While You're Making Other Plans...: And so This is Christmas...

It’s Christmas morning.

I got up at 5:00 am. Nothing special about that, it’s my usual time to get up. I dithered around with my tablet a bit, trying to free up some memory, then got dressed and headed down to the Jeep. On my way down, I picked up the bag I left by the door last night containing some last-minute presents for Handsome, and a few of the ingredients I’ll need for the casserole I’ll be making as my contribution to the Christmas spread. It’s only 11 degrees, so I waste no time hustling across the driveway to jump in the driver’s seat, then pause to curse the amount of cold that leather seats seem to store up. Good Lord!

I flew over to The House that Once was Mine, (okay, technically it still is mine, but The House that Once was Mine has a nice ring to it) giggling at the complete lack of traffic I found on the road at 5:45 am on Christmas Day. I made every light, barely having to touch the brake and maintaining about 10 mph over the speed limit for the entire trip. I didn’t even touch the brake when I went speeding past the cop parked by the side of the road, parked there specifically to catch asshats like me who are out there giggling and flaunting the law in the pre-Christmas-dawn.

I did, however spend 30 seconds with both feet hovering in the air, not touching either pedal, as I kept one eye on the parked cop car, the other watching speed bleed off the speedometer all the way down to 5 mph below the posted limit. Brake lights, as any Massachusetts driver knows, are a sign of weakness, and when flashed in front of a police officer on asshat patrol will immediately stimulate a pull-over, the black-and-white zipping out onto the road behind you like a shark zeroing in on any boat containing Roy Scheider. As long as there were no brake lights involved, one can always try the wide-eyed “Oh, really, Officer? I had no idea!” defense. Flash those brake lights: Guilty.

This morning, though, I cruise past the cop car. Must have been the way I was projecting my thoughts just as hard as I could, like some Postal Jedi running the mind-trick:

...no asshats here… no need to interrupt your doughnut...no asshats here…

I pulled into the driveway over at Handsome’s house in record time. I’m looking forward to sneaking into the house trying not to wake everyone in the house up, while all three dogs go ballistic, trying to wake everyone in the neighborhood up. I’ll pick up the required pile of poo in the kitchen, then give the hairy eyeball to all three dogs, trying to figure out whodunnit. All three dogs will look guilty; they always do. I will ponder the possibility of all three dogs contributing, either one at a time or all at once, to the night-deposit on the linoleum, before shaking my head, rejecting the logistics of the thing.

I’m looking forward, too, to turning on the Christmas lights, both outside and in, and enjoying them by myself for a time while the household sleeps. I’ll turn up the heat a touch, get the living room all cozy-warm, and admire the heap-O-presents under the tree, knowing they are all for Handsome. I’m looking forward to watching him tear into them since, eleven and outgrowing me or not, making him smile is still a big deal for me.

I’ll set up my ChromeBook at the dining room table and maybe write a blog post about all this as I wait for everyone to wake up on their own. I haven’t written a post in a while. I’ve just been all kinds of busy with a writing project, and the month of December has every postal worker in the country running about all day like their asses are on fire. Luckily our bosses are right there with buckets of kerosene to throw on the blaze. Sometimes I think they think they’re helping…

But for now, though, I’ll sit here in the driveway. I did make it over here in record time, and that may have worked against me. The whole while I was making lights and giggling, lifting my feet and avoiding the tell-tale flash of brake lights, I’d failed to notice one very important thing: my fat ass was flash-frozen to that 11 degree seat just as sure as that doofus’ tongue stuck to the pole in A Christmas Story. I got here so fast the heat’s just starting to come on, and now I have to sit here until some warmth penetrates the leather.