{"id":1249,"date":"2008-12-23T11:10:07","date_gmt":"2008-12-23T18:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=1249"},"modified":"2008-12-27T08:22:27","modified_gmt":"2008-12-27T15:22:27","slug":"getting-ready-for-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=1249","title":{"rendered":"Getting Ready for Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sorry for my spotty posting of late.\u00a0 A head cold has rendered me spacey . . . I sit down to blog and wind up playing flash games.\u00a0 For hours.<\/p>\n

Donna gets spacey, too, especially when she goes shopping.\u00a0 My Christmas shopping is done and I have zero desire to mingle with crowds again, but when Donna asks me to go with her I say yes . . . she does everything for me; it’s the least I can do for her.\u00a0 Two days ago we head out to mail a package to the kids.\u00a0 On the way home, out of the clear blue sky, Donna says “Oh, let’s go into that store,” forcing me to cut across three lanes of busy traffic to make the entrance, and once we’re inside, she wanders around like a pod person from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, eyes glazed, mouth open.\u00a0 I’m thinking “God who is this woman and what is wrong with her?” and suddenly Donna says, “There it is!” and there it is indeed: the exact piece of furniture we’ve been looking for since Thanksgiving 2007, a console to go under our flat screen television.\u00a0 And it’s on sale!<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The console that spoke to Donna<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When I space out there’s no ESP involved; for a fortnight I’ve been a vegetable, a runny-nosed potato.\u00a0 I’m ashamed of myself.\u00a0 So today, on the eve of Christmas Eve, I’m forcing myself out the door: first for a badly-needed haircut, then to shop for tomorrow night’s dinner.\u00a0 We’re having friends over, but not, as in previous years, to help us trim the tree . . . we’re hanging ornaments ourselves, today, so we can relax with our company tomorrow night.\u00a0 I’ll be cooking a pot of clam chowder, boiling shrimp in beer and crab boil seasoning, and baking cheddar cheese biscuits.\u00a0 Our daughter will be here too, and we’re looking forward to a good but non-extravagant Christmas, head cold be damned.<\/p>\n

Our poor dog Schatzi fractured one of her upper molars chewing on a too-hard toy.\u00a0 The tooth is now extracted, but of course Schatzi had to be anesthetized for the procedure, always a worrisome thing.\u00a0 She suffered for a couple of days but is fine now, and I’ve tossed out the hard toys.\u00a0 Dachshunds are determined, single-minded chewers.\u00a0 It’s a trick finding the right toys: hard enough to be indestructible, not so hard she’ll break her teeth on them.\u00a0 Maybe I’ll stop by the feed store while I’m out today and pick her up a new toy for Christmas.<\/p>\n

And now, before I succumb to the temptation to play Bubble Spinner, I’ll push away from the desk and go get that haircut.\u00a0 Merry Christmas, everyone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sorry for my spotty posting of late.\u00a0 A head cold has rendered me spacey . . . I sit down to blog and wind up playing flash games.\u00a0 For hours. Donna gets spacey, too, especially when she goes shopping.\u00a0 My Christmas shopping is done and I have zero desire to mingle with crowds again, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1249"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1251,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1249\/revisions\/1251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}