Right now I live in a small town in a nondescript state in the Midwest – nothing exotic or romantic about Indiana . . . no Big Sky country, no mountains, etc. At times I have sighed about that. And in this small town in this blah state, I have been feeling a bit down this holiday season.

Then, just a little while ago, I received news that a four-year-old little girl in my very extended family has a mass in her stomach and it is cancer. I remember when my sons were four – blond hair, baby teeth, pajamas with feet in them. I don’t even want to walk up close to imagining how I would have felt at such news. Walking around the periphery in my mind leaves me dumbfoundedly numb. What awful news to receive.

This is, of course, the kind of news that will make one feel down in the holiday season, and it sure makes my piques and frustrations seem embarrassingly minute. But, human nature being what it is, I’m certain I will again lose my perspective and be whining. It’s kind of sad to realize that.

I came to Ohio and got sick. I hate it when you close your eyes and it makes you feel more dizzy than when they are open – all the swirling of darkness and some constant pulling on the muscles.

But I felt better on Sunday and am driving back today. Maybe it was a virus; maybe a witch’s curse.

I see on the news page that today would have been Sinatra’s 100th birthday. I think he was a cad. I once looked at a house and announced I would never buy it because it was full of
Sinatra albums. Totally cleaned out and repainted, I would always be aware that Sinatra had been supreme in that house. Lauren Bacall did not have a good opinion of him – and she actually knew him and dated him.

We all know AmeliaJake can’t stand Joe Biden – thinks he’s an absolute bozo. And now the word is out about Frank Sinatra. In fact, I simply cannot bear to spend any more time thinking of that man.

This morning I wondered if I should post some thoughts or go clean my granddaughter’s room because I couldn’t stand it anymore. Well, I went up there and THREE hours later emerged from a partly cleaned room. I had my frowny face on. Now I am on a crusade, which is not to be confused with a jihad.

I decided I’d better get to the pharmacy and pick up my statin before I lost my stasis. (Yeah, that was a stretchy word play, but the heck with it. It helped; not as much as swearing, but it did help.

I saw this at Wal-Mart when I went to get package tape:

I found it amusing, and, on reflection, given the way today’s path took me, maybe this might be a useful thing to learn – or I could buy an army of little ninja gingerbread men

I’m sitting here and Bing’s dead, but it works via technology. That’s the good part of the morning; the unfortunate part involved a mildew/mold with bleach pump spray bottle malfunctioning and backfiring, sending its back plug flying heaven knows where and cleaner onto my shirt.

I immediately started to spot. My shirt (most of it) is burgundy and it looks as if an animal with rose paws jumped on me and ran around. Not to be outdone by fate, I broke off the entire lid and poured the stuff into the tub, making a dilute solution. I did post a note to people that it wasn’t a bubble bath waiting for them, although I think the smell might alert them. It ain’t little old lady lavender.

I told Bing about it, but this technology thing is a one-way deal and he is still happily singing about Christmas in Killarney and Mele Kalikimaka, which is how they say Merry Christmas “where the palm trees sway.”

Yesterday, I was quite adamant about not doing chores and I kept to my desire. I did none. To heck with the guilt trip thing. I built a fire downstairs and watched two movies: Dirty Harry and L.A. Confidential. I’m a classy chick, no? Yes, you’re right: NO. we roasted hot dogs over the fire, with a discussion on whether to put the catsup on the bun and then add the hot dog or do it in reverse. I prefer the former.

There was also some confusion for one of the viewers that can be summarized with the repeated voiced question: Just who are the bad and good guys? With a fire and hot dogs, it was not something I was concerned about – Russell Crowe didn’t get killed and that was good enough for moi.

As I pulled out of the driveway this morning at approximately 5:50 in the dark morning, I braced myself and looked at the lights, which last night I referred to as “slugs”, and I thought they looked much crisper and not tending to blend together, forming a glowing slime trail.

I don’t know if it was because I was slightly farther away or because the light bulbs had to adapt to the cold temperature. That last idea has no basis in any scientific education, but, what the heck?

I had made a slight adjustment last evening, but I hadn’t expected it to make much of a difference. Apparently, this change in detail was worthwhile. You see, before the lines of lights looked like Arabic writing and I had some apprehension it might be saying something provocative. I’m not going to apologize for the topical reference; it just popped into my head and like too many things that enter my head that way, it has popped out of my mouth – well, in this case, off my fingers.

I have chores to do; I do not want to do them. NOT ONE OF THEM. I tried to put them in context of making things nice for the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, not to mention Santa, Scrooge and any visiting reindeer, but it didn’t work. I didn’t get motivated. Now, if I had a legion of elves running around with dust cloths, brooms, nice smelling polish and a cheerful attitude about cleaning bathrooms, maybe I could get more into the spirit. You know, we’d have plates of little sandwiches and a cheese ball and crackers and sparkling water and upbeat Christmas music on the CD player, and I think then I could get in the mood as supervisor of the little guys.

I might even vacuum, hopefully not sucking up any elf hats.

Hmmm, I might be in the mood to start a fire, watch a movie and, uh, let clutter find its way into the aforementioned fire. I can see myself playing around with this idea.

I put out 450 lights on the front bushes but I think they look odd. When I did it before, the effect was of dancing fireflies. Tonight, it looks as if someone has taken a white marker on a photoshop scribble. I knew there would be a random aspect to the display since I pull down branches and then let them lift the lights up high, but this looks like totally out of balance. I don’t know if I can adjust them too much because it was difficult to just get them up. I might wind up having to just pull the plug. Not only is the path erratic, but the lights don’t look like fireflies; they look like glowing slugs.

You don’t want to see a picture. Really, you don’t.

Recently someone used the phrase “so you” in referring to something I had written; actually, I hear that a lot about what I do, say and write. I never gave it much thought; after all, isn’t everyone “so themselves.” Maybe; I suppose so. However, perhaps a large number of people are a quietly blending in type, not being quirky themselves. Dare I say they are “normal?” And where does that leave me? No, I don’t want to know at this late stage in my life.

What Jack Nicholson said in A Few Good Men probably fits me: Truth? AmeliaJake, you can’t handle the truth. I can only peek at it every now and then, such as acknowledging that I went into the Dollar Tree in Kendallville and bought candy cane antlers and a red blinking nose and put them on and took pictures and sent them to Der Bingle and LZP.

LZP texted it back that the antlers suited me and when I mentioned the red nose, he replied, “Why did I already know that?” I think that translates as “so you”. WordPress is having problems uploading the pictures and maybe that should tell me something.

While I am waiting to try to upload again, I might as well mention that I also bought some ribbon, and gold, red and green bells and made a headband which I then put on and did a video of headshaking. I’m not going to try to upload that one – the old AJ jowls sort of jiggled while the bells rang.

No, they didn’t. That is silly. They would have if I could think of a punchline, but, alas, I cannot, so forget about them going into a bar. Maybe in a week or a month, or next year, I might think of a HA HA for this venture. And, I assure you I will let you know if I do.

I heard, “Two Irishmen walked out of a bar . . . No, that would never happen.” Other than that, I don’t know any real going into bar jokes. Of course, there’s the “3 Scientists Walk into a Bar” that is a Facebook page and I’ve seen it on www.weather.com

Enough of that, it’s just my prattling. Oh, AmeliaJake, think this through. If you say enough of the prattling, you won’t have anything to write at all.

In this basket are part of the trimmings for one of my Christmas trees:

(The rummage sale price tag on the bell has class, dontcha think?)

I may just skip the tree part this year and take them out of the basket and put them right back in, still allowing myself some bits of memory. Actually, one of my memories about the tree that usually holds these things is that I have to tie it to the window latch or it will fall over. You see, I would put it on a coffee table in the sitting room and the legs on the base would be just a wee bit too big to balance really well.

I probably have a picture of this tree from earlier years somewhere on this blog, but I’m not going to look for it now. I might be tempted to enlarge it and pin it up over the coffee table.