Not sure why that meant going back inside the store, but it did.

So, home at last, packages unloaded, mostly put away and with breakfast downed, it's off to nap. And later, maybe more shopping.

The Only One Awake

Or I was, until about five minutes ago. When Toby, who had been curled comfortably along the back of the sofa, just above the mother's head, sprang back into action.

The mother is asleep on the sofa. Ozzie is at the other end of the loveseat, snoozing big time. Now, Toby has returned to the livingroom and appears on his way to unconsciousness. I'm fighting the urge to join them.

I got all the food put away -- including carving up the turkey-- and made it through the first round of dishes. There's still a bit of clean-up to be done and I want to get that over with.

The mother has had coverage of Mumbai on all day which has made me crazy. They aren't saying anything new and they just keep saying the same thing over and over and over. I was able to convince her to switch it to the local news and now the nightly news is on. Believe it or not, it has given me reason to smile.

• In L. A., A man who was homeless 10 years ago, got friends to help him feed about 900 homeless.
• Soldiers from all over the country were reunited with their families. Those scenes are real tear-jerkers.
• Babies born today right in the metro St. Louis area got dressed in little turkey outfits. TOO cute!

I tried to spread the holiday cheer. I loaded a plate and took it over to S's apartment, only to find that she wasn't at home. That made me smile, too, because it meant maybe she wasn't alone after all.

Grateful

This D*mn House. Yes, I swear at it. I complain about it. Sometimes, I even dread dealing with it. But it's ours. Be it ever so humble, it's paid for -- at a time when so many people have lost or about to lose their homes. And many others never had one in the first place.

And I am grateful.

I am blessed to have people (including a few with fur) who love me. I have more than enough food to eat, plenty of clothes to wear and a good job that makes it all possible.

And I am grateful.

I whine and bitch and swear so much sometimes that you'd never think this was the case at all. Then something happens that jolts me into reality. It makes my complaints so petty.

Last week, I received an email from a social worker. One line burned itself into my psyche: Basics – a warm sweater, a new pillow, a warm blanket, are luxuries for so many. Some of the things that most of us take for granted, denied. For a handful of individuals, I have the opportunity to help remedy this, at least for a time.

And I am grateful.

On this, a day when we give thanks for having so many blessings in our own lives, I humbly ask you to not only remember those less fortunate, but to do something on their behalf. I know times are tough and it's hard to make the stretch.

I also know that so many of you have hearts more than large enough to accommodate such a gesture so you'll honor my request.

And I am grateful.

Have a wonderful and safe holiday weekend,

Grandma's Pie Plates

My grandmother … Seems she has been on my mind almost ceaselessly. I always think of her this time of year. How could I not? This was her time. The cooking. The decorating. The music. The presents. She loved it all. And made me love it, too. (The mother likes it, too. Just not the music.) I think these were all things instilled in her by her mother and grandmother.

And Thanksgiving dinner? It was her favorite meal.

So it only seems natural that she be top of mind as the mother and I prepare to bake some pumpkin pies. I got out her plates – like I do every year – and started setting out the ingredients earlier while the mother was on the phone with a friend. At least one of these plates has been in use for at least my entire life and maybe as much as a decade or two longer. The other was a replacement for one broken a few years before her death. (Which, as time passes, makes me a little paranoid as I use them each year. Even if they are just plain ole Pyrex, they're priceless to me.)

These days, the plates only get used at the holidays and only for pumpkin pies. During Gram’s time though, there was an occasional apple, but the cherry pie reigned supreme. She made them for me all the time. When we weren’t living with my grandparents and I would come to stay for the occasional weekend, she would call me up to tell me when she put the pie in the oven. One time, she did this on a Thursday night, the night before I would get there.

I spent that whole day at school thinking about that pie. When I got there that night, I was met by a very solemn grandmother and Young Tom, grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat. Why? HE ATE THE WHOLE PIE. The WHOLE pie. Not even a crumb left. (I told you that old man was mean. And that was him on a good day.)

So here they are again. The pie plates – just as empty as they were that Friday night so very long ago. I guess I’m going to have to go do something about that.

Here’s lookin’ at you, Gram.

Flippin’ the Bird

No, no, not that bird, silly! The 20+-pound Tom Turkey in my refrigerator.

He’s not quite thawed yet, damn him anyhow. So, I’m guessing he’ll need to spend an hour or two in cold water tomorrow morning to finish the job.

Mind you, I’m not a cook by any stretch of the imagination. (The mother kept threatening some years back to buy me a trivet that said: Martha doesn’t live here.) My only domestic quality: I live indoors. But somehow, the task of preparing Thanksgiving dinner has fallen to me during the past several years. I’m not sure how that happened exactly, but, except for wrestling with that stupid bird, I really don’t mind.

I’ve noticed on a lot of blogs that some of you are not only doing this for the first time this year, you’re also having guests. No pressure, right? My sympathies.

Luckily, it’ll just be the mother and I and I’ll have two adorable “helpers” underfoot (more widely known as Ozzie and Toby) at some point, especially as things begin cooking and the house begins to smell awesome. And all three furfiends will get a bit o’holiday fare once the meal is done. Just a little bit.

I’m trying to decide about whether to take a plate over to S tomorrow. My grocery companion and fellow commuter said last night that she was going to be home alone tomorrow. I invited her to join us since God knows we have way more than enough, but she politely declined. Not that I blame her. It isn’t like we’re great friends or even known each other very long even though we've ridden the bus together for years. It was probably awkward to her. It just seemed like the right thing to do though.

I don’t want to be insulting, or seem to suggest that maybe she’d be without food. I don’t think that’s the case at all. The idea of missing out on the annual traditional meal seems cruel though. But maybe she doesn’t even like it – I know many people don’t. So I’m conflicted about whether to try and take her something or not.

Be my barometer. Would that be friendly – or stepping out of bounds?

Yes, Virginia ...

My reward for coming in even earlier than early today is a beautiful sunrise. It's shaping up nicely with a multitude of shades of red, pink and purple. Alas, no camera.

It was a comforting sight after being a little freaked out driving across my beloved bridge this morning. Three people died there last night in a head-on collision. Makes me shiver to think of it.
On to happier thoughts .... I did, however, have a camera handy to capture the windows at Famous, er Macy's. (Old habits die hard.) The historic tradition that Famous-Barr had carried on for so many years before dying out sometime in the 1980s has been revived by Macy's. Animated windows tell the story of little Virginia O'Hanlon and her infamous letter questioning the existence of Santa Claus.

I can remember being very small and coming down here to see Santa Claus. Going around and looking at the first floor windows was just part of the adventure. Kudos to Macy's for bringing back this piece of nostalgia.

Here's some shots from the first window. I'm blown away by all the details.

A Different Surprise

The trees weren’t in place when I got home last night. So much for my surprise.

But wait -- the mother still had one in store, just not the one I thought. (I think I've just defined surprise, without really trying to.) Without thinking last Friday, she had initially told Lawrence to come back this Friday, which is, of course, Black Friday, the Superbowl of Shopping. (Which is what I immediately told her when she said this to me.)

All weekend she would offhandedly ask, “Well, what do we really need?” If I would say stuff, she’d inevitably ask, “Like what?”

The correct answer here is nothing. Not one single solitary thing do we need to go out after. But, ever since I’ve been able to do it, I have. (At the paper, we were never allowed to take off at the holidays due to shortened deadlines. At my current job, the day after Thanksgiving is a holiday.) I always thought people who went out in the early morning hours of the day after Thanksgiving were stark-raving loonies. After my first time or two out, and adding up how much additional money I saved, I stopped thinking that way.

There always seems to be something that we want to check out or buy. We always end up finding things we weren’t really looking for but at an incredible price. Or, an already purchased Christmas gift becomes a birthday present if we find something seasonal. Stuff like that mostly.

And for me, clothes. I can never find clothes. So, when I do find them, I buy them. It’s kind of like buying our own Christmas presents. That is always fun.

So all weekend the mother danced around the idea, backed away from it, and at one point, flat out said she wasn’t going. Bummer. What she didn’t know: I’m still going!

Then, last night, she casually says: “Lawrence is coming Saturday. I called him and told him that we were going shopping Friday because you want to shop on Black Friday.” (Yeah. Just me. I’m the only one interested in it. Uh-huh.)

I’ve been checking out Black Friday ads. There’s an awesome site, appropriately named BlackFriday.info that has a whole bunch of the sale ads for various stores on Friday.

This year, the sales start early. As in way earlier than I like. 5 a.m. is bad enough, and that’s standard for most years. This year? Kohl’s is opening at 4 a.m.! Unbelievable. Will we be there at 4? I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out.

But you know I'll end up at The Home Depot and/or Lowe's at some point, don't you? Game on.

Ghost of Thanksgivings Past

I was trying to remember my earliest memory of Thanksgiving growing up. Instead, all I could seem to come up with was a hodgepodge of celebrations all kind of slung together with no real ability to distinguish one from the other.

One thing I did realize, sadly, is that I can no longer hear my grandmother’s voice. I can still hear Young Tom to be sure, (if you ever knew Young Tom, you’d know why) but after 30 years, the sound of her voice has left me. Fortunately, my visions of her are as vivid as ever and the smells? Oh good Lord! I can smell homemade stuffing in the oven and sweet potatoes, too, as I type this. I can see the condensation that would build up on the double set of windows along the back of the kitchen when it was alive with all the activity.

And I remember a warmth to the room and that house that I’ve never really felt anywhere else. It wasn’t a feeling felt there often; Young Tom was too difficult a creature to allow that. And I remember absolutely no celebrations at all where I sat down to a Thanksgiving meal with just my parents . Strange, isn’t it?

I laughed last night when the weather report on the news triggered another Thanksgiving memory. Even when my parents weren’t together, and for years after their divorce, the mother retained some loose ties to his family and we would occasionally go there for the holiday. Thanksgiving 1980 was one such time. (And according to our local weathercaster, we saw a record high of 76 degrees on T’giving that year.) We were going to my aunt's. She was never much of a cook, so I was curious as to how this would play out. As one my cousins so eloquently put it, she knew two temperatures in cooking: High and Off.

We weren’t supposed to go there until late in the afternoon. But about mid morning, the phone rang. I heard the mother launch into a conversation about food preparation that finally ended with her asking: “Well, honey, why do you need to know all this? Where’s Aunt B?”

This caught my attention. “The hospital? What’s wrong?” This kept my attention and frightened me. “A snake? What do you mean? A snake?”

A what? While they lived in a semi-rural area, you don't expect snakes, especially not in late November! My aunt had apparently gone out on her back porch where the unseasonably warm temps had encouraged a snake to sun itself. Not expecting to find a snake there, and obviously not seeing it, my aunt stepped on the snake – who promptly bit her on the ankle

It was a non-poisonous snake as it turned out and my aunt was O.K. While she was at the hospital, my mom commandeered the kitchen, taking responsibility for dinner for God knows how many guests off the shoulders of my hapless cousins.

My uncle, long known for his dry sense of humor, had the line of the day which would become legendary amongst the family. Some hours after dinner and with everyone in something of a turkified coma state, he told my recuperating aunt:

“Damn, B. You’ll do anything to get out of cooking a meal.”

Trees?

With all the discussion about holiday decorations, the mother and I purchased two trees the other night.

They’re kind of sad little numbers. Martha Stewart 2-footers, sans lights. I think this picture pretty much says it all.

They were cheap. It was the fourth place we’d looked. And what would later blossom into the ear infection that kept me in bed most of the weekend, was rolling around in my gut. I just wanted to go home.

“Yeah, fine, whatever,” says I and nonchalantly tossed two of them into the cart.

I’m not entirely sure what the mother has cooked up for them. And I’m not sure if she was going to try to do anything with them today or not. While it was supposed to hit 50 again today, the wind was supposed to have been a little rowdy, gusting to around 30 mph.

So, I guess I’ll find out when I get home whether they have been placed or not. I’m going to get spoiled with these “surprise me” tactics of late!

Hooked on Books

Jayne over at Dainty Digs had this book meme last week that I thought sounded fun. So, while I was resting over the weekend – and as a reward for doing some of things I had to do online – I thought I’d play along.

Share seven random or weird book facts about yourself. Then tag seven other people. Notify the seven others that they have been tagged. Like Jayne, I’m not tagging anyone. If you’d like to play though, I’d love to hear your responses. Either comment here or link to your own blog entry.

My seven random or weird book facts:

1. I’ve always wanted to own a book store. Not of the Border’s or Barnes & Noble variety, though those are definitely welcome additions to culture. No. It would have to be part of an eclectic if not somewhat gritty neighborhood and be housed in a turn-of-the-century (or even older) building with original hardwood floors, gorgeous woodwork and molding throughout, that maybe needed a little extra attention. Just a little. No desire for it to be This D*mn Bookstore.
2. I often press flowers inside of my books, usually in between pages that have a passage or passages that I particularly like.
3. My grandmother used to read to me all the time. This is how I learned to read somewhere between ages 3 and 4.
4. One of my dearest friends (don’t worry, not naming you) clipped a copy of The Thornbirds from our high school library. It was eventually given to me for “safe-keeping.” I still have it.
5. I read Gone With the Wind when I was 9. That same year, I got to see the movie for the first time – in a theater. (It was the 35th anniversary of the movie.) I was floored that Scarlett’s son did not appear in the movie. (Melanie’s brother Charles left his war bride pregnant, at least in the book.) The mother argued with me on this point – only to have to take it all back.
6. The town librarian was like the Gestapo, regularly relegating me to the children’s library. (Most of which I’d read by age 7.) In fourth grade, they let me take a note from my mom to the librarian, giving me permission to read “grown-up” books. (That’s how I got my hands on Gone With the Wind.)
7. I’ve always loved classic literature and grew up adoring the likes of Shakespeare, Dickens, and Twain. The first “modern” author I fell for was Stephen King. I was barely 13 and pilfered ‘Salems’s Lot from my mother. We were preparing to move the week I started reading. As things started getting interesting, I was sleeping in a room with just a mattress and nothing on the elongated window in the corner. (It was an old house.) I stayed up all night on one of the last nights in the house because I swore I saw Danny Glick hovering outside my window.

All these years later, I still read King. I also love Dennis Lehane, Harlan Coben, Anne Rice, and Jonathan Kellerman. Out of the horror/mystery genre, I like Tom Robbins, John Irving, and Anne Tyler. Authors I read in college that stuck with me include Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, and Dorothy Parker.

Somehow, I made it to my 30s without being properly introduced to Jane Austen. A friend rectified that with the audio version of Sense and Sensibility. A few years later, my she-ro Emma Thompson got an Oscar for her screenplay adaptation of the book.

A few years after that, one of my young colleagues loaned me the A&E DVD of Pride and Prejudice, another book I enjoyed, which I've now seen about 20 times. Still need to finish reading the rest of Jane's collection.

Someday, when I have time to read books again ...

The Other Door

As I said yesterday, both doors got hardware makeovers. I didn't capture before shots of the back door. It probably has the most change. The back door is actually the house's original front door. I'm guessing the hardware is original, too. I'm not sure.

We've kept it. But the new stuff looks pretty good. See for yourself.

There's a little touch-up to be done as you might expect. But once that's done, it should look very nice indeed. The back door got a bell, too! And you know what, I haven't even rung it yet. I need to do that today!

The most important thing to be done: Switching out keys! And making spares. It would be really bad to leave the house, only to return home to try to get in using the old keys. Better do that now while I'm thinking about it!