Wiinjuries

I'm guessing I'm not alone in experiencing a strange sore achiness the day after Christmas. I woke up to pain in my neck and shoulder, and a certain odd soreness in my right arm.

You guessed it -- I'd been Wii-d.

Countless games of bowling and golf; had to try out the baseball, of course!! Moving my poor body in unusual ways. My poor husband has tennis Wiielbow. . .

Now it's time to pack away all the holiday decorations and tackle the dreaded year-end filing changeover task. I am sitting in my office surrounded by boxes (but rocking out to my new iPod, which I absolutely LOVE, not that I'll ever admit it to all the Apple nuts I happen to know - I watched the first 4 eps of season 1 of Supernatural on it over the past few days. woo hoo!!)

Then it's back to work. How about you? Doing anything fun during the holidays? Any onerous tasks you're taking on now that you'd like a "poor baby" for?

hugs,
Alyssa

It's in the genes, evidently

My kids are demonstrating a scary talent for storytelling and sometimes tell me they want to be authors when they grow up. I want to beg them to do something easier, like brain surgery, or rocket science, but I'm also insanely proud (I know, like any mom, right?)

My 10 y.o. son had to write a journal from the point of view of one of the earliest settlers in 1600s Virginia, and he was a young soldier, writing about the shocking lack of harbor smell as his ship approached the "unfettered wilderness." Also, when he saw bears crashing through the wilderness, he grabbed for his "piece."

Me: Your piece? You grabbed your piece?
Him: MOTHER, it was another term for musket in the olden days.

So my husband and I spent a few days rolling around laughing about this. "Quick, the pugs are on a rampage! It's a deadly squirrel in the unfettered wilderness of the back yard! Grab your piece!!"

Of course, we only did this when Science Boy wasn't in the house . . .

Then today, I went to school to hear my 7 y.o. daughter's press conference. The students each had to "discover" a new planet, they all spent a month working on it, and today was her turn to give her press conference about this shocking new discovery.

Her planet is named Dognonia, and has many fascinating characteristics, including the 1-foot-tall residents who live mainly on a diet of snow crab, bacon, and cheeseburgers. One of their major holidays is "Chase a Cat Day" when the Dognonians all turn invisible and fly over to Earth to chase cats.

Her teacher says, "What do they do when they catch the cats?"
Princess: "They insult them."
Me: [burying my head in my hands trying not to howl in laughter, this is the first I've heard about the insulting]
Teacher: "What kind of insults?"
Princess: "Hey, stinky fish breath cat!"
Student wildly waving hand: "What kind of animals are on Dognonia?"
Princess: "50-foot-tall man-eating Puffballs."
Student: "Why do the Dognonians go to Earth to chase cats?"
Princess, rolling her eyes: "Well they're not going to exactly chase the man-eating Puffballs, are they?"

By this time, I was hurting -- in actual pain -- from holding in the laughter. In a month of prep, I'd never heard about the cat-insulting or the man-eating Puffballs. This was all strictly ad lib.

But I kind of loved her explanation of the motto of the Dognonians: "We all pull together in hard times."

I think those Dognonians have the right idea. Pretty darn brave from a people chased by 50-foot-tall man-eating Puffballs, hmm?

hugs,
Alyssa

The joy of someone who truly knows you

I'm a mad holiday decorator - Halloween and the 8-foot-long spider, and now Christmas and I have enough ornaments to put up 4 trees. And my lovely husband knows me well enough to give me this for an early gift:



The Serenity in Disguise ornament. I won't explain it - either you're a mad Joss Whedon fan like me or you're not. Me, I'm blissed out.

And my darling mother sent me this, from the classic TV end of the spectrum:



And now I don't need anything else for Christmas. Well, maybe some peanut butter dog chews. The economy sized jar . . .

How about you? Shopping almost done? I braved WalMart this morning for Moon Sand, which made me feel like P.T. Barnum was rolling around in his grave laughing. "They spend MONEY for dirt!! BRILLIANT!! Wish I'd thought of that!!"

And I picked up a few stocking stuffers, so I think I might actually be done shopping, yay. Need to inventory the items I've stuffed in various hiding places around the house to be sure . . . but we're still 6 days out!! This is WAY EARLY for me to be done shopping. I'm usually one of the idiots running around on Dec. 24 trying to find last-minute gifts.

Anyway, my aspiration for 2008 is peace and happiness and way less stress, so have a happy Wednesday!
hugs,
Alyssa

Visions of sugar pugs - happy holidays!!

I'm officially a crazy cat lady now, except with dogs. In my defense, all I can say is: SO not my fault.

First we had two pugs, Daisy and Peanut.



Then my darling but crazy friend Jenny Crusie happened to mention she'd adopted another Dachshund. Actually she adopted THREE more Dachshunds, but that's Jenny. Nobody has a bigger heart.

So I was curious about this Pet Finder site (which is wonderful, and has rescue dogs all over the country that you can search by size, gender, breed, location, etc. etc.) and popped over just to look. JUST. TO. LOOK.

Seriously.

Then I encountered the amazing force of nature also known as the president of the Orlando Pug Rescue. Retha (whose full name is an anagram for Heart Pug Love, and she didn't even realize it, how OOOH FATE is that??) called me the second she saw my adoption app. (Evidently humans who work at home and spend much of their lives going for walks and giving treats and cuddles are much in demand.)

The call went by in a blur, she was funny and amazing, and before I knew what hit me, we were packing up the whole family, including the dogs, to take a road trip to Orlando to meet a little boy dog whose owner had let him get so sick he spent several days in the hospital but still nearly died. We were also meeting a little girl pug who had been rescued from a puppy mill where she spent the entire 3 years of her life in a kennel having puppies.

We were supposed to meet them, see if our dogs got along with either of them, and CHOOSE.

CHOOSE. ONE.

Yeah. Right.

So first we met baby girl Precious, who looks a lot like the pug version of Marty Feldman:






She is so happy to have attention and love that her entire body wags, not just her tail. Precious, needless to say, was coming home with us. She has spent much of the past couple of weeks in my lap. She may have the best personality of any dog in the entire universe, ever, which is saying something considering her life. She's just so darn happy and grateful and blissed out from having a family of her own, and sleeps curled up in bed with Princess, my daughter.

Then we met Gizmo, the hyper-exuberant boy. Navy Guy and Science Boy both fell madly in love with him, promptly renamed him Buckeye, and it was all over.

A rare shot of a rare occurrence - Buckeye at rest:



So now we're a 4-pug family. Which, as you may realize, is completely nuts. You should see me walking all 4 of them by myself. I guarantee it's a cure for the grims. Especially the part where I get tangled up about twice every block and nearly land on my butt on the sidewalk.

My office chair has been completely taken over, and Buckeye seems to be part cat, because he always claims the top of the back:



And I am surrounded by the gentle serenade of pug snoring when I work. So as a holiday gift to you, remember this: any time you think your house is all mad chaos and you're losing your mind, just imagine this:

My house when the UPS guy rings the doorbell.

Feel better already, don't you??
hugs,
Alyssa

Very bad day

Migraine. Book not going well. And when I went outside to take the kids to school, I see that some rotten kids in the neighborhood have moved my light-up Santa in my front yard so he looks like he's acting quite lasciviously and possibly illegally toward my light-up polar bear.

They broke the leg off the polar bear, too, which REALLY ticked me off. On the walk around the neighborhood with dogs, we notice that ALL of the yards have been punked. Every light-up reindeer in the neighborhood is mounting another reindeer, for example. Seems like there was a time that I would have found that funny. Not today. Did I mention bad day?

Rotten little turds. Is there a law against duct taping Santa-defiling kids to each other and dragging them home to their parents? I mean, this was SANTA. Grr.

Send some cheerful vibes my way, okay?