christmas time is... here?
Looks like 2006 is a Year of Firsts for me... first time my home burned down, first time I was evicted by a rat-bastard landlord and the first time I will be celebrating Christmas with not a flake of snow on the ground and temperatures above zero.Currently? It is raining and plus 3°C. Blech.It's supposed to be 6°C tomorrow. And then we might see snow on the 26th. Pah!I always said that I never wanted to be anywhere without snow for Christmas because to me it's a huge part of the season and the festive feeling. My choice. But apparently this year is just against anything that might possibly make me happy. Yesterday in the car I yelled out "Fuck you, Mother Nature!" and Shawn thought that was funny and wanted to turn it into a t-shirt (I swear that man should start his own t-shirt company). But then again, the lack of snow/ice/etc. is making our commute to and from work a lot less miserable.Of course I was totally hoping for snow today and tomorrow, but it's not going to happen. Oh, look the sun is coming out. Bah.**Last night Shawn and I wrapped the gifts for our family. Since we're all home the next few days, we even decided to put them under the tree (if no one is around anything paper tends to get eaten by a certain full figured dog). I think the gifts make our little Charlie Brown Tree look rather nice. Don't you?
The bottle of Jamesons is to me from my Big Boss at work. Heh. I won't drink any of it until my appointment in January, but it's nice to know I have some around. Sort of like a security blanket. Heh heh. Funny story about the alcohol though... see my Big Boss is the dean of a very large music school in a very large University and he's been getting gifts out the wazoo. I wanted to get him something for Christmas, but I didn't know what. So I did the cop-out gift, I bought him a bottle of 12 year old Glenlivet Scotch. But when I got to work the next day and met him in his office, turns out he'd just recieved a bunch of bottles of scotch/whiskey etc. and he made a comment about it, so I thought, "CRAP! I can't give him this!". I thought I would see if he'd let me take him to lunch - he did (which was a miracle in itself!) and we went and had some lunch at a nice little place near by.By the end of the day, when BB (Big Boss) was busy signing about 200 Christmas cards - on a day he wasn't even supposed to have come in of course - I took one look at him and thought about our various conversations over lunch and rethought the gift. I would give it to him. Done deal.With my coat on, my bags in my hands, I walked through to his office to say good night and said "I wasn't going to give you this, but you really look like you need it". Heh. So he opens the bad to see the wrapped gift and says, "What's in this? Is there ice at the bottom?"Uh oh.BB lifts the box out of the bag and the bottom is a soggy mess - and dripping! The bottom of the bottle had broken off. We got it to the sink in my Boss's office (which adjoins his and is next to mine) just in time for the waterfall of 12 year old Scotch to fall in the sink, all over the counter, down the front and onto the floor!I felt like a fool and yet BB just started laughing. He had to lean against me to stay upright he was laughing so much. As we stood over the flood, I said in my most snarky tone, "Well, Merry Freakin' Christmas." Which of course made him laugh harder. When he could breathe again he said "I have never emptied a bottle of Scotch all at once in my life! This is great!"So, my boss's office smells like alcohol. A lot. We even tried cleaning up with soap the next day (yet another day he wasn't supposed to be there) and yet, it reeks. I am hoping that when B comes back from her holidays on January 3rd that it will have dissipated a little. Which I don't think will happen since the building is now closed until then. No cleaners, no workers, no students. Nada. So I think she's going to get a surprise when she comes in that morning and wonder what the hell BB and I were up to in her absence!BB and I weren't totally drenched in the alcohol, but it went all down the sleeve of my winter coat and on his shoes and bottom of his pants. I joked that this will be something fun to tell his wife when she wonders why he's coming home smelling like a bar. Heh. "It was nothing, honey. I was just bathing in Scotch with the secretary." Because I knew that would go over well. HA!So Friday in the office was spent trying to clean B's office so that it didn't smell that bad, clean BB's office so he didn't come back to a major mess and me trying to get some work done before noon - when the offices closed. I ended up leaving a little after 1:00 as I helped BB bring stuff down to his car. Luckily that's when Marcel showed up to go to lunch with me (he was home from Calgary for the holidays) and he helped us carry things too. Ha!I got to spend the afternoon with Marcel, and although I mentioned at the top of this post, nothing is allowed to make me happy this year spending those few hours with Marcel REALLY lifted my spirits and made me so happy. I miss him like crazy. Nothing like some Marcel Time to pick you up!I guess that's about it. Hope you all have a happy holiday, Merry Christmas, etc.