Atomictumor

This morning when I woke up, Pigpen was waking up, and he climbed into bed with me and we read a book and joked around. I felt BJ with us when we did it, and it was bittersweet.

Being down at the farm has distracted me to the point where the sadness isn’t really coming, which is nice, but I’ll be glad to get back home and to real life. Mom and I talked about that, and she understands. She’s sad because BJ and her relationship had just started to feel like a mother-daughter one, after 10 years (they didn’t hit it off in the best way), and for the pain that the boys and I will have for the rest of our lives, on things like mothers day, and whatnot.

(This isn’t a ‘bring you down’ post, so, y’know, don’t cry Argentina and all that)

I’m looking forward to the next couple of days.

We’re going to open the presents around here today, and then head back home to the ‘Ridge this evening. The house, which the boys and I cleaned up when we left last week, got messy again when we went up there to set up the bed, so unfortunately we’re going up to an empty house full of mess.

Anyway, I’m probably going to keep the kids locked out of their room just to be sadistic, and put them in the playroom to sleep tonight. Then tomorrow night, after we open the presents under the tree, I’ll “remember” how to unlock the door. Should be good stuff. I’ll try to remember to take some pictures.

Speaking of which, heres a slice of Christmas Eve Eve at the BBF:

The Missus just revealed to me that she does not really like the Peanuts Christmas album.

Oh, the horror!

She even admitted to skipping the songs when they come up on the computer.
All this time I thought we shared a love of that album. I don’t know what to think anymore.

(Hee, hee… one just came up in the que.)

We hooked up the horses to the sleigh and went out looking at Christmas lights. I’d like to think my horses have red eyes, but then I don’t have any horses and really drive a honda minivan. We did look a lights and did see some carolers over at that cookie-cutter neighborhood off Gettysburg Ave.

Like the Missus said, we’re Christmas nerds and love homes lit like taky vegas. That’s what Christmas is all about, right? It was good driving by Daco’s house and seeing all his lights. Daco, you should totally run a strand of lights up the Jesus swing. (Daco’s house isn’t tacky, by the way.) In all honesty, though, the inflatable yard santas and snowmen make me want to find a bb gun. That, or rearrange them into compromising positions. That would be best I think. The bb gun isn’t a good idea. Really.

In case you haven’t noticed, but this post has nothing yet to do with the third Sunday of Advent. John the Baptist makes another appearance in today’s readings. He was a wild man with locust breath. That’s enough to make you repent right there. He called the religious establishment a brood of vipers. He got thrown into prison and eventually lost his head.

So, things have been interesting over the past 24 hours.

GAC appears to have the flu. Her fever of 103 and incessant body aches gave me my first clue, and the fact that she hasn’t really been able to leave the bed since about noon yesterday gave me my second.  The kids had a short day at school, so I pulled one of those Djuggler kind of things where I’m at 75 places at once, as I:

• Picked GAC up at school
• Dropped her off at home
• Finished a project at work
• Picked the kids up
• Bought much needed groceries
• Put said groceries away
• Went to Pigpen’s Parent Teacher Conference (he’s doing well, just holds a pencil funny)
• Cooked pancakes for a nutritious dinner
• Got the final touches done on the kids costumes
• And, if my earlier math was right, 66 other things

Bos and Eaves and the Cemestos kids got to the house to tricker treat with Pigpen and MastaG, but poor GAC had to miss out.  Its a shame, because she’s the one that really likes halloween.

Whats not a shame is the fact that halloween has evidently become another day.

We walked the length and breadth of our neighborhood, and only about 1 out of 6 houses was recognizing the fact that oddly dressed youngsters were expecting candy.  Sure, it was a good workout, but it was a pretty crappy haul.

Bos blamed it on these Trunk or Treat things that so many churches are putting on, and I think thats a real shame.  Oak Ridge as a town doesn’t have a lot of community cohesiveness, and Halloween is about the only time that you actually see some of the people that you sleep 100 feet away from every day.   While I’ve always thought it was a pain in the ass to get dragged around town by sugar jonesing knee highs, I’ve always appreciated the fact that you get out and say “hi” to some of these people.

Apparently, that is no longer in vogue on the east end, and I think society is weaker for it.

Anyway, we got home, and I (along with GAC) had a sleepless night.  Now I have weird green people sitting on my desk telling me to do strange things with the staple remover, and I’m wondering how long it will be before I get that telltale back-of-the-neck pull of the flu.

Oh yeah.  Its in the mail.  But its OK, I can take it…

Last night’s Halloween was much more mundane than AT’s hoodlum festival of yore.