The Several Days of Sockmas: Days 18 - 22

And a few more days of Sockmas saw raver workout reindeer running amok through the YMCA, a very (W)right love-bot, and Adella getting served once more with legal documents of a rather less terrifying nature than that nasty car-crash thing. 

On the Eighteenth Day of Sockmas, my true love gave to me... ursine office cheer, a festivus subpoena, holiday alarm clock, automata adornment, Raver workout reindeer, Electroimpact topper, Amazon invasion, timered lights a'lighting, a small sporting good store, nine merry monkeys, a cardio tiara, furry feline footsies, arch-saving shape-ups, sniffling date-night(!), melting credit cards, a holly jolly head cold, one sock-saucy simian, and a loris in a pear tree.

The financial advising firm next door to us has been hoity toity-ing it up with their Brodbignagian "wreath" (door forest is more like) for long enough. Sure, it smells nice, but if they think they're the holly-jolliest not-so-new kids on the block, they've got another thing comin'. Sure, we still have our Halloween decorations up, but it's not like we didn't replace the candy corn with red and green M&M's. And, since we keep forgetting to purchase a santa-chapeau for our little ghost-bear of Christmasweens past, I think we covered it quite nicely with our garlands.

And, just to go the extra mile, we've decorated our paralegal. Take that financial advising firm! Ok, actually she just one of those flashing Christmas light necklaces when she was participating in the Jingle Bell run, and has voluntarily (really, I swear) chosen to bedeck herself this week. Really. And me? Well, naughty Mrs. Santa Lingerie was just shy of appropriate I suppose, but hey in socks all things are... um sockalicious? I faltered on that last sentence. I may be getting distracted as the hour for my appointment nears. Or as the clock ticks ever onwards towards not being at work for an extended period of time.

Speaking of appointments, apparently I'm a marriage counselor now! I think one of my consults was a teensy bit confused on my fairly detailed explanation of how mediation and counseling are not the same thing and perhaps he should consider marital counseling instead of talking to mediators like me. He really felt like it would help if his wife talked to me, after asking if I'd be willing to mediate some basic things between them. Somewhere between that and her calling, the message got garbled, and she called asking about counseling. On the bright side, he really connected with the way I reframed and worked with his emotional stuff. And he doesn't seem to like counselors who are actually trained to be mental health specialists (doesn't like people trying to get into his head). On the other, well, I'm not a counselor, so perhaps the message got lost a little bit through ... endless repetition. In hindsight, I probably would have really enjoyed marital counseling in some ways, given my affinity for Gottman's research and systems theory. But in foresight, I don't really see several additional years of schooling just to switch over from the dark side of marital strain and exploitation. 

But yes, not being at work soon is distracting. Sure the celebrations are about to explode, but there will also be travelling. That means packing! That means using up all of the perishables and buying little tiny bottles and ziploc bags and assessing carryon luggage capacities. Planning! Plan all the angles while harking singing angels!


On the Nineteenth Day of Sockmas, my true love gave to me... a pencil in a tube, ursine office cheer, a festivus subpoena, holiday alarm clock, automata adornment, Raver workout reindeer, Electroimpact topper, Amazon invasion, timered lights a'lighting, a small sporting good store, nine merry monkeys, a cardio tiara, furry feline footsies, arch-saving shape-ups, sniffling date-night(!), melting credit cards, a holly jolly head cold, one sock-saucy simian, and a loris in a pear tree.

Almost done... almost... almost... not quite to the end of the work week. I'll be heading to Mukilteo tomorrow for an EI Christmas Party. They call this party the "Mac Lunch." I'm assuming this is not because every one gets from iProducts or because we all mack on each other (engineers in heat is a scary idea). Anyways, from all that I've heard (seen in a little forwarded postcardey gif announcement), this will be a colorful Christmas event with "great food, children singing, photos with Santa, & a presentation given by Peter Sieve" (Peter Sieve is the founder of the company and minor legend/saint within the company canon - I'm more curious than anything to see the man in flesh). Naturally the predicted Snowmageddon Northwest 2013 (2-5 inches??? we'll all DIE!!!!) is supposed to make its debut tomorrow morning before I head down. Given the snow-worthiness of the Kia, perhaps I should strap my skis onto the wheels just in case. 

Last night was date night. It went through a series of transmogriphications. First the usual going-out; then watching Harold and Kumar's Christmas Special with take-out; then doffing the movie in order to chat over the aforementioned pokier take-out; and finally followed by sharing some Advent chocolate with some equally delicious canoodling. I have to say, while I'm glad to have Harold and Kumar in my playlist for the next 29 days, the adeeming activity slate we had going on fit the bill quite nicely. 

And I got a toy! I weird, bizarre toy! A pencil in a plastic tub with a bearing around it. My husband knows me so well. It's oddly transfixing, the way the bearing spins up and down the tube. I spent several minutes enwrapt in rapture toying with my toy. Better than flowers.



On the Twentieth Day of Sockmas, my true love gave to me... a White-Christmas dusting, a pencil in a tube, ursine office cheer, a festivus subpoena, holiday alarm clock, automata adornment, Raver workout reindeer, Electroimpact topper, Amazon invasion, timered lights a'lighting, a small sporting good store, nine merry monkeys, a cardio tiara, furry feline footsies, arch-saving shape-ups, sniffling date-night(!), melting credit cards, a holly jolly head cold, one sock-saucy simian, and a loris in a pear tree.

'Tis the penultimate day of darkness' peak: Solstice comes tomorrow and brings with it new hope of actually seeing the sunlight again. In the meantime, shall we turn our embattled dreams to the ever-improbable (around these parts) White Christmas. Let's be clear kids, Santa Clause is ... a magical elf spirit that manifests in several different ethnic and gender configurations, generally by possessing a child's primary parent to enter into a credit-card melting trance and go nuts. Occasionally Santa Clause may also be a pot dealer, like in Harold and Kumar's 3D Christmas, or somebody otherwise paid to raise commercial or charitable money by standing about and grumbling a cheery ho-ho-ho. Um, yes, anyways. That's Santa Clause, kids. Why are you reading some deranged woman's sock themed Christmas posts anyways? Go to school! Or bed! Or something. 

Ok, so the WHITE CHRISTMAS to which I was referring - yes. That was more meteorologically bent. Snow for Christmas is a rarity in these temperate wet parts. Probably good, since our general reaction to any considerable snow in these parts is to completely lose it, find the nearest steep hill, and spend all day careening about complaining about the ice and snow. But, from my olden days of New England yore, I've seen my share of lovely snow storms. I enjoy the coziness of a few inches muting the background noise into reverent pause, and the flittering glittering flakes frosting the window view. 

And, perhaps by playing the song often enough to induce vomiting in non-Adella individuals, I seem to have conjured up something approximating my wish. A slushy solstice! No, really, it is snowing beautifully. A delicate downpour with just enough oomph to leave the untended county roads a touch treacherous. Fortunately, I've banged up the kia often enough to have no pride intervening between myself and doddering down the roads in fifteen miles an hour. But that little ounce of pride is heartened to hear that there are already several accidents, buses are skidding down hills, and almost all of the schools in the Pacific Northwest area are closed or delayed. Hey, there may be like two inches out there! But seriously, the roads are pretty awful.

Exciting news in the Electroimpactextragavanza department. So, you may or may not have heard the ongoing motif about "the roller screw" that is persistently expected "early next week" since the Pleistocene. Well this little bugger almost even made it. Only three months after the first "early next weeK" the screw made it to the intermediary company in Redmond. It was "dirty" first, so that pushed the Quality Control assessment back. Finally, late this week (and by "late" I mean, last night yesterday afternoon), Andrew was informed that the screw... was "f*ed up*. Ok, I imagine there were further technical terms involved, but this was what he relayed to me. As I understand it, the earliest they could receive a replacement for this part would be about two months from now. And half of the stuff from this company has already been received and installed on the machine, so going with "plan B" would involve dismantling the machine to return these parts. Needless to say, he was in a fantastic holiday cheer by the end of the day. I had a bit of a day, myself, although with far fewer tangibles to foist ephemeral causation upon. I'll go with a combination of the cocktail of lady hormones (oooooh barracuda) and the cocktail of inevitably varied emotional responses to hearing that yet another of my friends managed to sneeze and get herself impregnated (lots of happy, but a mite aroma of abandonment issues mixed with some personal frustration, mixed with some annoyance for my self-centered reactions, mixed with happy, mixed with rinse and repeat). But really it could have been just about anything making me just a touch more emotionally friable. It is that season where emotions just naturally run higih. 

 I sometimes think that all the stress that clusters around the holiday season is not as bad as we make it out to be. And by "not as bad" I don't mean to diminish the volume of sheer "argh" that comes when every one seems to simultaneous lose their ability to navigate space, just as every one seems to be in the same space and all urgently in a hurry. Just that sometimes I wonder if it's a necessary component - the yin to the yang of those really good bits of the holiday. Sure, for some the holidays are just extremely hard without much balance at all. Nothing like this season to really gut-punch anyone feeling any substantial sense of loss (loneliness, estrangement, grieving). But for most of us, it's a series of highs and lows; hair tearing homicidal streaks melting into an ooey-gooey goodwill. Could we have those perfect highs without the emotional receptivity to be particularly vulnerable to the lows as well?

Fortunately, there is holiday cheer for that: We rented Harold and Kumar's 3d Christmas Special on google play. Even without the 3d, it pretty much eroded any of the resentments of the day. And the concommitant cuddling had a bit of a booster. I can only imagine that our cozy comfort conjured the snow angels to sprinkle some sparkle our way.  

This morning, I'm a little tired and a little nauseous (guessing that's the orange barracuda rearing its delightful head again!), but feeling just a little touch of that awe and calm from a White-but-decidedly-not-caucasian-specific Pre-Christmas. 

On the Twenty-First Day of Sockmas, my true love gave to me... slushy Solstice, a White-Christmas dusting, a pencil in a tube, ursine office cheer, a festivus subpoena, holiday alarm clock, automata adornment, Raver workout reindeer, Electroimpact topper, Amazon invasion, timered lights a'lighting, a small sporting good store, nine merry monkeys, a cardio tiara, furry feline footsies, arch-saving shape-ups, sniffling date-night(!), melting credit cards, a holly jolly head cold, one sock-saucy simian, and a loris in a pear tree.

The weather will change your life, twice. (Albeit in this instance, in fairly mundane Sliding Doors kind of ways with no bagpiping street signs anywhere)

That dusting of snow fell far more and far longer than predicted by prevalent weather models. No particular subtlety to the Winter Wonderland  (and complementary automobile slip and slide) angle, yesterday. I'm not complaining. It was beautiful.

It was also a touch immobilizing, which I'm also not exactly complaining about. My kia remains downtown, where it will stay until the long-predicted slush and rain out takes full effect. It is hovering above freezing at 6 a.m., so I suspect operation Rescue Kia Condor will take effect by oh-fourteen-hundred or somewhere thereabouts.  

Given the aforementioned kia-immobilization, I did not drive down to Mukilteo yesterday for the Electroimpact holiday event. I have no idea if Santa Clause attended, or if children sang. I do have it on good report that the EI leader gave a long speech that detailed the history of every single previous "Mac Lunch" to date. Also I have discovered the etymology of this Mac thing. Apparently the party is a memorial lunch originally in honor of an employee named Mac. Mac died, hence the memorial; various other dead EI employees have been folded into the memorial part  subsequently. Some EI employees are lifers, some... after-lifers.

This history of Mac-Lunch locations was purportedly followed by a listing of every employee who either married or reproduced in some way in 2013. You get a bonus for reproducing, with kudos points for presenting a photograph of yourself in the hospital holding your newborn, while wearing an EI shirt. Since (as alluded to earlier) several of my friends are going through a fairly fertile reproductive stage of their lives, perhaps we'll start following them about to birthing rooms to snag EI baby-holding photos. We'll be rich! If asked about the weird intervals of having a new baby every few months, Andrew can just explain he's a polygamist!

Well, yes, so I missed that. Instead, I stayed on at work for a bit longer, and then my mom drove us back (in her far more competent Mazda) to her house where I watched several days of the Colbert Report and she tiptoed the tightrope twixt waking life and lotus land. Since I hadn't been feeling particularly well all day, I suspect this was not a bad call for my evening.

While the snow here changed my afternoon plans, the dearth of snow in Tahoe appears to be  changing our Christmas holiday plans. After several days of watching snow reports, I emailed the California contingent of our Tahoe holiday celebrants and suggested it was not ripe for skiing. More like, I said Andrew and I were thinking maybe we wouldn't bring our ski stuff if 3/4 of the mountain remained shut down and unpleasant for skiing. There was some consensus, and we'll likely stay in San Francisco, where the weather is quite far from frightful.

 I suspect Andrew will spend much of it on a mountain bike with Tom, my only-the-Germans-would-have-a-word-for-mother-in-law's-serious-boyfriend. I'm really hoping to see the Exploratorium, which was closed the last time we determined to go see it. I'd also not mind checking out the Asian Art Museum. So kind of sorry about the snow (although my foot is just healing so I was admittedly nervous about injuring it again), but excited to be at the point of making new plans. I love making plans! Choosing and following through on them, maybe not as much as often. But the pure idyllic creation in cinereal potential: all about that!

Also, reminds me that I need to pack this weekend! We're leaving on Wednesday morning and I have two Christmas/Christmas Eve combos to celebrate up in Bellingham before we reach that. This means celebrating with my dad on Sunday (and a little bit of today). It also means that when Andrew gets home from work, it's on to "Christmas Eve" with my mom and boytoy, followed by "Christmas" with them. So, while it remains imperative to leave space for Santa-Loot, the staples might best be addressed in advance. Namely, today, which is ultimately the last non-holiday-day before the vacation itself.

I think... socks... I'll need socks.


On the Twenty-Second Day of Sockmas, my true love gave to me... Christmas: Take One, slushy Solstice, a White-Christmas dusting, a pencil in a tube, ursine office cheer, a festivus subpoena, holiday alarm clock, automata adornment, Raver workout reindeer, Electroimpact topper, Amazon invasion, timered lights a'lighting, a small sporting good store, nine merry monkeys, a cardio tiara, furry feline footsies, arch-saving shape-ups, sniffling date-night(!), melting credit cards, a holly jolly head cold, one sock-saucy simian, and a loris in a pear tree.

My family has always had a flexible take on Christmas celebration. When my parents split, we forewent the typical even-odd celebration that beleaguers classical parenting plan. Instead, my mother took Christmas Eve and my father took Christmas. Christmas Eve became "Christmas: Part One" and "Christmas Eve: Part One" started on the 23rd. I still get confused about the proper dates of Christmas. After I was a college kid with a more flexible flying schedule, Christmases One and Two have watoosied about the latter part of December.

This year,  Andrew and I will be straddling the nimbi and riding the cumuli on the official day of Christmas. So the usual Christmas: Part Two will now be Christmas: Take One. And it shall be today! The preparations began yesterday with the ceremonial yuletide chopping of vegetables.

Our Christmas meal is an even more abridged menu from our Thanksgiving gorge-fest. We're hoping that limiting it to sweet potato chili and cornbread. And... ice cream (well, my dad will have ice cream; Andrew is lactose intolerant) ... and... a gingerbread house... and maybe brownies if my dad persists in his doubt regarding the comestible qualities of said gingerbread house. The house, incidentally, is to be made from a kit that I grabbed at Haggen's a few days ago. It purports to present facile assembly instructions and supplies. We shall see. When there's a Thompson, there's  away for things to go creatively awry! Gingerbread hovel!

Soup's on at one. In the meantime, we'll have some coffee to sip and a slow morning to savor.