Alien Poo, I’m surprised you brought up the topic of “the rest stop story” since you know all the details. Why would you want to read it? Because you want to make me blush?

So, okay, though, I will tell it:

We pulled into a rest stop where a big white van was parked as well and Summer thought she heard, “Help us! Help us!” coming from inside it. So I courageously went up to one of the small back windows and looked in and saw ELVES THAT WERE BEING KIDNAPPED.

Just at that moment, the truck driver, who I noticed had one arm, came up behind me and raised a heavy flashlight in his one hand to hit me over the head. When I spun around, he quickly flicked the switch and shone it in my eyes as if he were illuminating my view.

But, I knew it was a fake reprieve until any witnesses were gone; I drove my head into his solar plexus and Summer and Cameron jumped on top of him. We called the police and they came and freed the elves and we all got a medal from Santa. Needless to say, the one-armed man is on the Naughty list.

Is that okay, Alien Poo?

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.

Ah, yes, perhaps these pictures will take AP’s mind off the rest stop incident, which, of course, definitely did not happen. So there is no reason to mention the one-armed trucker with the flashlight shining right in my face.

Okay, let’s see, well, first we went to eat at Red Robin because it was a special treat, dontcha know. I couldn’t take a picture of Cameron that works for this post because he was sitting right beside me, but across the table were these two bozozs:

On the other side of me was the outdoor eating area; I believe it was where Der Bingle’s friends ate when on lunchtime from their mall gig. I forgot to upload the picture but will add it in later. (Okay, it is later)

They had a fun-filled festive job.

I took a picture from above.

And then zoomed in on the tree.

While I was doing this, I lost contact will my group and wandered around until they spied me from above.

And when I got back in Der Bingle’s car, I noticed a relic from the weekend past – sort of a Shane version of Kilroy was Here.

It was a dark night as we entered the cobbled together and always being worked on I-75 area just at Dayton’s northern outskirts; traffic was heavy. Der Bingle had instructed us to take the Stanley exit, but the GPS said the 4 North exit and Summer and I decided to go for the latter.  Then more orange barrels and guess what? We missed the exit and wound up going across the river and into the part of I-75 that runs along the downtown. We took an exit where I had some idea of being able to remedy our situation while the GPS lady had repeated seizures. When I reached a point of turning around, I pulled into a lot where our headlight illuminated one of the big old rambling houses of the early days of Dayton. Simmer thought it was a drug house but I drew her attention to the view out my window, which was of a parking lot full of police cars.

We got back on I-75 and threaded our way through more orange barrels until we reached an exit that would deliver us ultimately to Highway 444 and then Kauffman Road and then National Road and then Reese Road and the then the place where apartment complexes run together. Summer was a little worried but Cameron and I had the thought she could stand out in the street and yell “Grandpa” as in “Stella” – she didn’t get it.

Oh, did I forget to mention that we had Der Bingles’s replacement and already activated cell phone and had we called for directions, his phone would have rung in the glove compartment right in front of Summer. This did not comfort her.

I did get to the right spot, however, and when Der Bingle came out to meet us, she grabbed onto him for dear life. We went in and ordered Cousin Vinnie’s Pizza – a tradition for us. And then people started watching Mystery Theater 3000 on Der Bingle’s new Apple TV enabled on his TV screen.

I think I went to bed.

Stay tuned for updates.

First: That part about the Mystery Person Refugee taking pictures of us looming over her, well, box, in order to make her more comfortable. We lied. The Alien Tree* made us. She did have a camera and was going to photograph us, but Rose noticed it was digital and said, “But, dear, you have no film.” And she said, “Oh, rats.” (The Alien Tree made us add that bit also.)

SO . . . today. Ah, today we are going to Dayton to see Der Bingle and take part in a shooting class. We are taking a small artificial alpine-type tree for him in our car trunk. I could say The Alien Tree made me add a Sponge Bob ornament left over from Summer’s Sponge Bob days, but it was my own idea. I found it clinging to one of the miniature Pilgrim ornaments; it must have been an eclectic theme that year.

We will get there after dark which means the opportunity for me to maintain my record of getting lost in a town in which I used to live for a good number of years is greatly enhanced. Now, here’s another rub: We will be bringing Der Bingle’s cell phone which he had to leave here while Radio Shack gave him a loaner. The vital piece of information is that I have his memory chip and will take it when I retrieve the replaced phone. Will this then activate the phone I will have with me and deactivate the phone he has? Will there be two phones with the same number covered for a few hours?

If it is the former, we will not be able to call him because he will not have a working cell phone and had his landline removed. So it will be just me and my GPS and people yelling, “Grandma’s lost again!”

*What if The Alien Tree won’t let us take it down? Maybe it will make us transfer its alien essence to the rhododendron.

So, Rose and I and Sophie and MaxWoo and a couple of others were gathered around our mystery person’s Refugee Transport Unit, peering in at said MPR. (Mystery Person Refugee). Yes, we all were looming over it and then we heard a voice from within, “What the heck are you guys doing?”

We all leaned back and, after a beat or two of our combined heartfelt concern, Rose answered, “Well, we thought we would make you more comfortable.”

From the RTU we heard, “I’m fine; I’m comfortable; let’s get this show on the road.”

This led to an exchange of views about the comfort of having strong plastic ties around body parts holding said parts to a big old piece of hard cardboard.

The MPR (yes, Der Bingle, I know you are confused; we will explain soon) convinced us the straps would keep her from sustaining broken limbs and a fractured skull during her journey. She was fairly persuasive and even provided videos of boxes being tossed through the air, down chutes and turned every which way but up.

So, Rose and I told the  MPR she should let us cut a small access door in the plastic bubble to allow us to add some things.

ARE YOU BOZOS CRAZY??? THAT WILL GREATLY REDUCE THE INTEGRITY OF MY PROTECTIVE CASE!!!!

We are thinking she probably knows best and will just add some scenery other than the inside of a shipping box for her to look at.

And Sophie asked, “So . . . can we still use my bubble wrap?”

Oh, by the way, the MPR had a camera and we are expecting her to send us some photos from her perspective of our encounter just as soon as she powers up the Internet Server part of her brain.