Sleigh bells ring - are you listening?

What a beautiful (much more live-able) winter day in Philadelphia! Winter is the only time of year I can delude myself into thinking that cities aren't big havens for air pollution, noise pollution, light pollution,etc... For once, the air is crisp and clear - I can even see all the way across the street to the next high-rise building...

Although I really do miss my middle-of-nowhere roots of Clinton, MA, on days like today. We're so close to Christmas and the people of Philadelphia are as cheerless as ever. It's a wonder that they ever adopted City mottos of "The City of brotherly love" and now "The City that loves you back." It is such a visually and viscerally unappealing city.

Then again, nearly all cities are unappealing to me. Some day I'm going to have to find me a job out in the country, where I don't feel like I'm stuck in some dead-end waitressing job and where you can see all the stars at night.

Anthony is happier than a pig in guano (although "guano" is specifically from our winged friends, I would like to make some sort of leap in judgement here) now that he is back in rural Charlotte, NC - I got a phone call at 3AM in testament of that; he let me know that he could, "see all the stars in the sky - at least much more than in New York." Sometimes I am riddled with sheer amazement that he and I can have so many of the same characteristics at times - my first realization that I missed home is also when I get there and take a look at the sky. There's hardly any light pollution (comparatively) in my home town.

For that and so many other reasons I look forward to settling someday in a quiet, backwoods kind of area. Not Clinton, exactly, but somewhere not too far away from home, I think. With each passing year, I realize more and more that I would rather be closer to my family than not - even if we're not exactly of that family mold that MUST speak to one another at least five times a day...

So, like I said, Anthony is a pretty happy momma's boy right now, milking his homestay for all it's worth. He hasn't sounded this deliriously happy in a while...

A Note about Smokers...

Why is it that, even when it's between -5 and -15 degrees outside, smokers still line up in front of their office buildings to smoke? Sans gloves, sans hat, sans sanity...! Brrrrrrrrrrr!!!

Every mile is two in winter. - George Herbert (1593 - 1633)

Of course I would forget my hat - it's friggin' cold out there today!!! My weatherman says it's about 10 degrees outside, but it "feels like" -9. Yowsa!

I guess I wouldn't mind so much if at least it was snowing outside. All it did yesterday was rain, and now there's this cold front - but no snow! Excuse me, Mother Nature, but I would like to request a white Christmas please...

In other news...Anthony lived through The Muppet Christmas Carol, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas this weekend (with only a few complaints). That only leaves A Christmas Carol and It's a Wonderful Life, two Christmas classics that will have to wait until I get to North Carolina on Wednesday. (And he's also promised to go to the theatre for Polar Express... mwahahahahahaa!)

Of course, Anthony left for Charlotte yesterday at the crack of 8AM - he thought his flight was at noonish so we were very lucky to get him out the door on time for his much-earlier-than-noonish canceled flight. Oh yes, canceled. Just like the second flight on which he got rescheduled was canceled. But fear not!, the third time's the charm... He actually made it into Charlotte only about an hour later than originally planned. Lucky dog!

I have nothing else to report, as I managed to completely miss Jimmy's annual Christmas party (sorry babe!), so I will wander off into my own little Office Space...

Kitty STDs

It appears that my friend Andrew got his panties in a tizzy over the mention of feline Chlamydia from my last post. While I amuse myself greatly by calling Otto "Chlamydia face," feline Chlamydia is actually only a form of conjunctivitis. It is not an STD. Otto's sexual function has long since been taken away...

Cat Update

So, "little kitty, big balls" (as Anne has kindly named the stray due to his not being neutered yet) and Gunner are duking it out for the right to be King. They have now crapped on the bathroom floor, on the rug outside of the bathroom, pissed on Ada's skirt, sprayed the entrance carpeting, and peed in my basket of scarves. That is on top of "little kitty, big balls" giving Otto Chlamydia and him and Gunner being treated for upper repiratory problems. You would think that soemone's head would explode (i.e. "someone" = me), but so far I've taken it very well, I think.

I used to live in Vincent's house on 13th Street, which, if none of you visited or remember, used to be the kitty pee mecca of the Western world. Before I had even moved in, Daisy had a UTI which caused her to piddle everywhere except in the litter box. Vince never had the carpets cleaned, so that meant that Daisy and Chi-Chi (once he moved in) urinated wherever they felt like it, because the whole house smelled like a litter box.

And I can see the two-story apartment as litterbox theory emerging here, but my hopes are up. It looks as though "little kitty, big balls" will be heading off into the great wide yonder on Friday. Vandra has agreed to adopt him and as the medication is running down for the respiratory problems, it's time to say goodbye. So, very much like the children in The Sound of Music, I will sing chorus after chorus of, "So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, good night..."

And where is my Christmas spirit, you ask? Well, my friends, it seems to have dimmed somewhat when I looked at the temperature today and discovered that it was 17 degrees outside and most of my scarves now smell like cat piss. (Oh, what is that you say? You hear that can put a damper on things...? How right you are!)

In other news, Anthony will be here to regale me with his presence tomorrow. We have a whole day and a half to watch all the Christmas movies he can stand! He promises to be enthusiastic, but he may be looking for the nearest exit after several versions of The Christmas Carol... mwahahahahahahahahahaaaa!

I can't believe it's only Wednesday.

Yesterday I bought a humidifier for George (a.k.a. simple house plant that Ryan feels the need to name - "I'm gonna love him and hug him and name him George," says the Abominable Snowman to Bugs Bunny in Looney Toons) and it turns out that I bought a cool mist humidifier. So what that means to me is that my room is now about the same temperature as it is outside, replete with the requisite breeze from the little fan on top of the filter. Oh, and the outside temperature? A whopping 35 degrees (Fahrenheit), although with the 14mph winds it feels like 26 (or so says my weather webpage).

On top of that, I purchased a string of Christmas lights for George, and after dropping a few branches - which by the way will never grow back - it now looks like I've strangled the poor thing. What a loving plant mommy I turned out to be.

So on Friday Anthony no longer gets to enjoy a nice evening of peace and comfort in the warm throes of my orange room. Instead he gets to have his nether regions turn into icicles whilst he unplugs the stupid humidifier and drags it back to CVS to exchange it for a warm mist model. And he also gets to help me get my Christmas ornaments and the like out of storage, and drop off a bunch of Vincent's things at the house on 13th Street. And he even gets to take me grocery shopping! Will the fun never end???

Christmas is coming...
Christmas is coming
The goose is getting fat
Please to put a penny in the old man's hat
If you haven't got a penny
A ha'penny will do
If you haven't got a ha'penny
God bless you...


So, we're ringing in the new round of holidays with songs from seasons past. I distinctly remember all the words to this song (above), despite the fact that the last time I sang it in concert was sometime in middle school.

Anyway.

As of today, I am completely finished with Christmas shopping and am on to Christmas wrapping. My family's gifts were all delivered by Thanksgiving, but it is the rest of you schmucks that took all this time to buy for. Well, actually, it isn't really so much your fault as it is the fault of the system that keeps me employed, but only pays me enough to barely cover my credit card bill these days. I now have to space out my holiday spending...which is something I don't think I have had to do since I was young, maybe even too young to remember.

Although I did finally get a tree, my friends. With all of Vincent's former rants about live Christmas trees being a terrible thing, and Anthony and Corinne's "Bah Humbug!" spirit, I bought a Norfolk Island Pine yesterday. These trees are native to Austrailia and New Zealand, and in their home environment grow to be about 100 feet tall. However, when kept as indoor trees in a planter, they grow to about 6 feet. My tree, George, is currently a 2 1/2 foot wonder. Today I plan on getting him a humidifier and some Christmas lights. He will be beautiful...!

Last night I also initiated my kind of Christmas season by watching the first of a whole series of Christmas movies! Vincent dropped off some CDs for me while he was in town and I talked him into a little bit of Frosty the Snowman. So I have had a half-hour taste of what my holidays will be like... Anthony, watch out! You are in for a whole slew of movies...Muppet Christmas Carol, A Christmas Carol with George C. Scott, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas, It's a Wonderful Life....all the Ryan-proof classics. And now that he has a cold (although he will insist he is well), I will be forcing him to sit down, relax, and do nothing but eat, drink, watch movies and be merry like Christmas!!!!