I made some modifications to the angel wreath –  but left the monk on – and took it over to North Ridge 9:30 this morning. Kathryn had her Christmas sweater on and while I was there, the social director came in and asked if they wanted to go on a bus tour this evening of local Christmas lights. Kathryn accepted and Emory thought about it and then decided to go as well.

It’s getting down in the teens here and although the bus is heated, Kathryn was somewhat worried that Emory wouldn’t be warm enough. This is where you gotta love fate: I had thrown a Chicago Bears BIG jacket in the car in case I had to hunker down and so I brought it in and they can use it as a cape or lap robe.

After Kathryn and I put on the final angels and hung the wreath up, I started to take off the burgundy bead garland from the Thanksgiving wreath. It took us about 30 minutes and was kind of an adventure into what at times seemed like Mission Impossible.

Of course, fooling around with the bead garland caused parts of the grapevine wreath to flake off onto the floor and so I gathered all the debris into a pile and got it up with wet paper towels. Then the housekeeper came in to sweep and mop. Ah, well, the exercise down on that tile floor was good for me. Sometimes coincidence works with  you; sometimes the timing is in reverse.

The music is a page I pulled out of an old Hymnal from the church rummage sale; it’s Hark! The Herald Angels Sing. I thought to myself when I stuck it on, “Well, that worked out okay.”

Notice the bead garland under the tree. So that worked out okay, too.

And, of course, here are Emory and Kathryn.

I had a good time this morning. Maybe I should have taken some spiked eggnog . . . nah, then we never would have been able to get that blasted bead garland off. Probably beads would have been all over the floor. I’d get some sort of demerit for bringing in contraband  . . .

So . . .  next time I’ll take some sparkling grape juice and some stemmed acrylic glasses. And cashews with sea salt and maybe some cookies. And we’ll invite elves. Rose can chaperone.

This is not football talk – although I did hear that Indianapolis would have actually won a game had not Manning thrown two interceptions and should probable take a knee in prayer. Oooh, long sort of sarcastic digression there. Sorry.

I was headed out through the back vestibule when I felt my foot catch on something and the next thing I knew my knee was slamming into concrete and my upper body was somewhat cushioned by the vestibule woodpile that gave way in an avalanche with me on top as I hit.

It was exciting. Turned out my foot had slid into an almost empty 12 pack soda box. It was sort of being struck by a big clown foot attack.

But since I was on my way to pick up Sydney who was at the vet’s not for boarding, but suspected pancreatitis, I shook it off and limped* on. And, yes, his enzymes were up – the blood tests from the day before confirmed it. He has had a new antibiotic shot that is effective for 14 days and was bathed and sent home with a vial of tramadol pain pills.

You have to be careful with an older dog; they don’t look like they are that old and it is tempting to just do what you normally did when they were feeling their oats  – sort of like Shane is now. I wanted to spiff him up here at home with a fire in the den for warm drying.  But you can’t just manhandle him the way we pin Shane to the floor. So he got super clean at the vet’s. (I have this thing that if you are clean you feel better – although I think it is mainly true in minor illnesses.)

I brought him home and he lay at the end of the sofa and I combed out any loose hair; he looks soft and cuddly. He’ll go in on Friday for a recheck of his belly and then next week we’ll recheck the enzymes.

Putting  the old red and black penguin sweater to good use.

I am going to try very hard to get a wreath over to Mrs. Feller’s today; I may just take the angel wreath I made last year with a few festive colors thrown in. I don’t know – I’ll play it by ear. To tell you the truth, there are a lot of Wal-Mart type wreaths on doors there and while it is nice that someone is remembering, I just like doing something with my own hands.

Now I feel bad about typing that, but I’m not going to withdraw it because, well, heck. it’s me. I have to stop and realize that maybe someone stood for 30 minutes selecting just the right wreath. I guess I like making the wreath because of what I get from it; the thoughts while the little wires are being twisted on – or the grapevine is going berserk and trying to uncoil itself.

I guess, too, I feel that when someone sees a special homemade wreath on someone’s door, they immediately know that someone put effort into it for that resident.

Maybe what I should realize is that I can do this wreath thing; I have imagination and can pull it off with nutcrackers and elves and bells and angels and holly. For me, to get a Wal-Mart wreath would be saying I don’t want to do what I can do because it will take too much of my time. I need to realize that some people don’t have a clue as to doing it and buying one may have just as much thought and effort involved.

I could just delete this whole thing, but sometimes a public self-lecture isn’t a real bad thing. Probably I wouldn’t want to say publicly,  “Now, AmeliaJake, you should take back that million dollars you stole from the bank while wearing a Raggedy Ann mask.” That would be something to deal with privately, or at least speak about hypothetically.

* My leg is a limb; maybe if you are not hurt, you limb on. But when the “b” takes a tumble, you limp on. You know, this could be a long day for the people around me . . . One of those, have you ever considered (fill in the blank with something absurb) days.