I hope you all had a beautimous and frabjous Christmas. Ours was sublime. Did you know that there was a full moon on Christmas?
I made a wish, of course. You wanna know what I wished?
Oh, come on, you know I'm not telling. That's how wishes DON'T come true!
But we had a gorgeous Christmas. I was actually feeling *good* on Christmas, which was a big thing for me. I've been sick for something like two months now. I was sick when I went to Carmel early in November, with a horrid chest cold that kept me up at night coughing. That switched to a horrid head cold early in December, wherein my ears were SO FULL they were so sensitive, and my voice had no depth. (That, by the way, is when we recorded that 25-minute Christmas music video posted earlier on my blog - hence the reason for the slightly whispery/reedy quality to our voices.) So Christmas, I actually felt GOOD. I could SING, which I could not do for Midnight Mass. (My voice kept cracking then. Imagine how cute our Christmas carols sounded.) And Christmas morning, we had our beautiful sausages on sweet rolls with orange juice for the littlies and mimosa for the not-so-littlies, opened our stockings and what-all, sang JOY TO THE WORLD after mein papa lit the Christ Candle, and then opened pressies! There were a bunch of us - fourteen opening presents in the morning, and then a total of nineteen at the table for our gnocchi dinner. We watched Rise Of The Guardians after dinner and had dessert, and I wished on the full moon.
Anyway, what are your plans for the New Year? Me, I'm going to spend it in. I may have a shot of honey whiskey, shared with my besties, Stoick, Chrysophylax Dives, and Amalthea. We are pretty tight, the four of us. I will prolly watch Person Of Interest, so I can be sure to stay awake until midnight. I don't usually have too much trouble doing that. I'm a night owl anyway.
Left to right: Chrysofylax Dives (green), Stoick (red) Amalthea (unicorn)
And that was our Christmas, and I just wanted to wish you all a holy, happy, blessed New Year. I hope you enjoy this little song. I have a sister who knows Eleven is MY Doctor, and will send me all kinds of things Eleven related. I happened to love this song in the Christmas special, and this priest actually has a wicked good voice. I hope you enjoy it!
Christmas Eve, for me, is my most favourite day in the world. Everything feels very magical, like anything can happen. When it snows on Christmas Eve, I get so excited.
I have two mindsets on snow.
Before and during Christmas: "Christmas snow is magic, as everybody knows! You'll never see a frowning face on Christmas when it snows!"
After Christmas: "And there's one more thing that I have discovered, And I would now like you to know, The reason for Christmas I now realize is an excuse to tolerate snow! Snow. I don't even like the SOUND of it!"
But anyway, today it is snowing and I'm so happy.
Merry Christmas!
There is one funny thing I want to tell you. Every year in Tahoe, our fire station decorates a fire truck and it goes around the town, different areas each night, blasting Christmas music and shining with lights and visiting the neighbourhoods, and then the people driving the truck hand out candy canes to the townsfolk. Well, this year, they were apparently not coming to our neighbourhood. Sadness! My whole family looks forward to it every year. It somehow doesn't *quite* feel like Christmas without the fire truck.
Yesterday, I had a couple sisters over for dinner - there was me (Kat), Amanda, Teresa and Maria - and we were going to eat chicken enchiladas and watch Disney's Christmas Carol, followed by Mickey's Christmas Carol. So, we had finished our enchiladas, and were about at Marley's Ghost in the movie, and we paused it to put down coffee, when my sister Amanda suddenly opened the door and stuck her head outside.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"I thought I heard the fire truck," she said. Remember, it blares Christmas music loud. Real loud. Just as she said that, she pointed and said, "There it is! I see it!" It was heading up Ski Run Boulevard toward Heavenly, the mountain where the skiers go. "Do you want to chase it?"
So we all flung on coats and shoes and ran outside, but it had vanished. We ran past a couple streets, but we couldn't even hear the music anymore. "That's sad," Amanda said.
"Do you want to get in the car and see if we can find it?" Teresa asked.
So we ran back to the house, piled into Amanda and Teresa's Landy, and drove up Ski Run, following the fire truck. We craned our necks down each street we passed, trying to catch a glimpse of the lights. We came to the intersection of Ski Run where it connects to Pioneer Trail, and decided to turn right. So we come up to the light, and there is a fire station at this intersection, also to the right. Lo and Behold! There was the Christmas Fire Truck! We screamed so loud, we couldn't decide if we should pull into the station and jump out to holler Merry Christmas, or if we should pull to the side or the road and do the same. As we turned right onto Pioneer, trying to make up our minds, the fire truck started moving, like it was going to leave again. (Perhaps it was refueling its stock of candy canes?) Anyway, so we drove past, hollering like maniacs, and looking behind us to see if it was going to turn right as well and come along behind us, or if it was going to turn left and go back down Ski Run Boulevard.
It turned left.
So we made a frantic U-turn and came roaring up behind it, and idled at the red light. Then, unbelievably, THE FIRE TRUCK RAN THE RED LIGHT, MAKING A LEFT HAND TURN ON A RED LIGHT AND TURNING BACK ONTO SKI RUN BOULEVARD, GOING DOWN TOWARD LAKE TAHOE BOULEVARD!!!
We screamed. "COOOOOOME BAAAACK! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" It was torture, watching it creep down Ski Run and unable to follow.
That was the longest red light ever, you guys. But our light finally went green and we zoomed through and got back behind the fire truck. By this time, we were all starting to feel a bit stalkery and giggling at how weird we were. But you don't understand, this is the Christmas Fire Truck. We look forward to it EVERY YEAR!!!
So we followed the truck, even when it turned right onto Lake Tahoe Boulevard. However, it did make another right turn into a small shopping mall that has a Red Hut, a ski rental place, a salon, et cetera. We prudently let it turn, and passed by and turned right down a different driveway, and then made a few right hand turns until we could get into the shopping mall via a different entrance. And the fire truck had stopped, and was idling in the parking lot and giving out candy canes!
So, we parked and piled out and waved and shouted Merry Christmas, and got our own candy canes.
Then Teresa asked them if they'd go up to Spruce Avenue, because our family would love to see them, and they said YES!
So we piled back into the car, and the fire truck exited the parking lot, but since there are two Spruces in Tahoe and very near to each other, we followed the truck in a roundabout way to make sure it was going to the right Spruce.
Which it did.
Teresa called the family, making sure they knew the truck was coming and to line up outside and wait for it. And they did. And we took a bunch of pictures and so many people came out to greet it and get candy canes. And we all felt like good spirits of Christmas, bringing the fire truck to our neighbourhood! :-)
And that's my funny story of how we didn't expect the Christmas truck, and then we found it and stalked it, and made it come to our house anyway.
Oh, and here's a little Christmas music from our family to you. Merry Christmas!
Well, first of all, we made fabulous ravioli for Easter. Like, handmade, beautiful ravioli. Like, check out Treskie's blog to see HOW beautiful this ravioli really was. (And you can enjoy the overall post, anyhoozle. If you want. Don't feel pressured or anything.)
I apparently have a boring life, because I can't recall much of what has happened between then and now.
Well, I take that back. I had a jury summons, for which I HAD to appear (which, by the way, is one of the few things that can put me into a state of hysterical panic), and then, for 1-1/2 days, I got to sit in court while the judge and attorneys made up their minds who they really wanted as their jurors and alternates.
They didn't even choose jurors the first day. The first day, all of us potential jurors got to complete a hardship form if we wanted to (Like, if you miss three out of five days of work for five weeks, can you survive on what little pittance of money you WILL be making?). Then we got to fill out a 30+ page questionnaire of random questions, like WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE TV SHOW? HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT HEALTHCARE?
The second day, by 10:30 a.m., eighteen people were chose for jurors plus six alternates, and I WASN'T ONE OF THEM! Praise God. But then none of the rest of us could leave, and we had to sit in the courtroom while the attorneys took turns asking jurors "pertinent questions" from their questionnaires, and the judge told us to make sure and pay attention because they would be "winnowing" their jurors and choosing new people to take their place.
We had to adjourn for lunch, and we came back to the courtroom at 1:30, at which point eight people were excused from the jury box and eight more people from the audience were chosen to take their place. Again, I was not one of them. Praise God.
After endless questioning, three people were excused and three more chosen (none of them me).
Then SEVEN people were excused and seven more chosen! (Thankfully, again not me.)
Then three more people were excused and three more chosen. (At this point, I'm still safe.)
Then two were excused and two more chosen. (I'm still not a juror.)
Then two more people were excused, and THIS time my name was called. At this point, it was 4:00 in the afternoon and I had been in a state of constant panic that my name WOULD be called.
But God had not abandoned me, because over the course of the loooooong day and the questions, questions, questions, I had realized my job as a medical transcriptionist would conflict with some of the rules regarding the case, and when I pointed this out to the attorneys they seemed to agree with me and I was excused from jury duty.
PRAISE GOD.
So THAT wasn't the most fun I've ever had, but I survived.
On a happy note, prom for the high school was last night, so this week at the flower shop was busy making corsages and boutonnieres, so I had tons of fun doing those.
Also, I signed up for singing class. Hollah! I haven't gone to singing class in something like 2-1/2 years, so I'm super excited. I've missed it so much!
Speaking of the Phantom of the opera, we've also been binging quite a lot on musicals - Phantom of the Opera, Pirates of Penzance, H.M.S. Pinafore, and sometime in the near future we are going to watch Oklahoma! We are also listening to a lot of musicals - the best parts of Jekyll and Hyde... the Anthony Warlow version; Phantom (Duh); and we will be listening to Jane Eyre (tolerated because of Mr. Rochester. Amazing voice!); Secret Garden, and Tale of Two Cities.
A lady I know, the Amazing Jan Fields (better known as the Ghost in the Machine and Administrator of the Institute of Children's Literature chat boards, the Writer's Retreat) is having a drawing to win an autographed copy of her two books, The Wellspring of Magic and The Emerald Dragon. Plus, you can also win a super cute doll who represents a character in the book, and she is holding a bear. Check it out here. Isn't that fantastic?
I've been writing queries! (Shameless call out to authors who write killer queries - if you'd like to take a gander and tell me what you think about it, hollah! I'd love the input.) My BIG plan is to start submitting to agents. This was my BIG plan last year, but that fell through, so THIS year the BIG PLAN will happen.
I don't know what happened. Once upon a time my only fandom was the Lord of the Rings. Than, BAM. Avengers! Doctor Who! Leverage! Flashpoint! Grimm! Prison Break! Sherlock! Psych! (And a couple others that aren't exactly "fandoms," but shows I like. Like Sleepy Hollow. Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. Those shows.)
Other than THAT, I feel like I live a very boring life.
I did make some beautiful corsages at work yesterday. That was fun. I made a set - a boutonniere and a corsage - that reminded me of My Little Pony, because of the pink and purple. This one:
Anyhoozle, that's my life in a nutshell right now. Wish me luck for Valentine's Day. I'm going to be a snarling purple minion by the end of next week, after working a six-day work week.
I always forget what an emotional rollercoaster that is. I cry every single time over every shattering event that occurs, and over the characters: Frodo and Sam, Merry and Pippin, Aragorn, Gandalf, Legolas, Gimli, Boromir, FARAMIR!!! Eowyn, Eomer, Arwen, Theoden.... If there is someone I can weep for, I weep, and prodigiously.
Fun fact: One of our bestest friends has never read the books nor seen the movies. She has only seen the last Hobbit movie (and let's be honest, friends. Peter Jackson could have done those so, so much better. What was wrong with keeping it just a bit more to the book?!), but anyway, we have told her frequently that LotR was WAY better than the Hobbit. So FINALLY we got her to watch the trilogy with us... the extended edition, of course. REAL fans watch only the extended LotR.
Not only did she cry as prodigiously as the rest of us (and this is a girl who rarely, if ever, cries over shows), but she now wants a cape and has been obsessively pinning Lord of the Rings on Pinterest and is reading the books now.
So I feel like we accomplished something this weekend.
In the meantime, I'm going to going the way I'm going and hope I figure out how to make more time in a single day. I need a TARDIS and some timey-wimey magic, I think.
