Enjoy the Moment (But if you smile for the camera – keep your eyes open!)

 I’ve been spending a lot of time lately clearing stuff off my archaic home computer. I’ve deleted, filed or moved most of the documents and spreadsheets, but there are still hundreds of photos that need to be filed off.  Some of the photos are great and some are not-so-great. Some are fuzzy images that never should’ve been saved in the first place. Some are Pre-Vince pics. And there are lots of photographs of the five years Vince and I have been together.

But almost all of the photographs evoke happy memories.  And I realized something: photos of me that I once thought were hideous now don’t look all that bad. 

Interesting how a few years offers such a different perspective. 

And I suspect it will only get worse.  I mean, it’s not like these wrinkles are going to disappear.  And those jowls that started to appear in the last year?  Not going away.  Even if I were rich and could afford a facelift, I don’t think I’d do it.  I mean, I look at some of the aging stars in Hollywood who were young and beautiful when I was young and, well, they look like caricatures of their former selves.

Take Meg Ryan who is about my age, for example. I loved all those movies she was in – When Harry Met Sally, and You’ve Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle. She was, by turns, cute or pretty or edgy – depending on the role she was playing.  But at some point in the last few years, she went from attractive to a little scary looking. I’m not sure if it was simply bad plastic surgery – or it was just what happens when you go under the knife. You’ll never really look like you again.

So, no, I don’t think I’d opt for any of that stuff. Lips that are supposed to look “bee stung” instead look like someone popped ‘em in the mouth.  Not an attractive look.  So I think I’ll stick with my thinning lips.  And lifted eyes never look youthful; they merely look lifted.  My solution is to reach for my glasses more often than my contact lenses. 

As my mother says, “Eyeglasses can cover a multitude of sins.”  When she first said it, I didn’t quite understand.  But now I know she means all those eye crinkles and under-eye circles that I see when I look in the mirror these days.

To the best of my knowledge, no one has actually located the Fountain of Youth.  So to continue taking halfway decent photos as we age, our best bet is to find a camera with a “soft focus” setting and leave it on there. Permanently.  Either that or invest in a really good Photoshop program.

When I was younger, my mom used to say, “Jane is so photogenic; she never takes a bad picture.”  Ah, mom. If you only knew. 

Back in the days of actual photo development when you dropped off your film and picked up your pictures later, I used to do a quick flip through the envelope before showing them to anyone else. Any photos of me that were really bad went in the trash. These included any pics where my eyes were closed. For some reason, I look dorky with a big cheesy smile on my face and my eyes closed. Perhaps everyone looks a little dorky with a big cheesy smile on their face and their eyes closed, but I tend to be particularly hypercritical of myself.

Nowadays in our digital world, I simply hit “delete” before the dorky photos become permanent.

But I can’t control everyone – and there are a bajillion cameras out there.  Even toddlers barely able to walk or talk know exactly which button to push on a cell phone or digital camera in order to take a photograph.  Those same toddlers also know how to pose for pictures.  The second they see an actual camera pointed at them, they strike a pose. 

This behavior will eventually change.  My 80-something mother hates having her picture taken.  I can understand that.  I mean, do we really need to watch our faces as they morph into our grandparents’ faces and wonder how that happened? 

On the other hand, we live in a visual society. We take photos of our manicures, our plate of pasta and our pets. We document every life moment from the mundane to the poignant. 

So I suppose we simply have to resign ourselves to the fact that there are going to be a lot of bad pictures of us out there.  Sure, we can untag ourselves. But it doesn’t make them disappear forever.

But the truth is that we don’t really need to be so self-critical. Nobody is really paying attention to us anyway. Instead, they’re looking at their own image in the photo and critiquing their smile, their pose and their wrinkle progression. 

So I guess a lesson to be learned in all this is to just smile and enjoy the moment. If someone points a camera or cell phone at you, strike a pose.  You may cringe right now – but give it a few years and take another look. I’ve a suspicion you will think you were lookin’ mighty fine.

And, besides, even though I had smoother skin when I was younger, I still cringe a little when I look back at pictures of myself.  That heavy eye makeup and big hair in the 80s? Yeah. ‘Nuff said.

But there is an even bigger lesson here. Sometimes it’s not about the actual image we see, but about the memories the photo evokes that is the most important thing.  One of my favorite photos is of my mother from my wedding. It was not a professional photograph. It’s a little blurry.  And my mom hates it because she thinks it’s undignified. 

But I love it. In it, she’s sitting next to my dad with her head thrown back and she’s laughing with abandon. I have no idea what she found so funny.  But I love that she was enjoying herself so much. 

Looking at it makes me happy.  And makes me smile.

And in my mother’s 80-something face, I do not see a single imperfection.

Run For Your Lives! The Evil Spam is Taking Over!

Whoever named unsolicited, unwanted, junk email “SPAM” was one smart cookie.  I can’t stand Spam – both the “food” (and I use that term loosely) and the junk online.

Lately, I’ve gotten a lot more of it.  No, not the food.  I was only forced to try that stuff one time when I was a kid and my mom decided to experiment.  Evidently no one in the family could stomach it and it was never featured as a main dish at our dinner table again.

What I mean is I’ve been getting a lot more of the online computer-type Spam.  Why?  Probably because I did a lot of online shopping over Christmas and ordered from some new sites that evidently have no compunction about selling my information to all sorts of Spammy-type companies.  Grrr.  If I knew which one it was, I would never EVER order from them again.  But, alas, I have no clue as to the identity of the culprit, so I just have to delete, delete, delete.

I’ve also been getting a lot more Spam messages attached to my blog. Yeah, “Anonymous” is apparently one of my biggest fans.  “A,” as I’ve started calling him/her/it, leaves messages that sound all complimentary about the topic and tell me what a brilliant writer I am – but then they want me to check out their website.  And it’s usually something not rated “PG.”  Or even “R.” 

Lately, the websites have been things named “Payday loans” or “Buy Ambien.” 

Whether or not you could actually apply for a payday loan or buy Ambien from their website, I do not know because I wouldn’t click on their link on a bet.

Fortunately, I changed my Blog so that I have to approve any comments that are published to my website.  I suppose that would be a major hassle for someone who has a large following and receives tons of messages from actual readers, but it’s not a problem for me as I don’t get that many comments. 

Nevertheless, I mark each of these messages as Spam and they do not get published.  But I have to tell you, I was halfway tempted to click on the website called, “Abscess tooth home remedy.”  I mean, the word “abscess” was spelled correctly and everything.  So maybe it’s legit – whaddya think? 

Nah, I’m just kiddin’.  Mostly because their actual comment about my blog was this: “Your currеnt repoгt hаs veгіfіеd useful to us. It’s really informatiѵe and yοu're simply naturally quite experienced of this type. You get popped our eye to numerous thoughts about this specific topic with intriguing, notable and solid written content.”

Huh? What exactly does “you get popped our eye…” mean?

Oh yeah, and the title of the particular blog to which they were referring is, “Jingle Bell Rockin’ it in Tap Shoes.” 

“Naturally experienced”?  I took tap dance lessons for about a minute and a half in the third grade, pal, so how naturally experienced could I possibly be?!

Ah well, I suppose it could be worse.  I mean, since I can control whether or not these comments see the light of day, I’m not as concerned about them as if they were visible or accessible to anyone who reads my blogs.  I don’t know why it is, but I feel completely guilty if I get hacked and Spam gets forwarded in my name. Or, heaven forbid, I unknowingly start spreading viruses around.

I actually think that happened once on Facebook – I didn’t know anything about it until someone sent me a note and said she was unfriending me.  Like I did it on purpose!  

Hey, I think I’m a good online friend – whenever I receive a strangely-worded email along with a suspicious link – I write to the sender alerting them that they may have been hacked.  And, of course, I appreciate it when someone gives me the same courtesy.

So I guess we have to take the good with the bad. It’s cool that we can access the world from our computers or tablets or smart phones these days.  But we also have to realize that there are some nasty folk in that vast place we call the worldwide web who are trying to take advantage of us. 

So fair warning – unless the title of my blog is about a recent trip to the dentist, never EVER click on a link attached to my blog called "abscess tooth home remedy."

The New Addition To Our Family

We went through the adoption process recently and, really, it wasn’t as difficult as some people have claimed. I mean, we didn’t have to complete a lengthy application or endure a background check worthy of the FBI. We were not subjected to fingerprint testing and we didn’t have to write dissertations about why we wanted to adopt.  No money exchanged hands and no lawyers were involved in the process. All we had to do was say “yes” and promise to feed and water the thing.  How tough is that?

And, yes, smarty-pants, it IS a living thing. 

But it has neither two nor four legs.  It’s…well, it’s a Ficus tree. 

Freddy-the-Ficus

Now, don’t get me wrong. We had to take this adoption seriously. I mean, it’s a 9 foot, 20-year-old tree that has been lovingly cared for by his owner all these years.  And the only reason it was put up for adoption is that his dad is moving and his new home doesn’t have the proper ceiling height to maintain the lifestyle to which Freddy has been accustomed.  (Yes, I named our Ficus Freddy.  Doesn’t everyone name their Ficus?)  But it simply wouldn’t do if Freddy were suddenly forced to grow sideways because his new ceilings were only 7 feet high.

So, basically, our qualifications were that (a) we are willing to follow Freddy’s precise watering schedule, (b) we are financially sound enough to purchase Miracle-Gro and use it according to the manufacturer’s specifications, and, most importantly, (c) we have cathedral ceilings.

Naturally, any new adoption comes with it moments of concern.  Will Freddy like his new living arrangements?  Will he and Twinks and Jinx get along or, more accurately, will Twinks and Jinx leave Freddy the heck alone?  And the scariest concern of all: Will Freddy freak out and start losing his leaves? 

Yes, I worry.

Fortunately, we used the trusty iPhone compass app to determine that the window in front of which Freddy was lovingly placed faces east – the same direction Freddy faced in his old home.  So hopefully, the same amount of sun will shine in his new environment and he will thrive without getting sunburnt. 

Um, here’s a question: do they make sunscreen for Ficus trees? 

Nevertheless, I think Freddy will be happy in his new home. I hope he doesn’t freak out and lose leaves, but I suspect he may shed a few to test me, just like a kid will test a new caretaker to see how far he can push the boundaries. He’ll see if I run for the water or Miracle-Gro before his regularly scheduled feeding and/or supplementation schedule.  

Nevertheless, we will have to keep a close eye on Freddy over the next several weeks. We don’t want either of our felines demonstrating any new found tree-climbing abilities. We’ll have to discover if Freddy likes being talked to – and whose voice he prefers.  I mean, far be it for me to talk to him if he’d rather Vince do the sweet-talking.  

And, most importantly, we'll have to adhere to his feeding and watering schedule without variation.  Because – Lord knows – I could not take the guilt if I either drowned or starved Freddy after his dad was able to keep him alive for 20 years. 

I didn’t check the particulars, but I suspect this might have been an open adoption – and Freddy’s dad could pop by to visit him from time to time. And it’s not like Freddy is a generic goldfish that I could easily replace in the hopes that his former owner doesn’t realize that the original Freddy is no longer with us.

So we welcome our new addition.  We will do our best to care for you, Freddy-the-Ficus. May you stay strong and healthy and live another 20 years. At least.

But there’s just one thing.  You might want to consider sticking with your current height even if it means sucking in a little less of that Miracle-Gro.  I mean, our ceilings are high…but they’re not that high.  And, while I’m sure we’ll love you as if we’d raised you from a twig, we are not cutting any holes in the ceiling to accommodate you.  

My Crappy Week...

I’ve had a really crappy week so far.  Some of it is personal and some of it is work-related.  The personal stuff worries me and the work stuff mostly pisses me off.

The worst thing is I can’t even remember what day it is. This is not good. Oh, sure, part of the concern is that I worry that I’m losin’ my mind.  But mostly I’m concerned because I can’t figure out how many days I have to endure until it’s the weekend.

It’s rainy and it’s cold. And my umbrella broke on the way into the office this morning and collapsed on my head.  If I had a better sense of humor these days, it might have made me laugh, but instead I walked into the office shaking water off my formerly coiffed hair and grumbling about stupid, cheap umbrellas.

Oh, and it’s supposed to snow later, which probably means that the temperature is planning to drop and we’ll have a nice little layer of ice under that new fallen snow.  Oh goodie. 

Like most Midwesterners around this point in the season, I’m well and truly sick of winter.   

As for my personal problems, well, they’re not really my problems at all.  But they’re surely worth worrying about.  I have a friend who’s facing triple-bypass surgery this Friday.  And, yes, I know that physicians perform this type of surgery every day and maybe they could do it with one hand tied behind their back and with one eye closed – but when it’s a friend on the operating table, it’s still cause for worry.  Not only that, but my cousin is also in the hospital with serious heart problems.  We’ve been saying so many prayers, I think we all have God on speed-dial.

And then there is work.  Right before lunch I found out that the vendor-from-hell I’m forced to deal with screwed up again.  This should not surprise me and yet it does. Day after day, month after month, year after year. He probably has the worst case of ADHD I have ever encountered and cannot focus on anything longer than a nanosecond. 

Do not ask me how he’s managed to build a business.  Oh…wait.  That’s right – his father built the business.  He is, perhaps, merely running it into the ground. 

I have tried putting double- and triple-checks in place. I fax him. When he doesn’t “see” the fax, I email him. Then he tells me he never received the email. I attach “Read Receipt” notices to his emails, but he elects to not notify me that he has read the email.  I call him to alert him that a fax is coming or an email has been sent – but he doesn’t answer his phone and evidently doesn’t listen to the voicemail.  And nothing is EVER his fault.

It’s enough to cause a person to run screaming from the building.

Unfortunately, it made me run to Kroger instead and purchase, in addition to my healthy salad, a slice of red velvet cake.  Oh, great, just what I need. A guilt trip to add to my megabag of frustration!

But…I must admit…the red velvet cake was pretty darn tasty.  And it lulled me into a sugar coma that made me forget my vendor-from-hell.

Well, at least until I returned to the office and had to deal with the situation and tap dance my way through another quickie fix and an apology.

And then I looked on Facebook and saw this cartoon:

It shouldn’t have – but it made me laugh. Out loud. Thank goodness no one was around to hear me because I think there was a tiny note of hysteria in the laughter.  But still.  Those little magical endorphins that are released with laughter coursed through my body and made me feel better. 

Plus, I imagined throwing a plate of spaghetti and meatballs at my attention-span-of-a-gnat vendor - and that made me giggle, too.

And  a little while later – after my boss realized I wasn’t going to run screaming from the building permanently, he came back to my office and handed me a little “bonus” and told me to take my husband out to dinner.  Nice.

Now if I can just keep on keepin’ on through the end of my week – I may just make it. 

Oh, and yes, I DO know what day of the week it is.  Not that I figured it out on my own. The UPS guy was just here and wished me a Happy Hump Day. 

He probably wondered why I looked at him with such relief and said, “You’re a lifesaver!”  

Thank goodness for UPS guys, eh?!

So...like the post-it note above says, "When nothing goes right...go left."  Either that - or maybe there's nowhere to go but up?  That'd work, too.

Happy Hump Day.

Tired of Being Sick. And Sick of Being Tired.

For years I have been promising myself a winter vacation to someplace sunny and warm and preferably tropical to get a break from the cold and snow and ice that is winter in Ohio.  But years have passed and I have never taken this tropical vacation.  And then sometime around mid-April I do a mental head slap and think, Heyyyy, I missed it. Again!

So last month Vince and I had an unexpected opportunity to fly to North Carolina to attend the wedding of one of my best friends.  And, yeah, okay, it’d be a stretch to call North Carolina “tropical” – but it does qualify as somewhere warm.

We had a wonderful time, but I confess that I have been officially cured of my desire to travel during the winter months.

Why?  Because I have been sick on and off since we returned.  Mostly “on.”  And I am most definitely sick and tired of being sick. And tired.

When we were on the plane, I heard so many people coughing and hacking and sneezing and I just knew those cooties were headed in my direction with the sole intent of infiltrating my sinuses.  I tried to stave it off by downing mass quantities of zinc and Vitamin C and Airborne tablets.  I tried not touching my nose or eyes or mouth before, during and after the flight. And I tried scrubbing my hands until they were all scaly and cracked and in desperate need of an intense moisturizer.   

Did any of that help? Of course not. I still caught the stinkin’ cold.

I was off work and in bed for two days. I missed bowling that Sunday evening because one little trip to Costco earlier in the day did me in and I needed to go home and rest.

And when I showed up at bowling the following Sunday, my teammates still thought I was sick.  They refused to slap me high fives lest they come in contact with my cooties.  And this was still in January, mind you.

Finally, around the first of February, I started to feel better. 

But then a few days later I started getting that sore throat, swollen glands feeling you get before you catch a cold.

Again?  Really??

So once again, I started downing Cold-Eze tablets.  And, interestingly, the symptoms never truly developed into a full-blown cold. 

But a week later, I stated coughing in earnest. Again. I was blowing my nose and going through our winter quota of Kleenex. Again.  So I finally gave in and went to the doctor. 

Now I’m not one of those people who run to the doctor for every little sniffle. I know that antibiotics don’t work on the common cold. And I don’t like forking over my $25 co-pay for someone to tell me I need to get lots of rest and drink plenty of fluids.

Yet I was sick and tired of waking up at 3AM with coughing fits that disturbed not only me, but my husband, both cats and probably a neighbor or two. So I finally gave in and trotted myself over to the physician’s office. 

I was prescribed a wonderful cough medicine with codeine that allows me to sleep almost all through the night.  And I was given an antibiotic for the sinus infection. 

However, because I’d had a prior sinus infection in November, the doctor didn’t want to prescribe the same antibiotic that I’d taken a mere three months prior.

So I took the new pill and headed off to work.

After a little while I started feeling really bad – lethargic and jittery at the same time. I was nauseous.  And I couldn’t think clearly.

Finally, it occurred to me in my foggy state that I was having a reaction to the antibiotic. 

So I called the doctor’s office. And they told me not to take any more of that medication. They said I was having a reaction to the antibiotic. And they said they’d prescribe something else for me.

Well, no duh. I told them I was having a reaction.  And like I would even consider taking a second pill when the first one was doing such a number on me.

Fortunately, the new antibiotics seem to be working just fine.  I’m starting to feel better. And I am not keeping the entire neighborhood up all night from the sound of my coughing. 

I even made it to bowling last night, although my teammates would only go as far as a celebratory “elbow bump” rather than a high five.  And I can’t be sure, but I thought I detected the faint scent of Lysol disinfectant and their antibacterial hand gel every time I returned to my seat.

Ah well. I can’t say as I blame ‘em.

I’m just hoping that I’m finished with the whole germ thing for the year.  I’m tired of being sick. And sick of being tired. 

And I really want to be high-fived when I bowl a strike. There just isn’t the same sense of satisfaction from an elbow bump.

The Continuing Adventures of Twinks and Jinx

So we had a vet appointment last night at 6 o’clock for the felines.  It was a new vet, so we were asked to be there 10-15 minutes early to fill out some paperwork.  No problem, right? 

Uh, no. That would be oh-so-wrong.

I left work a little early so I’d be home in plenty of time to corral the cats and get them in their cat carriers.  What I didn’t count on was that bright sunshine in the middle of winter in Columbus, Ohio, is evidently just as treacherous as black ice. 

People were driving approximately 3.2 miles per hour on a freeway despite the fact that there was not a single fender bender or a solitary car sporting a flat tire off the side of the road waiting for Triple A. 

I don’t know, perhaps people around here haven’t seen the sun in so long they weren’t sure what the big yellow thing in the sky was.  Or maybe they stashed their sunglasses somewhere last August and the shades haven’t turned up since and the sun was blinding those drivers on our eastbound commute.  But considering that the sun still sets in the west, this should not have been an issue.  Unless, of course, drivers were peering in their rearview mirrors the entire time. This could explain the problem.

So I arrived home about 10 minutes later than I had anticipated.  I left the car running and kept my winter coat on so as not to delay our departure.

My master plan was to bring the pet carriers up to our mudroom as close to the garage door as possible. I’d open the carrier doors wide so I wouldn’t later have to fumble around trying to open them with one hand, while holding a wriggling, pissed-off cat in the other.  The next step in my plan was to loudly shake the bag of kitty treats so as to entice them into the mudroom where I would then shut the door to the room to trap them and thus they’d be unable to escape my clutches.  I could then, at my leisure, stuff them into their carriers. 

Yeah, like any of this worked.

Well, except that I was able to accomplish Step 1.  I brought the carriers up to the mudroom and opened the pet carrier doors.

The flaw in my plan is that cats have acute hearing and that first tiny, almost-silent clink-clink of the pet carrier doors alerted them to impending doom.

They fled.

Twinks, however, was lured out of her hiding place by the rattle of the treats bag.  But she’s a quick little bugger and was able to snatch the treat off the floor and scamper out of the room before I could shut the door to the mudroom.

Drat!

My second attempt to trap her, resulted in successfully closing her off in the master bathroom.  Mission almost accomplished!  The pet carrier, of course, was still in the mudroom.  But I figured that was a minor point and at least she was sequestered somewhere where she couldn’t escape.

Now my search for the elusive Jinx began.  Jinx, by the way, has perfected the art of hiding.  At the very hint of someone approaching the front door, she darts under beds or hides in closets or disappears under dressers.  We don’t see her again until long after the visitor has arrived back at their own home and is relaxing on the couch in their PJs watching the 11 o’clock news.

By this point, I was starting to get a little panicky because I couldn’t imagine that we could possibly get to the clinic on time.  And Vince was getting a little frustrated with my ineffectiveness at getting the cats into their carriers and/or my ever increasingly panicked state. Hey, I never professed to be The Cat Whisperer, nor do I have powers that allow me to divine which of the four beds Jinx may have been hiding under.

But she wasn’t under a bed at all.  Fortunately, I spied her twitching little nose under the dresser in the lower level bedroom-slash-office.  How she fits her body inside and underneath that thing, I have no clue.  But it’s nearly impossible to get her out.

I closed the bedroom-slash-office door and somehow managed to get her out from underneath the dresser, but she promptly scampered under the bed and backed her little furry body up against the wall where I had no hope of reaching her. 

I calmly called to her in a soothing voice. No luck.  I placed cat treats on the carpet to lure her out.  She normally can’t resist them, but, nooooo.  Not this time. Of course, I then knelt on the treats, effectively grinding them into the knees of my black slacks.

Fortunately, Vince came to my rescue and stepped into the fray.  He walked into the room carrying two long cardboard Christmas wrapping paper rolls and he shooed Jinx into the bathroom. He then picked her up by the scruff of her neck and walked upstairs and calmly deposited her in her cat carrier.  He then walked into the master bathroom and did the same to Twinklebelle. 

Whatta guy.

I, meanwhile, was a disheveled mess. My hair was sticking up on one side where I’d been lying on the carpet trying to locate Jinx under the bed.  I had cat-treat dusty knees. And I had sweat dripping off my nose from running around the house in my winter coat.

With not a spare moment left to primp – or, truthfully, at least try to look a little less like a crazy lady – I grabbed one of the carriers, Vince grabbed the other and off we went.

The cats meowed and howled like we were torturing them the entire drive over. Thankfully, it was only a short trip to the vet’s office.  But once they were in the office getting examined, they were little angels.

Personally, I think they did this on purpose to get back at me and cement my crazy-cat-lady image in the vet’s mind – but that’s just a guess.

I was relieved that the cats are healthy and won’t need to go back to the vet for another year.  I was thankful that Vince was home and there to catch the cats.  But mostly?  Well, mostly I was grateful for the margarita I ordered to help me forget the whole ordeal. 

Job Opening: Christmas Decorations Taker Downer

I have a big ugly bruise on the inside of my right arm and I don’t know for sure how it got there.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  For instance, I can unequivocally state that I did not let anyone practice karate kicks on me. Nor did I fall out of bed last night.  And I’m fairly certain that I haven’t walked into any telephone poles lately.

What I think happened was that I sustained this horrible injury while I was taking down Christmas decorations over the weekend. 

Yeah, it was probably when I was hauling the heavy box containing the 7-1/2 foot artificial Christmas tree back down the stairs to store it until next year.  That sucker weighs about fifty pounds.  And if it doesn’t, you can’t prove it, so I’m sticking with the fifty.  Felt like it, anyway.

So now I’m thinking that maybe being the Christmas Decorations Taker Downer is too dangerous a job for me.  That task is probably better suited for a big, strong man – right?! 

Oh, who am I kidding?  There is NO WAY Vince is going to be suckered into taking over that job.  I could barely get him to agree to help me remove the ornaments.  And I think he was glaring at me when we had to unwind the extra lights on our pre-lit tree, but I can’t be certain because the branches were partially blocking my view. 

But, hey, it wasn’t my fault that half of the pre-lit tree wouldn’t light.  At the time I was in a hurry to get that tree decorated, so I didn’t try to figure out why they wouldn’t light, I just grabbed another strand of lights and wrapped ‘em around the tree. 

Clearly, I wasn’t thinking long-term about how all those strands of lights might get tangled.  Oops.

Oh well. I’ve never been very good at checking each light to make sure it is seated properly in its little plastic housing, nor can I ever locate those little replacement bulbs that come with every strand of lights.  Hey, I’m no engineer, people.  I’m just a woman who likes a pretty, well-lit Christmas tree.

Besides, I always buy lights that purportedly stay lit even when one bulb burns out.  Yeah, right. What a bunch of hooey.

So big bruise notwithstanding, at least all the decorations have been removed and stored in their plastic bins to await Christmas 2013.  At which time I will, of course, forget that half the lights on the pre-lit tree don’t work and I will wonder where the extra strands of lights are, and when I do find them and put them on the tree I will get them all tangled up again and Vince will probably glare at me when we try to remove them.

And so it goes… 

But I have to admit that I miss all the twinkling lights and pretty decorations.  The corner where our Christmas tree stood looks rather barren and empty – even with the table and cool amber vase that have taken the tree’s place. 

Believe me, I’ve toyed with the idea over the years of keeping the Christmas tree up all year long and changing the lights and decorations for whatever holiday approaches. Red and pink twinkling lights and red hearts for Valentine’s Day, green lights and 4-leaf clovers and leprechaun ornaments for St. Patty’s Day, pastel eggs and bunny ornaments for Easter and so on. 

The problem with that idea is that (a) it would require a whole lot of extra boxes of decorations and lights, and (b) it would require too much work on my part.  Yep, just call me lazy.  I do not wish to put that much effort into decorations for anything beyond Christmas.  And I’m even beginning to question whether I’m going a tiny bit overboard on that one.

Besides, no matter what color lights and decorations were on the tree people would still walk into our home and say, “Your Christmas tree is still up?” they’d ask with a puzzled look on their faces.  “It’s July, Jane. What’s up with that?”

And I’d have to shake my head at their denseness and point out all the little flags and strands of red, white and blue lights that so clearly indicate it’s an Independence Day Tree.

So…no.  I’m glad the tree is down and friends won’t be secretly calling me the Crazy Christmas Tree Lady.  With the big bruise.

But still. I think I’m going to hire someone to decorate for me next year. And take down the decorations once the holiday is over.  I don’t like big, ugly bruises.  And I’m lazy.  And I don’t need my husband glaring at me.