Ups and Downs

Congress is finally gone. Work is about to slow to a crawl. Maybe I'll get some projects done. Maybe I'll get some blog posts posted. Maybe I'll ... who am I kidding? I'll sink into a brain coma and come out around Jan. 14.

But before I do, I owe a shoutout to Lori, whose comments I read all the time, but it always seems to be when I'm checking email before dashing out the door and not in a place where I can say anything back.  :)

Right now, I'm trying to figure out why we came home last night to find our Christmas tree lying on its side on the floor. (And strangely, if you Google the phrase "Christmas tree fell over," you get something like 295,000 hits. I suppose now it will be 295,001.)

I'm not sure what happened, obviously, since we weren't home. Several friends suspect it was our cat, and I'm inclined to agree, except this cat is 10 years old, and in 10 years she has never once shown any interest in Christmas trees except to sleep underneath them, presumably because it is warm thanks to all those glowlights. And the tree was listing a bit from the day we set it up ... but ... ???

The YP, of course, was the first to discover this tragedy.  It was kind of funny, actually, because he always goes tearing into the house ahead of NYAB and myself.  Last night, we'd also had dinner at the Cheddar House (NYAB's name for the Cracker Barrel, and no, I don't remember why, but it doesn't make any less sense than the YP requesting to have dinner at "Pancakes!" -- the exclamation point is not optional...) so we got home a bit later than usual. The YP roared off through the garage, threw open the door and scampered into the darkness while I was disgorging coats, laptops, purses, backpacks, bleeblah, from the car.  Next thing I know, he is back at the door and in a quaveringly urgent voice bordering on hysteria he says, "Mama! Dadddy! You MUST COME HERE NOW!! IT IS AN EMERGENCY!!"

Well, come on. Really? An emergency? Is the cat dead?

"NO! THE TREE IS ALL FALLING OVER AND DOWN ON THE FLOOR! COME QUICK NOW!"

Whaaat? Well, sure enough, it had. So the boys fed the cat and got ready for bed and stayed out of the living room while I righted the tree (now it lists toward the wall instead of toward the couch,) and picked up some bits of shattered ornaments (surprisingly few, and all of them fairly cheap,) and vacuumed the rest of the glass and tried to determine if the water from the tree stand had completely ruined any gifts (in fact, as far as I know, it didn't even remotely damage any, though some of the wrapping paper is a bit worse for wear,) and then we went about re-decorating the tree with the ornaments that had fallen off but not broken.

I think the funniest part was that I was convinced the YP sounded tremulous because he was sure we were going to blame him for it, whereas NYAB was pretty sure he was just flat-out traumatized. 

To get over it, we all watched the end of a Rudolph special (not THE Rudolph special, some bizarro sequel involving a trashed teddy bear -- oops! I gave it all away! -- and a hippo named Queen Camilla.)

Tonight we are going out for pizza.  I wonder what we will find when we get home.

Tomorrow, I am working from home, just to be safe. 

Comments

[Lori]

Thanks for mentioning me. That makes me feel special. And you included a link to my blog so maybe the cool people that read your blog will read mine as well. Any takers..?

I know what he means though. I would be so afraid of getting blamed for it. My dad and I have a pact that if the dog dies and either of us is the first to discover it, we leave. This is to avoid being blamed. It's logical.

At least you were able to clean it up and no calamity happened because of it...

[maliavale]

Working from home sounds infinitely wise, on any day.