I don’t really get “Greatest Hits” albums from musicians that are still giving a whirl to fortune’s wheel. From the Beatles, yes; from Elvis, who I would be very surprised to see rise up to lichlike rock star glory; certainly. But from, gee, I dunno, Peter Gabriel, it sounds like an admission of defeat. “I shall never make another song so good,” it mourns. If, instead, you put your collections in jars dated for freshness, it says, “or We|text|I never going to go away.” Either that, or it’s acknowledging that you’ll put out another one every ten years. Cocky or honest, it’s better than defeatist!

The old delights of snow are to a certain extent behind me. The odds are, after all, 71.4286% in favor of the day snowed upon being a weekday – and the flood shall engulf the earth before an employer will decide a trifle like weather merits paid time off. So snow no longer brings the delightful frisson of sanctioned truancy. The sun sets as I drive home and past the snow I don’t have the time, or truly, the inclination, to play in. It is hard indeed to summon the desire for a snowball fight when you know full well the laundry and floor-mopping that will ensue!

Now snow has other joys, some I’ve had since childhood, and some very new indeed. My very own house sits warm and protective amid the white drifts, and I can peek out onto the scene. I can laugh silently at the contrast between the excuses of those who call into work afraid to drive on snow, and the excuses of those who call into work unwilling to put up with ‘idiot drivers who can’t deal with snow’. I can snuggle into the melty-soft hat and scarf my sister bought me for Christmas, and feel both pampered and pretty. I can study the footprints in the snow on campus, and see that Coyote is still here, though I have only seen him once. I can boil water for hot cocoa and peppermint patties. I can tuck my blankets about me as I sit on the heating vent, inches from the white waste without, and feel the cold reflecting off my smile.

As I dug deeply into my canvas bag of mail today, I drew out a stiff little envelope, probably a Christmas card, addressed very clearly to a scientist here, with a very clear return address on the back in Edinburgh, Scotland. Slightly less clear, with the touch of rotational blur that marks a hurried, human stamping, was the legend in bright blue, delicate capitals: MISSENT TO MALAYSIA.

I was struck at once. This eggshell envelope, the ridges of its subtle stripes teetering on the ridges of my fingerprints, had been to Malaysia. Not only had it somehow, incredibly, been sent to Malaysia in error, but Malaysia has a stamp for this occurrence, and Malaysia wants you to know why your letter has taken so long in coming - or to envy, perhaps, the jetsetting lifestyle of this holiday greeting. It was in good shape, the stiff little card - nary a water spot, tear, or dog’s ear. All it bore to attest to its adventure was that smug little inscription—“MISSENT TO MALAYSIA”. I smiled, and carried it to its final destination.

The other night, I dreamt that Jack, the drama chappie at my high school, had contacted me to be in a play, but had not called upon me to come to rehearsals until the Dress. As apparently I was meant to be Juliet in Romeo &, this was a very strange way to go about things. However, since I was meant to be Juliet, I already knew all the lines (Note: I have at some point in my life known all her lines off by heart. I do not truly know this to still be the case, but if any of you would like to get up a production and not ask me until the Dress, we shall find out.)

So not only had I not been asked to come until the Dress - leaving me at an utter loss as to cues and so forth - but I apparently was not told in time to be on time, and so did not join the rehearsal until Act II. The entire proceeding was a muddle - I didn’t see the chap portraying Romeo ‘til, give or take, the death scene - and sometimes it seemed to be a Dress, sometimes an opening night with a very forgiving audience. It was chaotic and horrible and fun.

I miss the theatre.

Indeed, all is well. A very merry Christmas was had in spite of my Monday sniffle bug and the best efforts of [My gifted father-in-law has examined my toilet and found at least two things wrong with it, thus confirming what I havbe protested—that its recalcitrance is NOT my fault.|text|rebellious plumbing]. I have more cheap candy sitting around than I know what to do with, several caches of Non-Cheap Candy (some of it Made by Monks!), new movies, a very good Playstation 2 game, new books, tumblers in my glass pattern, a pretty red tea set, and even, amazingly, stationery. As you know, no one could possibly think of buying me stationery, because my proclivity for the ancient art of pen and paper is so secret and unknown.

I must apologize, I fear, for my laziness in posting of late… I have been a very sniffly lily of the field, toiling not, neither spinning, neither sweeping the kitchen, cooking meals, writing letters, or indeed turning my hand to anything beyond watching TV and reading books. Well, and wrapping presents. Now I am beginning to move out of the haze of my Winter withdrawal and out from behind the wall of my nasal passages, and I shall post more, write more, send out Christmas cards, adhere to my Weight Watchers regime, exercise, paint the kitchen, and read things I haven’t read before. Also, I have been considering the advisability of curing cancer, bringing about world peace, and flapping my arms to fly.

At any rate, I love this time of year, when we think up all manner of warm and wonderful entertainments to shut out the chill and dreary world without, and I love the company of my friends. Thank you for being you, friends, and may your winter joys be great and sufficiently distracting!

So yesterday I was at home, trying for a record on “Kleenex per day without exposure to sad movies”, and today I came into work and there were three Christmas presents on my desk (one wrapped in adorable disarray by an 8-year-old), and no one was to be found. I opened my presents, sat down and logged in, tsked over my missed Organizer alerts, read my e-mail, wrote a few, and still, no one. Not even a lab person, let alone a front office person like myself. For a while I thought maybe they’d moved Christmas up by a few days and no one had let me know…

Okay, I know you know your big blessings. They’re so big it’s almost exhausting to catalog them. By the time I get to “I give thanks for having most excellent, kind, funny, and intelligent parents” I start thinking of the starving Armenians and start giving thanks for food, freedom, education, not knowing how to field-strip an AK, and the list becomes truly enormous. There are a lot of scary things to be glad you are free from, and counting your true blessings makes you feel shockingly, almost unworthily, lucky.

So I’ve got the opposite! Time to give thanks for the petty things that make your day better. No deepness allowed! Shallow end of pool only! And count! One blessing, mwa ha ha, TWO blessings, mwa ha ha!

I am blessed because:
1. The mouse here at work does not have a mouse-wheel, thus saving me from reaching for it when it’s not there when at home.
2. There is snack mix in the break room.
3. I haven’t seen any newts today.
4. I have never stepped in deer droppings.
5. The picture of me in the “New Employees” section of the campus newsletter was flattering.

Your turn! Keep it inconsequential!

The song “We Are the Champions” can easily and amusingly be sung with the alternative lyric, “I r teh r0xx0r.”

As I moseyed from one building to another just this morning, I stopped my foot from descending on the small impassive perfection of a newt, still as the proverbial statue in my path. I pointed him out, and attempted to shoo him in a more newt-friendly direction, but the chill was in the air and the newt could not spare the calories.

I picked him up gingerly, with the gentle aid of a leaf, in the process creating the signature head-to-tail “scared” posture of the genus Taricha. As I transferred him into my hand, he flopped onto his back, and his orange belly and legs waved gently in the air. Something prickled at the back of my mind. Together, we righted himself, and I approached a likely clump of wet leaves. His poised little head was covered with little knobs—one might even say he was rough-skinned, and the prickle became a nagging voice. Here in my hands was what many experts call the Most Poisonous Animal in the World. I gently placed him on the ground, raised my contaminated hands high, and ran for a quarter mile, shrieking, “LOOK OUT! NATURE! NATURE EVERYWHERE! SHE’S COMING! SHE’S COMING FOR US! AND SHE’S PISSED!”

Or else I placed him gently on the ground, washed my hands 16 times, and ate things like rolls with a fork and knife at lunch—but I’d rather believe the more exciting version, wouldn’t you?

So the other day Matt and I finished all our Christmas shopping - well, all the Christmas shopping we can discuss with each other, at any rate - in one whirlwind day. It was loads of fun and rather exhausting, but nonetheless we pressed onwards to Home Depot, which was where Matt’s parents obtained a truly gorgeous Noble Fir t’other day.

It was well after sunset at this time, and Home Depot was not especially busy. The Nursery was empty, and the outdoor portions where the trees were slouched were on beyond empty into the quietly dripping industrial blackness of the Nostromo’s hold. After a desultory look at the trees, we bustled off to find out whether there was, in fact, anyone willing to take money in exchange for dying coniferous organisms.

Not only was there such a person, but he accompanied us to the trees and stood cross-armed, inquiring as to which tree we wanted to exchange for money. At this, I was rather startled, having spared barely a glance for any specific tree, and whether it was the impatient air of the smocked minion, the lateness of the hour, or the shadow of night, which had fallen so thoroughly as to have left little bits all over everything, the second tree we picked up and twirled looked adequate to our festive needs.

The process of bringing a 6-foot tree home on top of a Volkswagen and getting it up a flight of stairs into a tree stand is universal and requires no description.

The tree’s effect when so transported, so hoisted and so installed not only requires but craves description. The trunk of the beast contrives to both be bowed over its length and zigzag near its top; said top having a sparse and skeletal air with two arrays of straight twigs at such a perfect parallel one to the other that they resemble nothing so much as a rooftop television antenna. Further down the tree, the eccentric asymmetry manifests itself in gaps in the foliage and a blocky, rather than conical shape—even this inferior blocky shape being marred by a wasted concave patch in the lower petticoats. The bottom branches, providing so much of the little bulk of the tree that they are without a doubt indispensable, lie indolently on the ground, defying the onlooker to find a place to display any present. To finish it off, one great swath of these low-lying branches is broken near the trunk, and therefore will soon add a festive brown to the visual feast.

No, fair reader, this is not “A Charlie Brown Tree.” In order to be such an unfortunate but cute arboreal entity, one must be small. A mangy, wet, and whimpering puppy is an object of pity and the softening heart. A mangy, wet, and whimpering GREAT SLAVERING UGLY HOUND is an object of horror and the thundering blunderbuss. This 6-foot aberration needs must be put down.

I cannot spare more time to spin my tale—I must go buy a new tree.