On the first day of Christmas

Freakin' Mozilla! Grrr! I had this nice, long, lovely post about my first day of Christmas and all the nothing we did today, only to have my system lock up and complete witch's tit freeze up.

And eat my post for Christmas dinner. Must have been tasty. So, the not-so-fabulous repost, minus all the humor and graphics, to be sure. I am so switching to Firefox this vacation.

We managed to completely miss the morning by fighting the dogs for the last one awake award. Annie barely missed the award, but Kris' sleeping endurance is matched by no man. Not even Bharat.

Our first adventure of the day involved taking the dogs up to the school for a run, run, run. Bella spent the time barking at trees, er, squirrels in the trees (but, really, just the trees), while Annie ran around chasing her red bone. I tried to get some pictures of her, but managed the butt of the beagle, when I was lucky. I did find some entertainment with the video of Bella barking up at the squirrels, when I played it back hours later: it triggered both Bella and Annie to join in, baying in the living room.

After running around, I lured Bella into the shower with Doggie X, also known as Snausages. When I mentioned to Kris that Bella prefered Snausages (X) over Greenies (crack), he didn't believe me. Oh, Kris of the clueless dog owners, how little you know of your two doggies. Try spending every. single. day. with them following you around all. the. time. The worst? I cannot go to the bathroom without a beagle accompaniment. You read that right: I'm unable to poop without a dog witness. Joy.

Bella proved me right, and Kris shocked, when given the choice between a Greenie and a Snausage, she chose the Snausage. Well, the half a Snausage, which should say something. How else can I lure her, nominally willing at this point, into a bathtub with running water. She actually bathes without barking now.

After bathing both the dogs, I settled down to finish the Penultimate Peril, by Lemony Snicket. In my attempt to catch up with my reading, I've been reading like a mad-woman. Mad! I say, Mad! Tragically, reading five books at once means none are finished, so I finished this one. It was remarkably thick reading, so I read more quickly than normally just to get through it. The style of writing has become tiresome, and I'd just like to read the end and be done with it at this point.

Kris started playing the latest version of Axis and Allies at some point when I was bathing the dogs. As soon as he started, I knew I'd be all set to putz the entire afternoon.

Which I did.

For five hours.

A long while ago, maybe 10 years ago, I read the suggestion of "tear out the articles in magazines you like, and throw away the rest" to help get rid of clutter. I am, admittedly, a knowledge and information junkie, and like to keep the information I find interesting. Tragically, in paper form, having ten years of magazine articles lying around isn't particularly practical. I recall back in 1996 when handheld scanners had just come out, that I scanned some articles to save on my computer. I have no idea where those images are now.

I now have a spiffy Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner and it is the most awesomest scanner ever. It scans double-sided lickety split and automates batch scanning. I've started scanning all my torn out magazine articles. Well, those, and bills, receipts, letters, cards and any other paper items I have. Scan them, then toss them. I spent most of the afternoon sorting, scanning, tossing, and programming (as the scanner is relatively automatic, it needed little help). Slowly, the pile is disappearing. Mount Paper in the office is next.

At some point during the day, we received a box on the front porch. When Bella and Annie started howling, we noticed it, and went to retrieve it. Inside the box was dry ice. WhoO!

Okay, okay, inside were some filet mignon from Kris' dad, but they were packed with dry ice. Through a communication mix-up between Kris and me, Kris dumped the ice into a bowl of water (I wanted to share the experience with Liza, but my timing was bad and all I managed to do was interrupt the Gull Christmas Eve dinner). We enjoyed the mist show, even if the dogs were less than thrilled.

After dinner, we wandered over to the Gull house to see Liza in her awesome green jammies. Maeryn has a pair just like them, and they were soooOOOooo cute. Talked with Kate, too. Wonderful to see her and talk to her. I might have convinced her to play ultimate next Thursday at the Beware-o the Sombrero hat tournament in San Mateo. Not sure, but I hope so. Mike's rendition of Twas the Night Before Christmas is not an event to be missed, BTW. A tear-jerker rendition of the fabled tale.

We wandered back home after brownies with the Gulls, wondering what we should get Liza for Christmas. I'm never sure what to get kids. I'm in such a de-crap state of mind that I can't imaging getting more stuff for other people. I'd rather cook some fancy meal, or help them clean out the garage, or take the dog for the weekend than buy something. I keep thinking I should be a good little consumer and spend spend spend, but I'd really prefer spending time with people.

Stupid getting older crap.

After four days of asking if we could open a present in the evening ("Just one little present! Just one! You have ten boxes here, Kris, will you miss even one?"), Kris relented and we started opening up gifts tonight. I realized after he opened up two of his gifts why he didn't want to open any: once he started, he didn't want to stop.

Eventually I managed to pry the remaining, unopened gifts from his hands, and we settled down to watch Dodgeball and Firefly. Mike's been telling me I need to watch Firefly, I need to watch Firefly, and I'd been pooh-poohing him. Television, bah. Who needs more television?

Well, I watched them. They're awesome. Mike's right (aggaaaain).

A little cooking, a bit of cleaning and a quick write-up of the day that became a freaking long write-up of the day when my system crashed, and I'm thinking this was a good day of nothing. I wonder how the second day of Christmas will go.