This may come as a shock to most people but there is a part of me, an eensy-teensy part mind you, that is a complete and total tyrant. I like to call her Empress Chrissie or EC. You do not mess with EC. If you do, she starts muttering “off with your head” and looking at you with squinty eyes. It’s scary.

I don’t know why Empress Chrissie surfaces but there are times when things Must Be. Sometimes, I’ll be walking through my living room when suddenly, I realize that the couch Must Be moved to the other wall. Or that pair of boots Must Be purchased. Or the laundry Must Be warm before folding. It does no good to argue with Empress Chrissie. She cannot hear you and logic/reason bounce off her like rain on a duck.

So last night, I came home and decided our living room Must Be decorated. Poor Kevin walked into a flurry of puffy snowmen, tangled lights, and a very grumpry Empress. You see, we didn’t have enough Christmas lights. During my first Christmas away from home, I skipped into Fred Meyer and proceed to buy 4 packages of mini-lights. I didn’t stop to think about it, just grabbed four boxes and went home. Turns out, there are TWO kinds of minilights – lights on white cord and lights on green cord. Yup, you guessed it, I had bought white cord lights for the tree. So during my apartment years, my Christmas trees were strung with lights on white cord. It looked lame but I was too cheap/disgusted with myself to go buy more lights. Now that we are homeowners, those white corded lights work wonderfully for outside. But that means, no lights left for the Christmas tree.

So after dinner, Empress Chrissie sent Kevin on a quest. He had to buy three things. Candy canes (because I was running low), dishwasher detergent, and three boxes of minilights on a green cords. Kevin realized that this was a Must Be situation and did not argue. Instead, he quietly slipped out the door and braved the crowds at Fred Meyers.

Meanwhile, Empress Chrissie finished decorating and began the laborious process of wrapping presents. She was happily singing away to John Devnver and the Muppets when Kevin called with bad news. Fred Meyer had minilights but the colors were blue, green, and purple. Would that be OK? “No,” EC explained to Kevin, “the Christmas lights Must Be red, green, blue, yellow and white. Go to another store. Do not even think about coming home until you have found them.” EC returned to the curling of ribbon.

“I’m at Home Depot and all they have are strings of solid color lights” Kevin called in twenty minutes later. “That won’t work, will it?” he asked more dejected than hopeful. For Kevin knew this was a Must Be situation, and so he trudged to yet another store looking for red, green, blue, yellow and white minilights on a green cord two weeks before Christmas.

Empress Chrissie had wrapped quite a few presents and had moved on to Harry Connick’s Christmas CD by the time Kevin returned home from his quest. She opened the box of lights and pulled them out only to discover they were red, green, blue, orange, and pink. Orange and pink??? “KEVIN!” she called in her upset Empress voice “these are not right! They are orange and pink and they Must Be yellow and white!” Poor Kevin. All he wanted was to take his cold medicine and curl up on the sofa with his dog. He wanted to argue but knew the futility of trying to abort a Must Be. He stood frozen by indecision in the hallway. Should he tell EC to just deal with it? Should he try and put her off by promising to find the right lights later? Could he face another store mobbed with shoppers?

“See”, EC pulled the plug out and popped it into a socket “these are all wrong.” She turned to point to the offensive lights but stopped.

They were beautiful!!! “Perfect!” EC cried and Kevin let a sigh of relief. “Look honey, look how pretty the pink lights are!”

And with that, Empress Chrissie melted away and Kevin and I spent a very enjoyable evening wrapping presents and rocking out to the muppets.

Next on the list is the Christmas tree. It Must Be a douglas fir, freshly cut, no high than this and no wider that that. Don’t argue with me. It Must Be.

Sidewalk-Rain Right of Way Rules by Josh Rosenbaum…

It seems simple enough but you’d be surprised how few people follow them.

Example: Its raining out, there is an awning or eve or some other non rain soaked part of the sidewalk. If two people should meet on said sidewalk, right of way goes like this:

Person with Umbrella gets out of the way (as in into the rain) for Person with a rain coat.
Raincoats get out of the way for people with a Coat with hood.
Coat with hood gets out of the way for person with coat without hood.
Coat without hood gets out of the way for person with Sweatshirt
Sweatshirt gets out of the person without a sweatshirt or less and at this point the distinctions become moot.
Now there are all the little discrepancies that I’m sure you’d bring up, for example….
What if a person with a sweatshirt with a newspaper runs across a person with nothing except a shirt, but an umbrella? Of course Newspaper trumps because that person had to pay money for the newspaper which will be ruined if it gets wet, whereas all other articles clothing on umbrella person can be washed and dried and restored to proper working order.

What if two people wearing sweatshirts arrive at an eve at the same time…
Then you say it was fate and whoever backs down gets wet. At that point call of the wild takes over and you get to see who’s dominant.

So there you go.

I must say that I agree with Josh’s logic. I cannot count the number of times I have been walking under the eves only to get pushed out into the rain by some stupid person with an unbrella who won’t yield right-of-way. I mean, they have an umbrella for Pete’s sake! So Josh, consider your message posted my friend! Comments or feedback? Email me and let your voice be heard!!!

Last night I hung out with Kat. She got A&E’s Pride and Prejudice on DVD so I had to check out the never before scenes and the interviews and other goodies. After watching the ending, we both came to the conclusion that we had each married a Mr. Bingley. No doubt about it, our husbands were nice, smiley, simple folk without a dark or brooding bone in their bodies. Now we aren’t complaining mind you, but the Mr. Darcy is quite simply something else. Sigh.

While we were sipping tea and mimicking British accents, our other halves were at my house down in the basement concocting Kat’s Christmas present. Now, they were there fore three whole hours so when I returned, I expected this huge transformation. As it turns out, they only worked for about an hour. The rest of the time was spent eating pizza, download music, and wandering the isles of Fred Meyer.

I often joke that you could lock Josh and Kevin up in a empty cell with only a spoon and three toothpicks and they could happily amuse themselves for hours. Upon further reflecting, I’m going to have to amend that saying. I think they could actually amuse themselves for days.

It’s dark and pouring rain here. I still have all my Christmas cards to write, untold numbers of presents to wrap and an entire house to decorate and it’s already Thursday. Tis the season to be jolly, right? Right???? At least I have my blog back!

And we are back!!!

No more AT&T craziness. I decided to step boldly out onto my very own domain. And it only took me two days to figure out how to make this posting work. At this rate, everything should be back to normal around….oh….mid-July? But hey, it mine, all mine.

So may I welcome you to my little home on the Internet.

(Please wipe your feet before entering.)

Trying something new….

Still no luck on the website front. We have tracked the problem to AT&T – no big surprise there but the light at the end of the tunnel is looking dimmer and dimmer. Sigh.

This weekend when by far too quickly. My hours were whittled away circling parking lots and standing in cash register lines. The good news is, my gifts are 90% purchased. I may even be able to kick back and enjoy the holiday soon! Our lights are up but we are saving decorating the tree and house until next weekend when Kev’s mom comes down to visit.

Last year was our first Christmas in our little house and our first Christmas with Artie. We found the perfect tree, brought it home, and watched in horror as Artie pee’d on it. I’m hoping this isn’t his version of a Christmas tradition. Stupid dog. Good thing he’s so cute….