RockStarPeach

I just want to send out a great big THANK YOU to everyone who offered me birthday wishes today. You folks are awesome :)



Sadly, winter (and I'm using that term loosely, since it's only snowed lightly a handful of times and it's been like, twelve degrees pretty regularly during the day so far) has scored the first point this year. See, winter gets points when it pisses me off, I get points when I enjoy it. Summer, by the way, always kicks my ass so hard it's sad, I don't even deserve a friggin', participation trophy in the summer. Really, if I had any self respect I'd stop showing up to games.

Anywho.

So last night I did some shopping, wrapped some presents and at a little after midnight I was totally wired from that gabbilion ml coke I picked up at the Wendy's drive through on the way home. Seriously. Have you people ever ordered a large soft drink from Wendy's? 'Cause... don't. I was pretty damn thirsty (and a little sleepy), so I was all 'yes, large drink, need lots of sugar.' And then they handed it to me and my eyes went all buggy and I kind of looked at them for a minute and...

Okay, there's a point and I'm getting to it.

I was caffeinated and hopped up on the sugar and proud of myself for having gotten most of my Christmas shopping done and dusted and so I thought - Now's a great time to re-string those lights out front!.

And it was. It was only snowing a little and it was pretty warm and one of the strings was half burnt out so it really needed replacing because it was looking pretty ghetto. The thing is, we keep our outside lights up all year. Our inside ones too, actually, but whatever. We only turn them on at Christmas time (and Halloween and sometimes Canada Day and Victoria Day and just whenever we want to look festive) but they're always up.

And that's always been fine, until that string went out. And until I actually looked at the lights from the front of the house, instead of from the inside.

We have a small tree out front that we planted about five years ago. We strung lights onto it that first Christmas and just left them there and since then, the tree has grown. To the point that you could hardly see the lights anymore, since the branches are longer and the needles are more plentiful.

So, after I got done witht he string along the railing I decided to re-string the tree so the lights were on the outside instead of the inside. Looking back, I probably should have changed out of my shorts. And put on a pair of gardening gloves.

It wasn't cold though, just to be outside. So someone putting up Christmas lights in shorts and a t-shirt at half past midnight in December should be completely normal.

...I'm reminded of something Rick Mercer once said... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6f8Fs8TRyc. Watch it. No, really, WATCH IT. I'll wait. It's worth it just for 'Torontarded' :)

Wow, I keep getting off track here.

The bad came when I tried to wrestle the string of lights out of the tree. That baby had grip and she wasn't givin' up. The tree grew around the lights, so they were wedged in there pretty good and I was spider-climbing her to get the lights out. The tree was cold for how cold it wasn't outside and I kept having to stop to brush snow off my hands and do that hot air breath thing over my knuckles and the wires were pretty stiff from being all frozen and stuff.

The getting the lights back on after was a lot easier. Yay! Success! I thought. But when I got inside I washed my hands in warm water and made the happy face and then frowned when I noticed that the red wasn't just from the cold, it was from those bitchy little pine needles, sticking all up in my skin. Fucker, was all bloomy, too, with those little patches of fluffy, bright green that lure you in because they're so pretty and soft...

And then I noticed that scratches went all the way up my arms. So, I washed them too.

Then I crashed out on the couch and put on some Buffy and looked down at my legs and noticed they were all scratched to Hell, too.

I think I almost cried. Nobody can say for sure, since I'll deny it to my dying day.

So yeah. Winter scored the first point, even though it doesn't exist yet. It's wily like that. I will have my day, though. You just wait until the snow really comes and the ponds ice over and broomball season starts. Victory will be mine!



Heh, for a day that started out with a doomed fist fight against a pine tree, I'm now pleasantly curled up with a nummy rum and eggnog, at the tail end of a mother/daughter slumber party.

Days is good :)

ETA - This is not the 'please wish Rockstar a happy birthday' post (I promise I still love you!) so I hope this doesn't come off like that. I just wanted to thank some people and share a little story about Christmas decorating and overly large caffeinated beverages and Canadian fast food chains. CHRISTMAS DECORATING, folks. Who doesn't love Christmas decorating gone awry?