Just a few days before Christmas, and I must confess I’m a little drained.  Herr Meow’s teeth have been coming in with a vengeance and his clinginess thermostat has been set to HIGH: anytime he’s set down an explosion of baby expletives ensues. 

This has been going on since Sunday.  At least –and for some bizarre, yet blessed, reason– he is sleeping through the night again.  Handling his demands is always a little easier on eight hours of sleep.

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It’s not just Herr Meow who’s been draining my reserves, really.  I find this time of year very exhausting even if I never end up doing much shopping myself.  Just standing at the post office for 20 minutes yesterday was draining enough, and having to see people "saving spots" for other people and feeling powerless is like rubbing kosher salt on that wound.

Which is why reading Violent Acres lately has been a balm of Gilead.  If you’re feeling down and out and you need some validation about your inner Grinch, go read a little.  V speaks many good truths.

And I will go so far as to say that I sometimes wish I had the bitch-o-meter a little broken so I could have told that stupid, duck-footed woman to fuck off the line at the post office, and how dare she do that to the line, which by that time was winding around the counter by the entrance.  Or that I could have turned around to the stupid woman in the jeans that made her butt look saggy and tell her that if she thinks that shoving a stroller out of the way is somehow cool and exciting, she should watch herself because one of these days she is going to encounter one driven by someone who does not give a rat’s ass about her and her saggy saddlebags and she’s going to have to tell her friends that her little tarsals gave way like itty bitty little matches under the pressure of a running stroller.

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But blogging about how people suck and about how everything is awful bla bla bla isn’t all that exciting.  Well, okay, it totally is but I also want to spread some cheer, and even though I’m not very good at pictorial blogs, I’m going to give it a go.  So believe it or not, this warmed my heart when I first saw it and it continues to do so.  Behold:

Isn’t it BEAUTIFUL?  I mean…. when do you ever see a checkout stand using the correct word like that, "or FEWER"?

It’s the kind of thing that restores my faith in mankind and makes me want to support Trader Joe’s that much more.

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Here is something that made me smile, but for different reasons:

Isn’t she cute, albeit coy?  And we can see her from home!  Wheeeeee! (And yes, I’m still not fully over the whole coolness that is living SO CLOSE TO ALL OF THIS!

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Finally, a picture of a record, for posterity.  This was taken on Monday afternoon at the intersection of Penn and 6th SE.  And although it is a little bit grainy, you can definitely see the bold "74ºF".  So, behold and bask in its warm glory, because once again it is COOOOOOOOOOOLD!

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Finally, we have one of my favorite pictures ever: the aging hippie with the flashy cellphone, trying to capture a jellyfish.  You can come up with your own conclusions.  I just think it’s pretty funny:

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Happy last days of shopping!  Happy Wednesday before Christmas!  Happy er…. uh….. fifth day of Chanukah!  Toodles for now!

Oh! Oh!  And if you want to see a really cool, uplifting movie with motorcycle, please rent "The World’s Fastest Indian."

 
You will want to ride bikes.

You will want to tinker with them.

You will want to break world records.

You will want to pee every morning into a lemon tree.  Maybe just not all in that order.