I went Christmas shopping day before yesterday, after procrastinating at work.  I didn’t want to do it.  I surely didn’t want to fight the traffic.  Drivers around here have some questionable driving skills even when the weather is clear and sunny, but when it rains, oh boy, watch out.  For some reason they feel the need to drive faster when it rains, the harder it rains, the crazier they drive.

I didn’t really have a plan when I headed out yesterday (at the time of posting this would have been Christmas Eve eve).  I ended up at a cheap department store, looking for a deal on Nike sweats.  Well, that didn’t work out well at all.  I found a Fallout 3 beanie, which I really liked for my youngest.  He wears beanies because he has to keep his eyebrows warm.  I don’t really understand that at all – can eyebrows get cold?  So I happily took my newly found beanie to the line for the cash register, but it turned out the line snaked all the way around the store to the back.  Suddenly, the beanie wasn’t such a good find, and I left the store empty-handed.

As I am walking to my car, through the sheets of rain, I step in this puddle, that goes up to my ankle.  A lady passes me just as I am doing this and says “I hope those are rain boots you have on.”  Well, I live in the Central California Valley – there just isn’t a  large demand for rain boots, so no, I didn’t have my rain boots on, and because of this I now have really soggy, cold feet.  Yay me!!!!

I then decide I am getting nowhere with the shopping thing, it is dark and wet, and my feet are all squishy and cold, and every time I step down, little bubbles of water emit from the sides of my shoes.  I really just want to go home.  But since I am out, I better go feed the fish I am taking care of for a friend, while he is away, being part of the jet-set crowd.  He has salt-water tanks.  He has had some trouble with Ich, a fish disease that is a nightmare to get rid of. One of the fish, in the quarantine tank must have succumbed to it because I found him floating nose down in the gravel.  I don’t deal well with fish deaths (I have a saltwater tank as well) and so finding the cute little copper banded angel, lifeless, when he seemed to be doing so well previously totally bummed me out.

I took the little fish home with me, wrapped it in some tissue and ceremoniously placed it in the garbage can – I said “I am sorry little fishie. I really, really am.”  It seemed he needed a more respectful burial than just being flushed down the toilet.

I arrive home and all my family is there.  No one is working, or at the gym, or out with friends. The house is filled with most luscious scent of pine, coming from a candle burning in the kitchen.  I put on my fluffy, DRY slippers and make a cup of tea.  After my feet have thawed my husband shows me a video of Santa arriving on a firetruck to the hospital where I work.

http://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article122255839.html

Filled with a renewed sense of Christmas cheer, I sat in my house creating the  Procrastinators Perfect Plan for Purchasing Pertinent, Poignant Presents Promptly.

Update:  True to form – I have delayed the publishing of this post for several days.  You will be pleased to hear, my 8P (Procrastinators Perfect Plan for Purchasing Pertinent, Poignant Presents Promptly) went off without a hitch.  Everyone was happy with the gifts they received, and my boys seemed most pleased with new spatulas and pepper/salt grinder. And Maxie (the Golden Retriever) loves his stuffed Hedgehog that grunts (except every time I hear the toy grunt I think one of the dogs is preparing to regurgitate).  Oh, and my youngest’s eyebrows are no longer cold.

Photo credits: fishpage.org