Catch you on the flip side

The Minotaur and I are heading off to Mt. Olympus with the Kraken in tow, and won't be back until the New Year. I hope that everyone gets something they wanted for the holidays this year, and that when I return I'll have lots of good stories to read (and tell).

Be well.

House

Do any of the rest of you watch that show? I admit myself completely addicted to a television experience, for the first time since the last of the Joss Whedon shows went off the air. Not since Archie Bunker has a character been so reprehensible and still so very appealing. My Friday nights consist of 4 hours of Netflix viewing, shamelessly lounging on the sofa. I look forward to it all. week. long.

One week before we start the whirlwind holiday tour of family and friends. (I think) I am almost ready.

The holidays have swallowed me whole

And I'm not even one of those people like my cousin Euridice, who sends out little care packages to everyone in the frickin' family every year with random assorted holiday goodies. I mean, good grief - the woman is so together she makes me look like a slovenly slobbering slattern slouched on the sofa.

Despite my only marginal efforts towards contributing to the holiday spirit of others, I find myself overwhelmed with a personal to do list that rivals the one I normally carry at the office.

1. The Minotaur signed us up to bake cookies for the Kraken's preschool.
2. I need to do some kind of holiday baking for people at said office.
3. I have to pick up the Kraken's 2 year photos from the studio, frame them, wrap them, and get them off in the mail, masquerading as Christmas presents.
4. I actually DID holiday cards this year, complete with picture of the Kraken. A miracle to rival a virgin birth. Nevertheless, they just won't go on and mail themselves.
5. I have random goodies to make for the Kraken's teachers to go in their holiday bags. My newest hobby (of about a year now) is making beauty products, and really, who complains about beauty products?
6. I have boxes to pack up and ship to at least three more locations.
7. I need to write up instructions for SugarMama so that when she enters my abode while I'm gone the police won't come arrest her for setting off the burglar alarm.

Sheesh. When is a Gorgon supposed to do her roots so the snakes will be all one color again?

Bummer

Man, nothing puts a damper on your holiday spirit like a big batch of gingerbread cookie dough sticking resolutely to your countertop instead of rolling smoothly out for cutting. Eh. At least I think that means I get to eat the dough.

December 9th already. Doesn't seem possible that this year has gone as quickly as it has. Or that I have only two more weeks before heading out to see extended family for the holidays. I just love spending hours on the plane with a 2 year Kraken. Hopefully she will at least keep her frustrations in our aisle - on a recent long car trip she grew so frustrated with being contained that the minute she was freed from the vehicle, she took a swipe at a passing waitress, probably guaranteeing that someone in the kitchen spit in our food.

Overall I feel very prepared. A few odds and ends left to buy, some boxes to mail, but otherwise I am completely done with shopping and associated craft projects. This year saw an uptick in our usual decorating level, what with the Kraken being old enough to notice and all. The Minotaur could not give one rat's posterior whether or not I even put up a tree, but is smart enough to keep his mouth shut about it. And the effect all the Christmas bling is having on the Kraken is well worth the annoyance of lugging all this crap out of boxes in the garage, and knowing that just a few short weeks will find me lugging it all back OUT to the garage after it's all over. Wouldn't it really just be better if we had press on walls, and we could just stick the Christmas one over the real one and then take it off after the holidays? I would enjoy that. Also, I thought we were all supposed to have hovercrafts and transporters by now anyway - expectations for this century were clearly set inappropriately. All I've got is a lousy robot vacuum, and she won't even feed the cats.

Random Wednesday Musings (it is Wednesday, isn't it?)

So. Why would a child who has been in a listless puddle on the sofa all morning, plucking at her toy necklace and drinking from the proferred cup only when a Momma Gorgon begs, suddenly at naptime summon the energy to pound the walls loudly enough to be heard in the driveway, while singing "Gabba Gabba Hey" at the top of her lungs?

Any ideas from the parenting world?

I'm at home this morning, obviously. The Minotaur is going to take the afternoon shift. The dreaded pus filled ear has struck again. Guess those tubes aren't working so well after a year, huh? At least the decongestant the doc started her on finally seems to have kicked in last night, meaning that she did NOT wake sobbing every 20 minutes like she did the two previous nights.

Ack!

Gorgons are terrible multitaskers. I completely forgot when I started this post that I had pine nuts toasting on the stove. Fortunately, no fire to speak of, and they're not even that burnt.

I feel horribly out of touch lately. Christmas is taking up more of my brain than I can usually allocate to anything, and the Kraken's unexpected illness isn't helping either. I feel like I can barely manage to get my teeth brushed, my shoes put on, and enough product in my hair to keep it from looking like a duck's hindquarters. And yes, for those of you who know me in the real world, I am self-aware enough to know that my standards for staying ahead are just short of ridiculous. However, I am compulsive enough to not be able to actually do anything about that. So, I am living in a strange state of suspended anxiety, as I recognize that I'm trying to do too much, but unable to quell the desire to do so.

I think that kid is building a hydrogen bomb up there. She's in a stinking crib, for pity's sake. What in the world can all that thumping be? It's not like we put 2 by 4's in easy reach of the slats........

Let the battle commence

The Minotaur and I are, at this very moment, engaged in ferocious but silent combat. Who will be the one to put the pizza away and unload the dishwasher?

I can tell you who will win. What good is a bull's torso against snakes that can turn you to stone? I mean really.

'Tis the Season

I effing love Christmas.

Which is a little ridiculous, when you think about my punk rock/new wave/death rock background, and the decided lack of any kind of organized religion in my household as a child. But my love of Christmas cannot be denied.

I love the smells. Cookies in the oven, pine needles in the living room, tape, and wrapping paper.

I love the sounds. Bells, music, the voices of small children piped into every speaker in every mall in America.

I love the anticipation. I still believe in Santa. I'm almost 40 years old. Of course, I'm also not completely stupid. The Queen Gorgon has told me any number of times that as soon as I stop believing, Santa stops coming, and I am not one to tug on Superman's cape.

I do not love the fact that the Christmas decorations go up in the stores before the Halloween clearance racks are emptied. I do not love the crush and throng in every store that starts in mid-November. But I do love to watch the old shows that I watched as a child. I love hearing the Kraken say "Ho, ho, ho, Santa's coming", and knowing that for her, Santa is as real as Dora or Elmo, or Mommy.

I love to sit on the floor and wrap presents, while A Charlie Brown Christmas plays softly in the background, in the soft haze of the blue and white lights on my Christmas tree. I love to put bows on the cat and watch him try to shake them off.

I love to take out the ornaments I made as a child. I love to remember those sleepless Christmas Eves, and those early, early Christmas mornings. I still wake before 6 on Christmas Day, and I hope I always will.

Most of all, I love to listen to the Muppets Christmas album, made with John Denver, when I was still so very young. No other listening experience can fill me with such warmth, such comfort, and such intrinsic faith in humanity. It reminds me who I could have been, and maybe who I could still be, through the eyes of my daughter. That maybe I don't have to be so cynical. That if I turn off the news, maybe it just doesn't happen.

And so I hang garlands on my door. And lights in my trees. And hope in my heart for peace on earth, and good will towards everyone.

I hope everyone had as fine a day as I did. The Minotaur got a raise at work, in recognition of his most excellent guarding of the labyrinth. The Kraken overturned only one ship, and all the passengers were rescued by a passing Coast Guard ship. And it is Friday. And it is almost Christmas.

Wacky Wednesday

A stolen moment on a Wednesday night. The Kraken has gone on a playdate with her daddy, and while the monsters are away, the Gorgon will play. Heh.

In truth, a veritable gaggle of people are wending their way to my door as we speak for a Wednesday night potluck extravaganza. Wahoo for having an actual life!

The dawn of a new era

Yes, it's finally happened. I am blogging while the Kraken is awake. Lo, not even just awake, but awake and in the same room with me. While the Minotaur sleeps. I have been allowed, for the first time in two years, to access the dread computer uninterrupted during the Kraken's waking hours, without fear of reprisal, or of office supplies being summarily hurled across the room.

What could have brought about such a startling turn of events, one might ask? Yesterday afternoon, the Minotaur and I took down the gate that has ever separated the living room/kitchen area from the rest of the downstairs. This necessitated some rearranging, of course, and the removal of many choice items to the upstairs spare room closet, but overall I think we're mostly safe now. She doesn't seem to have too much interest anymore in plunging her hands into the cat box, which was the primary reason for gating off this area in the first place. She has spent the better part of the last hour careening crazily around the downstairs, reveling in the extra room to stretch her tentacles. And the allure of the fish tank is worth ten minutes of blogging all by itself.

Aside from my pleasure at being able to take five minutes to myself during an era that has otherwise seen this poor Gorgon on the floor with a lap full of Kraken whenever she has tried to do anything productive, like, say, use the bathroom, I am also quite happy to have my house not be quite so segmented anymore. Having the downstairs opened up again suddenly makes the house seem more spacious and luxurious, which is really stupid, considering that it was all. here. before, and all I had to do was step over a gate.

Now, if we can just figure out a place to put the cat box other than the front hall coat closet, and a place to put the Kraken's potty other than the middle of the living floor, I will finally start to feel like this is my house again.

Just in time to start trying to get pregnant again next year.

The day after Thanksgiving

There is something fundamentally wrong with eating Halloween candy while wrapping Christmas presents.

And yet, if I don't get the rest of that candy out of the way, where am I going to put the Christmas snacks?