Happy Birthday Mom!

While you are all out celebrating tonight, drink a toast to my mom, and wish her a happy birthday. Your present is on the way, I finally got the whole box together and shipped it to your address.

Love to you from Alaska

Tucum Saves Christmas

Smokey and I had a low-key Christmas this year. We decided to revive a tradition from his childhood and we started out Christmas morning by singing happy birthday to Jesus and eating donuts.

While it's hard to top that kind of a start to the day, we actually had stockings this year and a fireplace to put them by, so a big improvement over last year.




One thing that hasn't changed: bearcat. She knows those boxes Mom sends are full of stuff for her. And Frog staked out the new bag of catnip approximately two seconds after I brought it home last week.

The other half of the box contents are for these beasts. They only get one new soft toy per year now because that's as often as I feel like throwing my money away and cleaning up after them. Percy is the queen of rip and tear.

This year, it was an armadillo. Look close because in less than 20 minutes Percy had an ear ripped off. Tatonka was content to just carry it around.

We now refer to the living room as the cat play room. Oh yeah, we got presents too. Smokey got ice climbing/mountaineering gear among other things. And I got running shoes and a jacket.
We took the dogs for a walk through the park after presents. And we got a Christmas miracle. An ice cleat Smokey lost last week was sitting on a post. Then the miracle was balanced out by the truck not starting when we decided to go see Sherlock Holmes. We couldn't even jump it. So we took the trusty Tucumcari out of winter storage and transfered the skis and went to town. Never again will I go see a movie on Christmas. It was sold out. And so was the next showing. So we bought tickets for the next available showing and went skiing. Then we stuffed ourselves with theater food.

Annual Haircut

Two days before Christmas I got my annual haircut and donated another bundle to Locks of Love. She didn't go quite as short as I thought she might and I think I like it. No more being trapped in bed because my cat is laying on my hair on my pillow.

Fun for Cheap

I don't know how it's possible, but it's past 9AM and I just realized it's still dark outside. And I need coffee. Coffee is a great gift when you've stayed up too late, like a silly school girl. Except I wasn't watching TV or doing homework or even talking on the phone. No, I decided that I had some 'extra' time and volunteered to help J-Bomb with a tiling project. She's in a major home renovation time crunch as she is departing the country shortly for a very cool job somewhere where healthcare is not such a big deal.

And a very entertaining evening it was. K-Bomb and one of his kittehs were the only ones to take notice of my arrival. Eventually, Smnt, J-Bomb's imported new squeeze, finished cutting tile in the garage and on his way to deliver said tile for installation he noticed K-Bomb's interest in the front door. See how handy it is to have a search dog in your life? They are very intuitive.

Though I came dressed to get dirty, I was designated the 'clean' person and my main duty was to keep kittehs and mournful looking doggies out of the workspace. I also proved to be handy at sweeping floors, adjusting lights, and eating cheesecake. Damn good cheesecake. Smnt's baking skills possibly rival my own. Very impressive.

While I planned to return home to finish an assignment due today, I found the tiling work so mesmerizing that I couldn't leave until it was done. Also, I think J-Bomb would not have appreciated the cheerleader leaving in the fourth quarter. The floor looks great and will be ready for grouting tonight. Too bad I've got class tonight. But I know who I'm going to call when I have a need to retile something.