Frog and Goat

We got our Christmas tree today and it is sitting in a bucket of water in the garage. The garage smells like a whole forest of pine. If it weren’t so cold in the garage, I think I’d spend the evening down there.

We put our lights in the window just a little bit ago and the house at least is starting to look seasonal. Now we just need to find some Christmas spirit.

Speaking of Christmas spirits, the people we went to see the show with the other night were going to make their bracing egg nog this weekend. Their nog is strong and forthright. The year we made nog it stripped the paint off the walls. We need to lift their recipe or visit more often during the holiday season.

I’m not sure if we’re going to bake anything this year–we may make some Stollen. My mother usually cranks the Stollen out this time of year and it isn’t that strange looking stuff you see in tins at the store. Her Stollen is more bread-like than fruitcake-esque. And it Rocks.

Today I spent some time with my friend who is getting over surgery. We could leave her house today (we didn’t last week–she felt too icky) and had lunch at Ledo’s Pizza. I had the baked Ziti and she got the lasagna. We joked about calling Ziti zit-i and how her MIL says it zit-i instead of zeetee. My friend finally told her MIL that a zit is something on your face.

Then we went to Hallmark and one thing we noticed was there aren’t enough sexy Christmas cards out there–at least not at that particular store. If I wanted a boring card to give to the better-half, I’d just pluck one out of the regular box and hand it over. I resorted to a Fresh Ink card (that has nothing to do with Christmas) and then my friend finally found where they kept the “cool” mainstream Christmas love cards and we found two that didn’t suck. She bought one and I bought the other.

While at the card store we were tortured by hack Christmas music. There are some songs and some singers that should never cross paths. I think we heard every single one of those songs. Ack.

And, since I’m not sick of telling you about our trip to Hallmark, here’s one more tidbit. There are just some people that you want to throttle and there’s nothing wrong in admitting that. There was a group of unrelated women–by unrelated I mean they didn’t come into the store together but found common ground by annoying us–who could not stop knocking over the Christmas bells. I think each of them managed to do it and then they talked about it while they did it again and again and again. Honestly, excuse your klutzy self and move away from the Christmas bells.

And now for something completely different: Tonight we’re meeting folks at Ashland Coffee and Tea to hear this band.

Central Va. experienced an earthquake this afternoon. That’s not something that happens all that often. I remember one as a kid. I didn’t actually feel this one as I was in my car and I guess I was going fast enough that it had no effect.

Here’s another one of those stories that helps keep the Richmond joke in action (the Richmond joke is that we can’t help but talk about the past). On one of the local news channels they reported talking to a resident who told the station that her mother was waxing poetic about an earthquake that happened during the 1940s or 50s. So, an earthquake occured 50 or 60 years ago and we’re still talking about it on the NEWS.