I have this strange liking for this guy's astro-poetry site, and today's bit was interesting.

"the season is difficult under the best of circumstances
this one is especially complicated
but there is no point in writing in
and asking me to change what's going on
for you
or to tell you all the happy stuff
if you've got inner strength
you deal with it
and you don't whine
we're all in the same boat
and nothing lasts forever"

The same fellow also said earlier, "This will be the most random Christmas/Hanukkah you ever spent." I believe it.

Yesterday was kind of a bust. I had intended on going to the gym and to go do a marathon of movie-watching. But the rain was so fucking horrendous it wasn't worth going outside when I was going to have to spend 20-30 minutes out in it walking either way. So I gave up on my plans for that. Also irritating was the whole wrists-hurting thing, because I was stuck sitting home, with all of my crafts around, and I wasn't supposed to DO anything. (Hence why I was going to go to the movies to MAKE myself be 100% idle.)

Annie said to me last week that she didn't watch television, and I told her at the time, "You're going to have to start watching it if you have carpal tunnel." Ain't that the truth- what else can you DO? Watching stuff on DVD was actually getting old for me. I used up all of the Netflix, watched everything I had taped from the last 2 weeks, finished watching the DVD set I'm lending to Mom, sat through the commentaries on I Heart Huckabees (this should indicate to you that I was pretty bored looking for material I hadn't seen/heard before), and ended on watching Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason that I borrowed from Mom. Which I hadn't seen when it came out because I heard tons of bad reviews of it, but actually so far it's very good and funny. Go figure. (I just finished watching the fight in the fountain and was yelling "Go Krystle! Go Alexis!" at the screen and bouncing up and down. I love wussy girly-boy fighting so much.)

And it's not like they actually HURT me. It's twinges, dammit. One wrist twinges for a bit, then they swap. I'm sort of wondering if it has more to do with using a mouse than the knitting, since that isn't irritating me.

And you know what bugs me? Mom wanted me to make scarves for all of my girl cousins. Plus I have to finish her poncho (at least that's almost done). And NOW my wrists decide to act up? I've got a week to make all of that crap- and why did I think I could get all of that done in a week again? Was I insane?- and NOW they want to whine for rest? I can rest my damned arms all next week, when I won't be likely to be near a computer much OR have time to knit beyond Dad visits because I'm going to be dragged around to wherever Mom wants to go shopping, not to mention the whole Mauricio drama.

So late last night, I decided, the hell with it. I can't wait for my hands to 100% stop feeling irritated any more before I do crafts, and I've got about five days in which to make 4 items, 3 of them from scratch. And I'll be publicly accountable for not having these things done. And well... I can rest next week. I started in on Alicia's scarf, which has a checkerboard pattern, and so far have gotten in about 22 inches on it.

And speaking of inches, what is with the fad these days of having super-long scarves? Like, wrapped around your neck several times and they're still hanging down to your knees? Every time I see some fashionable girl wandering around with a knee-length scarf on, I can't help but think, "I KNOW that thing is migrating into your cooter every time you have to pee, girl."

(For the record, no, I do not know of this from any experience of my own.)

Alicia's a trendy girl- this is actually where the scarf idea came from, because the last time we saw Alicia she was wearing a scarf when her coat was off, but it wasn't knee-length- and I'm wondering how the hell long I am supposed to make this thing. When I make scarves, I usually don't make them all that long. Plus there's the "how much TIME do I have to make these things long anyway?" factor.

What I may end up doing is working on each girl's scarf to the point where it hangs to the waist on both sides, then putting it aside and moving on to the next girl, and then either finishing them off or making them longer as time permits. I don't know how this is going to work, but it's an idea.

I am quite happy that I get Friday off from work. My friend Jackie was SUPPOSED to be visiting that day, but she bailed. I had a feeling that was going to happen somehow- at first she was all, "Hey, I have off from the 23rd on, do you?" and I was all, "Yeah, do you want me to stay in town so we can meet up?" and she was all, "Yeah!" and so I made the arrangements and THEN she was all, "Um, maybe I don't have off then, lemme check," and then today I got "Oh, I'm only off from the 23rd on, I guess we can't get together." Um... yeah, that makes sense. Not. Flaketastic. Oh well, whatever, I need the time to work anyway. And I'll probably have a good portion of Christmas Eve Day to work on things at the last minute because Mom will most likely be late to pick me up to go to Aunt Susie's. I know she at least wants to visit Dad first. So there's roughly a day and a half where I'll be at home and idle to work on stuff. But I still wish I had more time off before. My boss was bugging us to take more time off, and my coworker's just leaving early every day this week. The boss herself is taking off Wednesday and Thursday. Now I'm debating asking for another day or two off, or just *cough*being sick*cough* at some point. Okay, I probably won't, that would be bad. I just kind of want to.

In other news, I found out what Mauricio meant by the New Year's thing. He and the girlfriend are going over to some party being held by the chick they spent Thanksgiving with, and he wants the girlfriend to talk to her friend about wrangling us a pity invitation.

Yeah, this has "Bad idea" written all over it. I highly doubt girlfriend would be too motivated to do THAT, for one thing. For another thing, it's not like Mom and Mauricio AND girlfriend all socialize together. And for a third thing, it's going to a party with strangers where we only know those two people. And for my part, I'd be the youngest one there.

I love New Year's parties. I haven't gotten to go to one since I was 22 and I desperately miss them. I HATE having a quiet evening at home watching the fucking television- I do that the rest of the year already. I am desperate to go to a NYE party.

But not this desperate, thank you.

I told Mom I'd rather decline. I think she agrees with me on that point.

Mom spent the entire danged weekend shopping with Mauricio. Like every time I talked to her (several times, she'd call me up and say something like, "Do you think the girls would like nightgowns?" and I'd say, "In all my years of sleeping over at their house, I have yet to catch any of them in a nightgown, so NO.") she was out with him. Bizarre. I got him on the phone at some point to tell him to nag her to buy the relatives gifts, so hopefully he did his job there since I couldn't do it. I don't really know if she did much beyond shop for herself and/or help Mauricio pick out stuff for his kids. Hard to get it out of her. Well, I gather she bought the PITAS some kind of board games. I sure as hell don't think they'd want board games, but then again, why try to get them something they like anyway?

I told her at one point what she really should do is donate money to charity in their names. It'd be the most torturous gift she could possibly give them! They don't get a thing, AND they can't object to that without coming off as assholes, AND it would play up their supposedly saintly nature!

She liked the idea, but alas, I think she'll end up going with the games.

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