correction

i've been informed that she meant to say "eat" instead ...

merry, merry, merry

... and as we all know, it's just not christmas until, over a game of cards, your aunt tells your grandmother to "bite me."

happy holidays!

my christmas letter

dear friends, family, and random internet people who must have taken a wrong turn,

guess what? you're not getting a christmas card this year. this shouldn't come as too much of a surprise since you've probably never received a christmas card from me. if you're lucky, you got a birthday card. if you're really lucky, it arrived no later than two months after your birthday. alicia's birthday card is still in my car ... that's where it was when she came to visit in november. i'd like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a very happy birthday!

welcome to my christmas letter. not only does it save postage and wear and tear on your local mail carrier, it doesn't obligate you to hang it in the threshold or on the fridge or display it in any way. however, if you're inclined to print it and tape it to something, i won't argue with you ... christmas is a time of peace.

the ending of 2003 marks the beginning of my fifth year working as either a technical writer or a communications specialist. pick one. this milestone is significant because i get an extra week of vacation without having to buy it. looks like i've fulfilled my long-term career goal and need to think up a new one. maybe it'll have something to do with ranching or upholstery or getting to work before 8.30.

as i reflect on the year, i'm having trouble remembering anything before september. i blame hurricane isabel. as a matter of fact, i haven't eaten a nilla wafer or a wheat thin since then. is that the kind of thing people reading a christmas letter want to know? i have no idea.

let's see, may marked my first anniversary as a homeowner and august marked my first anniversary living in the home that i'd owned since the previous may. as a result, i appear to be very responsible. i even have a lawnmower that i only use on days when the neighbor's kids are nowhere to be found. no, you cannot ride it until you're old enough to operate it. and you can't come in the house either. because it's mine. sure, sit on the porch swing.

so! i think that's enough info to get you up to speed. if you don't agree, please feel free to read through the archives. especially the november archive, or as i like to call it: the best writing on the internet.

have a safe and happy holiday season ... don't drink and drive ... or run with scissors ... for crying out loud, are you trying to kill your sister?

merry christmas and all the best,
-jody :)

p.s. if you go on a cruise, get an outside room. merely glancing in an inside cabin will make you claustrophobic. did you know that an irrational fear of clowns is called "coulrophobia"? i read that somewhere.

premedication

the vet said "just in case" and wrote the prescription for five pills. one pill is supposed to calm her down for six to eight hours. the trial run is today.

1 p.m.

i administered the xanax with one of my more clever ideas: scrambled eggs and toast. medication and peanut butter or cheese doesn't work anymore since the whole six-meds-a-day-because-we-think-she-might-have-lupus thing. egg salad has worked pretty well, but i didn't have any on-hand.

2 p.m.

there's been a pretty good nap going on for the last 20 minutes, but that's normal for a sunday afternoon. so i threw her favorite toy into the other room and she chased it like she was on fire. this must be why the bottle says "take one tablet two hours before travel." dually noted.

3 p.m.

she's barking at me for no apparent reason and won't stay off my heels. she stepped on the heel of my slipper halfway down the staircase and we both almost ended up in the hospital. time for another lap around the living room.

4 p.m.

i'm wrapping presents and zoey's acting like she's been blind until today. i saved her from one plastic bag and had to hide the rest. she ate the cardboard container thing that the two rolls of tape came in and chewed the ends of an empty paper roll. there’s nothing going on outside, but it has all of her attention.

5 p.m.

she hasn't chewed anything for a half hour and she's been laying down for a while ... let's not jinx it.

6 p.m.

a short road trip wasn't intolerable. at least she sat. a bit. i'm wondering if she's so curious about everything because she's calm enough to notice her surroundings. she walked through the battlefield of presents, paper, bags, and ribbon to get to the fireplace. you're saying: so what? normally, that's something she would never do ... too noisy.

7 p.m.

i haven't seen any significant evidence that says zoey won't be a complete basket case for the trip next week. she was maybe 20% less crazy today than she typically is on a lazy sunday. at least she didn't go for my jugular and i didn't have to scrape her off the ceiling. she’s napping again, so i’ll give the xanax the benefit of the doubt.

sometimes all you have to go on is faith.

poor

with that, my christmas shopping season came to an abrupt ending. it only took me five hours over two days to spend an amount of money that i don't care to mention. apparently i'm quick to spend when it comes to shopping for others, but i can't imagine spending as much money as i did these past two days on myself. weird, huh? maybe that's what i'll do next year ... and from then on only participate in christmas (involving others) every two years or so.

i enjoy mall shopping unless i'm doing it in the last quarter of the year. i was fortunate enough to be able to shop yesterday afternoon before the majority of the working world was released from its cage. even then, i made it to fridays in enough time to get a good parking spot for my car full of presents. woo-hoo!

today was a different story. it involved crowds, lines, strollers, and know-it-all teenagers. do you really think you're doing anyone any good when you stand outside a store in the middle of the walkway, waiting for your friend/spouse/whoever to come out? and when you finally do start walking, why are you coming this way but have your head turned around? despite what you think, you're not the only one here.

with only two more stops to make, my frustration level peaked, so in a seething walkway, i stopped in my tracks. then i turned around quickly, took a few steps and stopped again. then i walked in a tight circle and pretended i was lost. it was as if the mother ship just dropped me off in the middle of this mall and i had no idea what was going on. i fit right in.

i managed to trip the guy in who, several moments prior in walden books, had done nothing but stand in the only path between the bargain books and the general fiction. yay me! had he merely been looking at a book, i wouldn't have been so irritated walking around the history and through the self-help sections to get to the books directly behind him. for the record, saying "excuse me" to holiday shoppers is like asking zoey to have dinner ready.

also for the record, barnes and noble has the absolute worst christmas music. christmas with aaron neville? who thought that was a good idea? at least they had what i was looking for ... but maybe the woman at the customer service desk wearing the antlers could have been a little nicer. or she could have not worn antlers. she was a holiday paradox.

fingers crossed

both chris and the vet were surprised when i told them that two dramamine pills didn't put a dent in zoey's car-riding ability. so now we get to try something stronger.

yesterday, i read that ridilin given to juvenile rats causes them to be depressed when they get older. how can you tell a rat is depressed? and! isn't is possible that as it gets older it realizes it's a rat and that's why it's depressed? and! who's to say a young rat has trouble paying attention and needs ridilin in the first place? i'm not any kind of expert in rats (unless you take my dating history into account ... then i guess i have some rodent experience), but do they really have so much going on that they have trouble prioritizing? it's a good thing i'm not a scientist.

you're probably saying: if you had a rat'>http://rats.atlantispetsupply.com/shop_rat.php3">rat as a pet, you might understand. good point. however, i've had zoey for three years and i still don't understand her. (granted, she's not a rat.) my diagnosis? she's off her head. the vet's diagnosis? she has a lot of anxiety.

i decided to go with the vet on this one and picked up a prescription for alprazohlam [al-PRAZ-oh-lam] (a.k.a, xanax or valium) this afternoon. if the size of a pill has any relation to its strength, zoey will need to take all five pills for just the trip up ... each one is equal in diameter to the non-writing end of a standard BIC pen. fortunately, it will be easy to hide in egg salad ... unless it smells funny.

possible side effects? [aaron, don't read this part.] aggression and hyperactivity.

i'm hoping it just does what it's supposed to do and makes her clumsy so she doesn't stand up for all eight hours.

"variabalize" isn't a word

... and neither is vector ... not in the way you want to use it, that is.

please don't say "diversity" or "delivery" again. i fear you will.

with that said, i think we, as a race, should limit our use of the word "item." if you're going to the grocery store to pick up some things or grab some stuff for dinner, just say that you're going to the grocery store for some things or to grab some stuff for dinner. better yet, you could say, "i'm going to the store," on your way out. "i'm stopping at the grocery store to pick up some items for the week," is unacceptable.

if you want to talk to me about something, i would prefer it if you called me, found me, or emailed me with, "i want to talk to you about something." please refrain from saying, "can we pull up to discuss a few items?" and while you're at it, please don't ask me to "pull up" either. this isn't a car wash, a gym, or a drive-thru.

"bandwidth" has to do with frequencies, wavelengths, or energies. i may have the time and the skill to pull up with you about that item, but i'm all out of energy.

fine with me

there's a new christmas tree law in this state. from the sound of it, it's been in the making since adam and eve drove out to the country, cut down a spruce, hauled it up to their loft on the seventh floor, decorated it with popcorn and hallmark ornaments, didn't water it, left the lights plugged in for three straight days, came home from work on the third day to see their building reduced to a pile of ash, and had to spend the rest of the holiday season at the Y with displaced people like mom, aaron, and me even though marilyn said we could stay with her.

the law states that if you live in an apartment or townhouse that isn't equipped with a sprinkler system, you're not allowed to have a real tree. simple enough? if you said yes, you're giving the masses way too much credit. when i worked at the paper, some crazy lady threatened to get me fired because i listed her name before her brother's in her father's obituary. that was an early run-in with the public. when i told vickie about it, i was on the verge of tears. she rolled her eyes, went back to work, and that was all the lesson i needed. those were the days.

last nite the news, at both 6 and 11 on two different stations, featured in-depth stories about the ban on real trees because their newsrooms had been "flooded by calls all afternoon from viewers who aren't sure if it applies to them." here it is again:

if you live in an apartment or townhouse that isn't equipped with a sprinkler system, you're not allowed to have a real tree.

mostly the reporters talked about how wood is flammable ("it's just like what you burn in your fireplace") and how light bulbs generate heat ("if you leave the lights on for long periods of time, they tend to get hot, and that heat could send your holiday up in flames"). then they showed pictures of people intentionally lighting trees on fire. maybe that's the root of the confusion.
if that's not enough, "look at the ceilings in your apartment or town home. if you don't see one of these round sprinkler devices, [close-up of the sprinkler] your building doesn't have a sprinkler system, your tree might be illegal, and you could be facing a hefty fine."

$2,500! i'm all for it. it's about time we started fining stupid people ... god knows they can afford it ... they were awarded $10 million because sea world didn't post a sign saying it was dangerous to swim with killer whales ... then they got an extra million for falling out a fourth-story window while mooning someone.

in line

i bought a book of stamps from the concierge this afternoon. it saved me from standing in a line with eager christmas card senders who are also eager to bestow best wishes on everyone in the tri-cities area. i'm not entirely sure which cities make up that area, but weather and radio people say it all the time. when i lived in PA, they said, "tri-state area" and i knew that meant PA, ohio, and new york because we lived in the little nubbin part of PA that's close to parts of those other states. i suppose if we had lived in eastern PA, the tri-state area would have been PA, jersey, and maryland. but i don't know anything about that.

she didn't have any run-of-the mill american flag stamps that i usually get out of the ATM, so i had my choice of ogden nash, dancing santa, reptiles, or a stamp commemorating something i didn't hear because she introduced it as "more expensive than a typical stamp." does that mean you can reuse it or send heavier envelopes with it? no. typically if you buy a more expensive model of something, it includes extra features that make your life easier. DVD/VCR combos are a lot cheaper than they were last year at this time ... and who the hell is ogden nash*?

i chose the santas and successfully avoided the aforementioned possessed-by-the-holiday-spirit people, breaking even in my effort to convince myself that i'm not the grinch. the good news is that i made it to subway moments before the woman who ordered seven sandwiches. at least she wanted all of them to be the same. apparently movers aren't picky as long as they eat. one time i got behind a guy who was ordering for the office. he kept the list concealed until it was his turn and by then we'd all been standing there too long to go somewhere else. unless the somewhere else was mcdonald's, and that's not up for consideration.

i used my check card for the transaction and in accordance with some law the concierge was required to note my address. i was happy to oblige. here's this week's poll: do i live on forest avenue or do i live on forrest avenue? people ask me that all the time. maybe i should change the spelling of my avenue in honor of the gump enthusiasts. for some reason this reminds me of the day finetta and i stood outside the auditorium checking people into the town hall sessions and telling them food and beverages weren't permitted inside. there were six sessions.

unsuspecting guy: "not even water?"

finetta before session four [tetchily]: "is water a beverage?"

then i watched a woman force a 20-ounce bottle of water into her purse.

*calm down, i'm totally kidding.