Posts Tagged ‘Holidays’

I really didn’t used to do this kind of thing, this putting clothes on the animals. I made fun of it, and still do, generally.

But Bruiser actually needs to wear sweaters and stuff, because his fur is as short as the rest of him, so he’s always shivering. So it’s off to Petco for something, and of course it’s all cutesy, and then the holidays come… and I snicker semi-evilly, and we end up with something like this:

Kassie’s pretty stoic about it, but Sammy just wants it gone. Now, if given a preference:

But Bruiser actually loves it. And I’d heard that from other small dog people and shook my head at them. If I pull out some tee shirt he knows is his he can’t wait to ram his head in and lifts his paws for the armholes. In fact, he was NOT happy that the other dogs got into his act and made off with the goods…

Luckily he’s cute and Santa forgave him anyway. Hope everyone’s Holidays were merry!

Checking out at B&N shouldn’t have taken long last night, but did, thanks to their brilliant strategy of having only two (2) clerks on*, which gave me lots of time to peruse their strategically placed selections of Christmas cards & assorted seasonal crap.

Despite the fact that at the time I thought my brain would explode like a goose force fed on ChristmasCheer ^tm,the delay turned out to be a good thing. It gave me time to get through all five stages of Christmas Card Grief:

1. Denial - There is no way Christmas is in a month! I refuse to believe it- we just had Christmas! This is totally a scam! Nonononono. No. Absolutely not.
2. Anger - Alright, dammit. It’s coming, fine. I’ll have to get the crap out of the attic, and- aaargh!! the cards, the aggravation, the shopping. F*ck!
3. Bargaining- Alright, well, if I can find some funny, non-syrupy cards it might not be so bad. Maybe if I just did a few, the really important ones, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. Well, until I run into somebody who didn’t make the cut…
4. Depression- Oh, who am I kidding? I’ve never once gotten them done on time! How many boxes of cards that I intended to complete with personal and meaningful sentiment were never even opened? And even if, by some unlikely miracle, I did get it done, they’re still mass-produced damn cards. How many looks of smug superiority will I have to endure from parents who had professional photos taken months ago to show off their perfect little angels?
5. Acceptance (with a big spiked cup o’ eggnog)- Well, wtf. Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, right?. Why bother with the farce?

So I now proudly admit to all the world: I am a bad little Christmas Elf, and have decided that I am just fine with it.

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*one of whom was tied up for 20 minutes with the world’s oldest human being doing a detailed cost/benefit analysis of joining their discount program, and other of which was arguing with a customer attempting to return a book that was bought in FEBRUARY. And it’s not even Black Friday yet. Bah – freaking -humbug.

I’ve meant to go over and really take a look at these two beautiful structures for a long time, but they’re usually shut tight. On St. Patrick’s Day I got lucky- while the marchers were having Mass at St. Mary’s, St. Alphonsus was open and I got a wander around.

These two massive Catholic churches stand across the street from each other- St. Mary’s built by the Germans in 1845, St. Alphonsus by the Irish in 1848. Originally the explanation was the language barrier, but soon things gained a life of their own and it became a competition between the two ethnicities to make their church the best one in town. *

A slideshow and more info after the jump.

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