Ok, I admit it, I miss Typepad. Truly, madly, deeply. I am just not feeling it over at LiveJournal, and I am actually at the point where I am considering just giving up the idea of professional sewing and just sewing for myself and friends again. I find that idea to be SO RELAXING.
The Drama Llama, she makes me so tired.
And today is the traditional day at my home where we all put up the tree (and I have written previous postings on how I am NOT a Christmas person, don't actually celebrate the Baby Jesus, would rather be sitting on a beach for Xmas, and have an intense hatred of "Do They Know its Christmas" GAH) and of course it went like every other year. Squabbling ("I get to put up the angel!"), frustration ("Who winds up the damn lights into tiny little balls of tangled messes every year?"), and dancing the sprinkler to holiday music ("Dad, you haven't played Baba O'Riley yet!"). Yes, Baba O'Riley. Many years back little S told my mother that every year when we would put up the tree we would hold hands and sing "O Tannenbaum." Big props to my mother for not falling over laughing at this little picture of family togetherness that was clearly FALSE.
We decided instead that we were really the kind of family that danced around (except El Jefe who Does Not Dance) to things like Baba O'Riley and The Hanukkah Song ("Courtney Love is half-Jewish, Lenny Kravitz is half too. Put them together - you get one bad-ass Jew!"). And we're okay with that.
But you subtract one old, addle-pated, spontaneously molting Australian Cattle Dog (sigh) and add in two hyperactive 7 month old Welsh Terriers, and the whole thing takes on a kind of slapstick quality. Roxie spent about 5 minutes sniffing everything and checking it out, all "WHOA! There is a tree in the house!" and then went off to chew on a bone. But Layla was determined to destroy the tree. To bend it to her tiny little 11 lb. bony sweater-wearing will. To eat Every Single Ornament, as it was clearly filled with The Evil.
Which? People? You just can't look fierce in a lime green and Barbie pink striped dog sweater. Not possible.
So we had to actually corral the tree in a corner with baby gates, and continuously pluck dogs from the top of the sofa (ok, Dog, singular) and try to make sure no one was chewing on any lights. Whilst I wandered about and decorated the room in sugared fake fruit and fake foliage and an obscenely huge amount of holiday snowglobes, attempting to be festive and cheery, when I really am not a holiday person. One might even go so far as to call me a Scrooge. Bah Humbug, and all that.
So the tree is up, the lights on the house are up (no 8 foot tall inflatable snowman this year, thank you), the baby gates are up, and the dogs SEEM to have lost interest in the tree. Which I am aware is merely temporary, and they are instead secretly plotting a joint assault on The Shiny, sometime when I am likely to be Indisposed. The little one is not that bright (G recently found her tangled in the cord from a headset, which is what, 2 feet long?), and the big one is really the muscle here, so destruction is probably on the schedule. Sigh.
And yes, you read it correctly earlier, my dog is wearing a sweater. I am now one of those people who dress their pets.
I would like to specify that said pet has a health disorder that prevents her from actually gaining any fat at all on her little scrawny body, and has recently been shaved because her fur had actually turned into dreadlocks, and therefore is Cold All The Time. So for her, clothing was actually for self-preservation. I would like to point out that it was El Jefe who bought the Santa Outfits.
*(This is what G said when she saw the Santa outfits.)
So I made her two little coats that made her look like a greyhound, but did in fact cover her little body. And she seemed to like them. At Target the following day I spotted more of them for $2.50 each (which, if I had known would have saved me from making a bunch of tiny dog coats and could have instead spent my time surfing the web) and bought a bunch more. And the dog loves them. She trots around the house all warm and cozy and no longer fights against going outside, or immediately rushes back to the door after peeing all with the pleading eyes, "Let me IN. It is so COLD OUT HERE, BRRRRRR."
However, this also means I have a dog wearing CLOTHING. Which is a bit twee, and certainly a little dorky, to me. I did stop S from buying her a little sequined dress (again from Target) and instead she bought her the little preppy sweater, which is one little Izod alligator and a collar away from looking like something I wore in 6th grade.
It is a little disturbing, and yet, we are not yet DRESSING ALIKE. Hold me.
So fast forward to this evening where we are all gathered around the living room with our computers, having quality time, individually yet together. A modern family.
We have listened to Andy Williams and Adam Sandler and Harry Connick Jr.and the Barenaked Ladies and we have had hot cocoa and nachos (not together), and prevented the little dog from chewing on the wrapping paper. And now my only plan is to try to find G's missing Christmas stocking. Or as she put it, "Are you guys trying to tell me something?"
Just another holiday season at Chez Larue. Someone cue the "O Tannenbaum..."
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