Dec
20
So. Today I’ve had two fairly surreal things happen.
1. I glanced the back window, to see our wonderful neighbour, a woman of about my age, hanging in an evergreen tree in the conservation area behind the house. (Upon investigation, I learned she was hanging Christmas lights. But still.)
2. I got an email from Death. It was in my spam folder, but there it is. From: Death. I haven’t been so surprised since the Pope emailed me and advised me to enhance my penis size.
Some days, I am considering taking up drinking in the morning.
Dec
20
We can’t wait. The wedding’s in half an hour. We must strike in the hustle and the bustle beforehand.
~ Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride
Impending events bring out the worst in me. I rush around like a chicken with my head cut off (although spurting slightly less blood everywhere, obviously) in fifteen different directions at once, getting nothing done. So you should see me in a holiday SEASON, like now. I’m the poster child for stressed and manic.
I try to get everyone’s presents ready well in advance to avoid just such a scene. And yet, there’s always something that intervenes, so the night before we are to deliver packages I am rushing to get a card written, a package prepared, cookies baked… I DO try to be organized and efficient.
The other day, we were scrambling to get the house clean in time for the cat sitters to come, so that we would a) have a clean house when strangers came in, and 2) not have to clean before we left for holidays. So I am running around in bad floral pyjamas, huffing and puffing like an asthmatic freight train, stressed like some crazed elf pulling an all nighter on Dec 23rd. I’m sweeping and vacuuming and cleaning the sink. I washed the coffeemaker, for the love of doG. All to impress the cat sitter. Meanwhile, BDH is gently tidying up in the attic, where we plan to meet these people. I hear him shredding individual sheets of paper. He’s not stressed.
The fact that we’re heading out to visit the folks for a week starting tomorrow means added hustle and bustle, because now we have to not only clean and prepare, but pack as well. And we can’t just go happily away without complication… oh no. We’ve got a cat in hospital so we have decisions about her care to make. We’ve got packages of Xmas cookies to deliver. We’ve got to visit our cat a couple of times before we get picked up tomorrow. We have calls to make and emails full of best wishes to send. And the whole time, what am I doing? Fretting, for the most part. Worrying about Opus and our finances and my nervousness about flying tomorrow. So then, running around AND fretting. THAT’s productive.
I know, when push comes to shove, that ultimately I reach a point and just give up. The fretting and the running around are done and I refuse to do any more and the holiday has begun. But this year, it doesn’t seem like that day will come for us. Not until about mid-January.
