Chris, being braver than I, took a peek in at the damage. The plaster ceiling detached from the wood slats, which are otherwise sound and intact. And filthy filthy filthy filthy filthy.

So it's terrible but it's not as terrible as it could be. Nothing fell through--but then, there's nothing up there to fall, except pigeons.

There is a thick coating of dust on just about everything in the room. All our clothing will have to be washed or dry-cleaned and we'll have to vacuum the rug several times before we can shampoo it so as to avoid creating a swamp.

Then there are the books. Oh, God, the books, piled next to my side of the bed, along with several notebooks of partly completed work. Just the thought of going in there gives me a case of psychosomatic itching. I told Chris I won't let anyone go in there without masks and goggles, and I'm getting a heavy-duty vacuum cleaner. He's staunchly devoted to his 50-year-old Hoover; I told him he could keep it but I was getting sometihng from this century anyway.

And while I'm at it, I think I need some new clothes to wear while I'm washing every other item of clothing I own. Nothing extravagant--the Marie Curie Hospice shop on Green Lanes has some remarkably good things, nothing over £10.00, most of it half that.

It's just that the thought of cleaning everything up makes me feel exhausted before I even start.

I made cookies for people in my immediate vicinity but this year passed without me sendingg cards to ANYBODY. I am a bad monkey.

Despite this, in addition to the lovely

The bedroom ceiling could have collapsed a couple of hours later, while Chris and I were under it. Or the cat could have been lying on the bed, as she sometimes does.

And at least we're insured.

That's it for my looking on the bright side. The mess is unbelievable. We have closed the bedroom door to let the dust settle...all over our clothes...and books...and everything else in the room. This is heavy-duty dust--thick dirt that flies. We'll have to get masks before we go back in there.

There's nothing we can do about it tonight. And I mean nothing--we can't even go to bed. We'll have to sleep in the living room for a while.

I was planning to get some writing done and work part-time on clearing out the mess that has lingered since we finally got my mother to move out. Our house has been suffering from C.H.A.O.S.--Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome. You'd be surprised how fast that sort of thing can set in under adverse circumstances (well, some of you wouldn't)--like when a family member becomes too ill to work and you have to choose between paying work and housework. It's hard to dig out from under and work for a living at the same time. So my project for 2010 was finishing a novel and making our home livable again. Now that's changed to just trying not to get Black Lung. Or psitticosis--the icing on the cake is, there are pigeons under the eaves.

Meanwhile, Demi Moore is having a hissy fit because BoingBoing dared to notice her left hip might have been retouched on a fashion magazine cover. Wow, Demi, what a hard life you have. Even the normally feisty Xeni Jardin is trying to smoothe your poor ruffled feathers as a fellow techno-savvy hot babe. (Try not to worry about her too much, Xeni, I'm sure her health insurance will cover therapy if she needs it. And if not, she can still afford it. It's not like she's actually poor or the ceiling of her bedroom might fall in or anything.)

Yes, but as I've pointed out in the past, that's Ms. Bitch to you.

I hope everyone had a good Christmas holiday. I'm back at work, sort of. I have stuff to get done, but I'm planning on this being a light duty week before I hit the ground at full tilt next week. I proved to myself over the holiday that I'm not addicted to the Internet. I checked my e-mail on my parents' computer Thursday morning but otherwise haven't been online until this morning, and I never even took my laptop out of its bag.

The big news in this part of the world was that this area had its first white Christmas in about 80 years, with it snowing most of the day on Christmas Eve and the snow still on the ground for Christmas day.

However, I still have experienced only one white Christmas in my life, and this wasn't it because the storm fell apart before it made it a hundred miles farther east to where my parents live. My house got the white Christmas while I was gone.

We did get enough snow on Christmas Eve afternoon to get pretty swirling flakes blowing around (you may have to squint to see the snow in this picture), but it didn't stick since it was still above freezing.



The snow was pretty much gone by the time I got home, except for one patch to the side of my house. I took this picture right after I got home on Saturday, but it's still there (although a bit smaller). It's an area that doesn't get much sun, and I imagine that the drifts against the wall were pretty deep. That's the part of the yard I can see from my office window, so I can sit at my desk and see the snow. It's also what I can see through the slats of my patio fence from my kitchen window, so if the only window I look out is that one, it looks like the ground is covered in snow. We're supposed to get more snow tomorrow.




The one white Christmas I've ever had was when we lived in Oklahoma and it started snowing on Christmas Eve morning, and the snow was still around on Christmas. In Germany, we generally had snow most of the time between Thanksgiving and Easter, but it always melted a few days before Christmas and then didn't snow again until after Christmas, so we never actually had snow on Christmas. Oddly, while this was the first Christmas snowfall in the Dallas area since the 1920s, we've had several Easter snows in the past decade. I've had more white Easters than white Christmases (no real accumulation at Easter, but we have had flurries).

Other than the excitement of watching the Dallas news bulletins about the approaching snowstorm, it was a quiet Christmas. I got lots of warm, fuzzy stuff, including a proper "work" bathrobe that's gray and fuzzy and dignified and makes me look like a cast member in Doctor Zhivago, so I don't have to work in the fuzzy pink bathrobe. Plus, I got a stand for my electronic keyboard so I can make it act like a piano and maybe learn to really play it (true piano practice is a challenge when you're propping the keyboard up on a chair).

One of the great presents I got this Christmas came from Asimov's: they want to publish my SF poem "Religion is Canceled". Woot!

The inspiration for this was accidental. A friend of mine at Ferrum, Cerisse Smith, posted Religion is canceled as a status message on Facebook a few weeks ago, and in the few seconds it took me to realize she meant one of her classes, half the poem had unfolded itself in my head.

I hope everyone out there is having a great holiday season! As for me, I did--I got to spend three days and two nights with my sister, niece, and nephews, which was a great present in itself. Laurie gave me a Flight of the Conchords CD and a phaser. :) I'm also going to try getting back into the swing of regular writing and writing work over my Christmas Break--not just on The Great Valley but also finishing polishing The Matter of Camelot...and more entries here on Live Journal, while I'm at it.

OK, what do you suppose is the justification for this?

Theories are invited. Points for creativity and ingenuity. Of course, your prize is what the editor and authors get from this sale: nothing.

If anyone really feels the need to spend £740 (which is slightly over $1100US) on an easily available paperback, here's a better idea: go buy it from a struggling independent bookseller for cover price, then send the editor and 19 authors 1/20th of the rest--roughly £34 apiece.

Seriously: WTF?

http://www.cartoonlabs.com/comics/index.php?date=2009-12-28&show=sinfest

Sinfest
Tatsuya Ishida

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/sluggy_freelance/~3/14Haoh3Q0mk/COMIC091228

Ads by Project Wonderful! Your ad could be here, right now.

http://www.snopes.com/business/names/bvd.asp

Is men's underwear referred to as 'BVDs' because the term is an abbreviation of the phrase 'Boy's Ventilated Drawers'?

Cleaning your humidifier can be very satisfying.

I had to go to the store today to pick something up for a friend. It's my day off. What. A. Zoo. I am very glad I do not work sundays, because the place was crazy packed. I had trouble even getting to the product I needed. If I had to go to my own store, I would go on a weekday - sundays are tourist central.

Excited for the new year - it should be very nice indeed.

Tomorrow's gonna be a busy day. Shopping!

http://www.cartoonlabs.com/comics/index.php?date=2009-12-27&show=sinfest

Sinfest
Tatsuya Ishida

http://www.jonathancarroll.com/blog1/2009/12/carrollblog_1227_4.html

"Scheherazade was so wrong; she had it all backwards. For 1001 nights, she told her king new stories to keep him interested and spare her life. But men don’t want to hear stories-- they want to tell them. They want to talk; they want to hold the floor. Males want the world to listen to whatever it is they have to say. That was the single thing she learned from her dismal period of Internet dating—most men really only want to talk to someone who listens. Some want to download while others want your sympathy. Some want admiration but not as many as she had originally imagined. More often than not, men just want to tell you what they’re thinking or how they see the world. They prefer an appreciative audience but willingly settle for an attentive one. She realized after meeting so many men in a short period of time that the best way to start things going on a date was to give the guys a little verbal push and off they’d go—talking about themselves, their world, their take on things. If Scheherazade had done it right, all she’d have had to do was get her king talking about a subject that intrigued him and she wouldn’t have had to tell a new story every night for three years."

from a new short story to be published in May by CONJUNCTIONS magazine

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/medical/hearttransplant.asp

Texted exhortation claims the phone company will donate $2 for a baby girl's heart transplant every time the message is forwarded.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/sluggy_freelance/~3/7p3_8yMccXs/COMIC091227

Ads by Project Wonderful! Your ad could be here, right now.

We had a thoroughly enjoyable Christmas. Spent the Eve with my bro and his family and ate fettucine and lasagne and ice cream pie, and the next did a brunch with hubby's family and then a dinner with my sister's family (my folks were at all three). Mostly I ate a lot. And there was much paper ripping, laughter, conversation and teasing. It was just as it ought to be. Viggo is worrying me a littie because he's not wanting to eat, but his energy is up so I'll keep an eye on him.

The only major issue is that thing I had weeks ago is still making me fall into a coma sleep. Yesterday I dropped out for an hour at 1 in the afternoon, then again at 9. Just shut down. Today I gave in and just said it's coming, I'm going to bed. And the dogs jumped up with me and there was snoozing all around. I guess I just have to give into the idea that my body wants to recuperate from whatever it's recuperating from. I supposed it could also be the stress of the semester and all that we've been up to. *shrug* still don't like it.

We took a lovely long walk today on a geocache hunt and it was green and warm, though slightly overcast. Wasn't hungry at all today (imagine that). Oh, made rosemary rolls for dinner the other night. It grows outside here all year and mom has a huge mount of it in the front yard. Can was say I'm a tad envious? Sigh. But it was fun to bake.

I did go into one store today on account of getting some cold medicine for girly girl. She is scared to cough because a couple of times when she was sick awhile back she would induce vomiting by coughing hard. But she's got a chest cold and need to get it broken up. So I bought some stuff to help with that. They of course all had their Xmas stuff on sale and we did wander through but did not succumb. Though boy and girl wanted these hair antenna things that were antlers and candy canes and so on. But they wanted them for the dogs. So . . . no.

How was your last couple of days? I am still hoping to see SH and Avatar. So want to see them both.

Too many "posts" have run through my head but never escaped through my fingers to the keyboard. So many thoughts and rants I wanted to share (air is more true) and never made the time, but rather than backtrack I'll just vow to be a better LiveJournaler in 2010. 

This has been one of the best holiday seasons for me in years.  It's been a whirlwind of fun since Thanksgiving, and we're still going strong. There's another group dinner in the works for this evening, only this time my step-daughter is doing all the cooking (Caldo de Queso with tortillas) !!    Halleluiah ! 

This was the Christmas of few-to-no presents.  It's been all about spending time with friends and family and savoring the season.  We kicked off the season with three birthday celebrations in November, followed by a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner for nine: a combination of friends and family.  The kids (kids being in their 30s) who couldn't join us for the holiday meal came over the next day to help construct and setup the platform for our Christmas trains.  This is no small task.  The living room was re-arranged to accommodate the platform, which was custom made for us this year (Thanks Joe) with folding legs to enable us to get it into the house through the front door.

 

We've managed a relatively stress-free December, while somehow getting the house fully decorated, attending our two, annual business-related dress-up events and totally enjoying them, sharing several great meals with great people, and keeping up with our dance lessons.  My step-daughter arrived for Christmas with five dogs in tow (mine makes six in the house).  One is missing from this picture.
 

We took both the "girls" (step-daughter and step-DIL) to the studio for a dance lesson.  Then we got to video part of my step-daughter's first boxing lesson.  She kicked butt, big time!  I made my first-ever Yorkshire pudding for Christmas Day, and it came out great !  My husband and I got to ice skate for the first time in years at the company Christmas party.  The ice was artificial and felt a bit odd--but what the hell--it was "ice" and we live in Tucson.  We also got to slide down a man-made mountain of snow -- real snow, real cold, tons of fun.  We've watch movies,attended a performance of the Nutcracker ballet, turned decorating the tree into a party, and flown remote-controlled helicopters around the living room Christmas night.  It's been a blast. I hope we are setting the tone for 2010.

Happy New Year to Everyone.  Hope your holidays -- whatever you may celebrate -- were wonderful.  Plan to 'see' more of everyone in the new year.

moar funny pictures