Today I got to play with Alicia, who is back on the east coast visiting her family for the holidays. She's in Manattan because her sister lives there, so today I took the train in and we had a nice brunch together at Norma's. Here we are in front of the guy holding up the world by Rockerfeller Center:
After brunch, we wandered back to the train station, and along the way we happened upon someplace special for our friend, Ricksta:
Bunny ears by Alicia. =)
Spam and Musubi got a present for Christmas this morning. They are fish filled with catnip! Spammy went crazy over them, and did his best to open the package himself. Then he just went nuts with them for the rest of the morning. :) Spammy and Musubi say thanks for all the fish!
It's the wee hours of Christmas morning, and I am waiting up to see Santa drop by.
Ok, the real story is that Russ has to work an overnight shift from midnight till 8:00 a.m., and I'm trying to stay awake for as much of that shift as I can, so that the two of us can have the same amount of sleepiness later on today.
Because Russ has to work this crazy shift, and I have to work at Crate & Barrel tomrorow, we are unable to make it up to Massachusetts to spend Christmas with my folks. So that's kind of a bummer.
Anyway, the agenda for these wee hours has included doing some laundry (already on the second of three loads), and giving Spammy a bath. We just finished the bath I gave him (this is part of his ringworm treatment), and now he's sitting beside me on the couch, taking his own post-bath bath. He's actually sitting in the crumpled up towel I used to help dry him off, which is on top of Musubi, who I think is letting him sit on top of her for moral support. It's cute how she always looks after him, even though he always tries to beat her up when they play.
In a few minutes, I'm going to go to the car and get out the last of the gifts I picked up for Russ today - I've been hiding it in the trunk. This afternoon, I stopped by Crate & Barrel and dropped off a bunch of cookies and scones for the folks that had to work today. While I was at the mall, I also went to the Walking Company and picked up a pair of nice warm slippers for Russ - one of the things he specifically mentioned that he wanted for Christmas. They are real slippers - not Hawaii-kine slippahs that mainlanders call flip-flops. The other day I also picked up a tool chest for Russ's power tools, since I stole the big bucket he was using to store them because we needed it to hold our empty containers for recycling. And the last thing I got him was a gift certificate for a one-hour massage. I'd better hold off on publishing this post till after Russ comes home, just in case he's bored at work, and decides to read my blog, which I kind of doubt he'll do, but better to be safe, heh.
I also have a movie to watch - Man on the Train. It has subtitles, so I have to pay attention if I want to know what's going on!
But for now, some pictures of our first Christmas living in New Jersey:
This evening... well I guess it was last evening already... we drove into NYC just to visit the big Christmas tree in Rockerfeller Center. Russ played toursit snapping pictures out the window of the car while I drove. :)
Along our way wading through the crowd to get to Rockerfeller Center, we saw a giant snowstorm, with giant snowflakes! :D
As you can see, we accomplished our goal. :) Here's the big tree.
And here are the skaters!
Russ watching the big TV outside the window at the NBC store.
And we passed Radio City Music Hall along our way back to the car.
We tried to take a picture of ourselves with Radio City Music Hall in the background, but I guess that didn't work out very well.
Ok, I'm finally finishing up this post at 3:45 a.m. I'm getting pretty tired, but I'm still going to try to watch the movie I rented. I want to try to make it till at least 6:00 a.m. before I go to sleep. We'll see!
Russ took this picture just a few minutes ago. You can't even tell that Spammy's butt's been shaved. =)
How did it get to be December 17th already? I dunno - just not enough hours in the day.
This past week, my brother mostly moved his things into our house. We have a bunch of his stuff in the cellar, and then a bunch more of his stuff in the attic, where he will be staying. In addition to his stuff, we also have his 15-year old cat, Sweetie. I'm afraid Sweetie isn't as sweet as Spammy and Musubi. He plays games like the cat we had when I was growing up. Beege would act all happy, purring, rubing against you - then she'd flop over on the floor, and roll on her back, making like she wants you to pet her tummy. But really that was just an invitation for her to saw your arm off with her claws and teeth. At least Sweetie doesn't have any front claws, so I still have my arm.
We also have my brother's mattress in the downstairs, standing on its end, halfway in the front hall and the other half in the living room. Spammy and Musubi LOVE it. They think it's their indoor tree, racing right up to the top of it every chance they get. Unless I'm not around, Spammy prefers to get off from the top by having me stand right next to the mattress so he can step onto my head and shoulder before jumping off onto the couch.
So anyway, between my brother moving in on Tuesday and me baking a million billion evil goodness cookies to send to my Hawaii friends, I didn't manage to get anything else done that day. We've also been busy wrapping and sending gifts, and I designed and assembled Christmas cards, and both Russ and I wrote messages in them and sent. And business at Crate & Barrel of course is picking up to a nice frenzied pace.
And I still have some Christmas shopping to do - haven't gotten anything for Russ yet! But since I just got home from work, time for sleep.
zzzzzzzzzzzzz
This morning while Russ and I shovelled the driveway and sidewalk, the sun began to come out. So I kept my appointment for Spammy to visit the vet. Good thing too, because it turns out that in addition to runny eyes an nose, the little guy has ringworm! Ewww! As part of his treatment today, Spammy had the pleasure of being traumatized by an anti-fungal bath and blow-dry. When the vet's assistant brought him out to the waiting room afterwards, Spammy's feelings were very conflicted - he couldn't decide whether he wanted to shake from being scared by the bath, or purr because I was holding him again. So when he looked at me, he purred. When he looked away from me, he stopped purring and shook.
So now Spammy is on three different medications, and I have to bring Musubi in next week to get her checked out for ringworm, too. She's not showing any symptoms of anything though, so hopefully she's ok...
See today I think it snowed because I scheduled an appointment for Spammy to visit the vet. His eyes are runny and he's sneezy. But perhaps we will reschedule since it's snowing pretty hard and no signs of stopping anytime soon...
If diseases go together like a road with bumps
Then I got the measles and you got the mumps
I heard this on XM Radio's 50's channel last week while I was driving in the car. Was part of some love song. I have no idea who it's by, but I thought it was so hilarious I had to write it down before I forgot it.
And I did forget it. And I forgot that I wrote it down - at least until just now when I came across that piece of paper.
Ok, I just looked up those lyrics - they are from Jackie Wilson's To Be Loved. According to several web sites, it seems I heard it wrong:
If they says it goes together like a road with bumps
Then I got the measles and you got the mumps
Bah, it was more funny the way I heard it. Still, including diseases in a love song kind of tickles me. :P
This was the view we woke up to this morning at 7:30 a.m. Well... actually it's the view from our bedroom window at about 1:00 p.m. - so some of the snow we first saw had already melted before I took the photo.
Figures the day it decides to finally snow here is the same morning that I wanted to get up early and go get some holiday shopping done. The reason I wanted to go on this day in particular is because I've taken a seasonal job with Crate & Barrel, and this morning they opened up the store early for employees only, so we could do some holiday shopping while the store was not busy with real shoppers.
But we didn't let the snow daunt us - we got up, shovelled the snow off our driveway and sidewalk, brushed off the car and went. I've made many trips between Hartford and central Massachusetts in much worse weather than this - I figured we could manage the five or so miles from home to the Short Hills Mall.
So that was our excitement for the day. My first drive on snowy, slick roads in almost six years. We're not dead or injured, the car doesn't have any additional scratches on it, and the all-season tires maybe actually are all-season, not just all-Hawaii-season tires. ;)
