They're Not Dots, They're Ornaments

I really need to start making an effort to get up earlier. Daylight is at a premium these days anyway, with the shortest day of the year coming up and all, but I'm shorting myself a good hour, hour-and-a-half of daylight every day by not getting up earlier. When you're only getting about seven hours of daylight a day anyway, every minute counts. This could account for my general sluggishness and the inability to do anything that requires me to concentrate for more than...oh...ten minutes.

And this could account for why you're getting a bulleted list today.

• I want this book. I want it badly. Darling Mollie informed me of its existence and told me she wants a Mr. T doll and said "I pity the knitter!". How can I deny her now?
  
  
• And when Darling Mollie and I aren't discussing knitting and large, gold chain wearing pop icons, we discuss things like whether Santa was an asshole. We voted that in this case, he certainly was. I watched that Christmas special every year when I was a child. I'm so old that it was one of the five Christmas specials one had to watch every year 'cause those five were pretty much it: Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Frosty the Snowman, and A Charlie Brown Christmas. Anyway, it's a wonder that repeated viewings of Rudolph didn't put me off of Santa permanently.
  
  
• About six months ago my MIL bought a new cordless phone and we bought one at the same time. She bought a Siemens and we bought an AEG. We loved ours and she hated hers so for one of her Christmas gifts B and I decided to buy my MIL one just like ours. We bought it about a month ago - too late to take back 'cause in the land that's never heard of customer service Germany you can't just take back things whenever you want. In this case we had two weeks to return it. But that doesn't matter because we don't need to take it back, right? Of course that's not right! My MIL called last night to say that Gerd bought her a phone just like ours for Christmas and gave it to her early. Well Merry Christmas, fella. Thanks for throwing yet another monkey wrench into the works. And hey, that's an all-fired romantic gift ya got her there!
  
  
• I think I've stated before here that I have a tradition each holiday season where I read two books. The first one is The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. I first read it in 1975 when I was thirteen years old, re-read it in 1978 and have re-read it each year ever since. I love this book and I started the annual holiday re-read by accident. The first time was coincidence that it was during the same season as the setting in the book. The second year was because I had run out of books to read and wasn't going to get new ones before Christmas so I read it again. After that it became a tradition with me to re-read it each year between Thanksgiving and the middle of December. The other tradition is for me to find a mystery series where one of the books takes place during the holiday season and read it then. Just like watching Christmas movies only at Christmastime it just seems right for me to read books that take place during Christmas during that season. A Christmas themed book in May just seems wrong. This year's mystery series read is Wreck the Halls by Sarah Graves. I think she writes one of the best mystery series out there and she actually makes living in Maine sound like something I'd want to do - that is until I remember that if it snows more than an inch I cry like a slapped child.
  
  
• When the sun begins to set I like to sit up in my kitchen window and watch my favorite holiday season sport - Jockeying For A Parking Space. As you know I live not 300 meters from the Christmas market and parking in this area is at a premium. It's why I won't, for any reason except an extreme emergency, move my car any time after noon, else I won't have a spot for it when I get back. Folks ride up and down the street looking for a spot to dump their VWs or their Renaults and after a while they get mighty testy. I sit there and wonder things like "Is the guy who parked crooked going to have someone key the shit out of his door?" and "Can she get that big ass Mercedes parked next to that big ass van?" or "Who's gonna nab that space - the Ford facing north or the Audi facing south?". No actual fisticuffs yet but Christmas is still a couple weeks away.
  

Now I'm in the mood to watch some Christmas movies. Maybe we'll talk about those tomorrow.