Sunday, January 11, 2009

ChaChee and the Grinch


While waiting for my tardy husband to return from work today, Wesley and I have been watching Man Vs. Wild on the Discovery Channel.

Wesley has also been trying to engage me in a conversation about how we would, if necessary, decapitate a snake. He said that, as Bear Grylls did, he would bite the head off. I told him that there would be no way in HELL I would get my ass into a situation where decapitating a snake would be something I would HAVE to do. Okay, so I didn't use those exact words, but it was what I was thinking..

I have also been singing "My Dreidel" to myself. It has been stuck in my head for TWO days now. I only know the first line of the chorus which goes like this: "Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel. I made it out of clay. Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel, with my dreidel I will play." I think. I guess I have not had a good reason to learn the remainder of the song as I am a Lutheran, but geez. It would be handy to know it at this moment because it is driving me bananas.

Our holidays were nice...although I am not a holiday person. They require too much planning, preparation and decorating; all activities at which I am inept. The decorating part is the worst for me, though, as it all needs to be taken down and put away...and "putting things away" is a sub-category of "cleaning." Something I really detest. Go ahead...call me a Grinch. I know it; I own it.

We spent a week with my family in Florida. Each time I visit, I wonder why I live somewhere that it snows and is cold and I cry when I have to come home. I just love palm trees too much...oh, and of course I love my family.

The week worked well for me: Chris and I took walks twice a day and my blood pressure returned (pretty much) to normal after nine months of stage two hypertension. Another reason Florida is good for me.

The "highlight" of our daily walks wasn't really a highlight at all. As we were walking up to the entrance of my parents' neighborhood, we saw a little animal lying on the street. "Oh," Chris said. "A opossum!" But no...it was a dog. A little dog. I could tell it was a Pomeranian mix as it looked like my mother-in-law's deceased dog, Biscuit. I thought of all the times that Sven, our Cairn Terrier, had gotten out and how I would want to know if something happened to him. After pestering Chris, he got the nametag off and called the owners, who didn't take the news well at all. We got a towel and got "Chachee" off the road and waited for the owners to arrive. It was on New Year's Eve and I kept thinking that having your dog tragically run over was a lousy way to ring in the new year.

So, upon returning to Iowa, we have been welcomed by and ice storm, a snow storm and now a blizzard is being predicted for tomorrow. We have been home a whole week already. I wonder if it too presumptuous to look into Florida real estate when one doesn't have a job there? But now, as I think of the topography and the critters native to tropical regions, I think the odds would be better there to find myself in a position where I would need to decapitate, or at least dispose of, a snake.

Perhaps the upper Midwest is the place for me.