I Ain't Afraid of No Daleks

Well, it's not looking much like Christmas here--early Novmeber, or late March, early April even...but not much like late December. The jet stream across the upper half of the nation, must be totally screwed up...blizzards on the west coast, the Rocky Mountain states, the south and even parts of Texas which NEVER get snow have gotten some..but we are still, a bit warmer than normal...not much, but enough to play havoc with the tourist trade and the ski bums and snowmobilers.

I have to walk to work in the cold pouring rain--but only working a few hours today--a fifty hour week is more or less my limit, though I'd work longer if asked, I'm sure as hell not going to volunteer (unless I adored my job, like when I was a groom, or helping mum in her library, that's different), no way Jose, as we yanks are wont to say. My umbrella remains missing--no clue what happened to it, I remember packing it--I think--but still haven't found it yet...on with the baseball hat, I suppose.

Well, didn't get to the store this morning, I'll either go tonight around 6,or maybe tommorrow--although tommorrow is laundry day at the laundromat. I did most of my week's shopping, but forgot one or two important items, so have to go back. I'm going tonight, as I can get a bus, and only have to shell out for cab fare one-way. This backaasswards city doesn't run busses after 7 on weekends, or after 6pm weeknights, or on Sundays at all. Stupid republicans...how's not running busses to busy shopping centres helping the local economy? They save money but not paying the drivers, but the city and towns lose money by losing shoppers. Ah well, north country bueuracrats aren't any smarter than the one's in Washington D.C., it seems.

One thing about rainy cold days, it's easy deciding what to make for dinner--two things I like most, on cold, raw days for my dinner: either spaghetti with meat sauce, or a nice hearty stew. I opted for the stew, today. Put winter veggies and some potatoes in the slow cooker, along with some leeks, dill, bay leaf, worcestershire sauce, catsup, garlic powder, and beef broth cubes and water...turned the Crockpot on low and tonight dinner will be ready when I get home--I bought a loaf of fresh baked crusty French bread yesterday, as well....a feast for a raw rainy December night!

I seem to have developed a problem with my left eye--it's sore..and I can't open it all the way. Still unpacking a bit, I was picking up a cardboard box yesterday here, and stabbed myself in the corner of the eye with it...but it was fine. However this morning it's sore and swollen...must of brusied it more than I thought! They'll probably think I went ten rounds with Tyson at work, today, ha-ha!

I was on the BBC's Doctor Who website, last night, when I noticed something...I might be entirely wrong, mind, but I found it interesting.

Just a note, there's a small "spoiler" coming, if you don't want to know anything whatsoever about Runaway Bride, don't read this.

Anyway, the alien ship in RB is made to look (from the very brief glimse I've had) to look like a Christmas tree star.

On the BBC site is a rather nice photo of the Doctor, gripping his sonic key/screwdriver with dead serious expression on his face, and there's a Christmas tree behind him--and the star on top of the tree, looks remarkably like the alien ship on the show! If that's deliberate, I must say, it's rather clever of them.

Just got an e-mail from the blog site, as did all the other members, I suppose.

Entering my e-mail each time is definately going to be a bother, but I guess there's a good reason for it, so I will have to put up with it.

What I resent though, rather strongly, is being told I HAVE to re-design my blogsite!

I mean, that's fine, if I was a kid or retired or unemployed, or just had plenty of time on my hands. That's fine if I actually WANTED to re-design my site. But not thrilled with it being intimated that I HAVE to re-design my site. I don't have time for this nonsense! I mean that literally, I don't have time. I barely have time to write each day, I don't have time to entirey re-design my site!

It was assumed by the owners of this site, that everyone doesn't like their designs--as a matter of fact, I DO! I love my site design. It works for me, why should I change something I like? Okay, maybe the new designs are better, but maybe not. I don't care. I like what I've got, and I'm not changing a good thing. I've had too many darn changes in my life lately, just for once, I'd like to stay with something I'm used to and I love. Is this wrong?

I'm all for improvement, but there's also much to be said for the familar and the old way..newer, in my life experience, isn't always better...depends on the circumstances.

I say, I will re-design this site, when I'm good and ready to re-design this site, and while I don't mind being told about new designs, I do resent being told, more or less, that I HAVE to re-design. I think the site could have worded their e-mail a bit better---the word PLEASE is also conspiciously absent.

Someone recently took me to task, over my statement that I did not think Scots actor David Tennant to be at all sexy. Well....I'm an old maid, for pity's sake! (I really, truly am--no joke intended)...we don't do "sexy!"

Honest, I will freely admit, the gentleman seems a thoughtful, charming, witty young man, and when he smiles he lights up the room...but..no. Not sexy. But then, as I've just stated, I don't really do sexy, any more than I drink alcohol (the last alcohol I consumed was in 2001, when I was in the Netherlands and wasn't sure about the water situation) and I"m just plain not into the concept of sexiness, all that much. Hey, with my past history with guys--I could pretty much pass for a nun, as far as that goes--if I was stil Catholic, that is, and didn't curse (much to my everlasting shame) sometimes.

Anyway, I'm not sure why it even mattered to this person, what I think of DT, I'm sure even DT himself would care not one whit what I think of him. I'm not anybody, right? I'm never going to meet the man, so...who cares, ey?

Just watched some more trailers and an interview re: Runaway Bride--OMG! It looks fantastic! Bravo Messr's Tennant, Russel and et al...and the gals as well.

Christmas in the recent past (last year) was awful..this Christmas is much better, better than I'd ever hoped for, anyhow...still, I can't just sweep the sadness and lonelieness and pain all under the carpet (it would leave a rather large lump I'm afraid), so while I'm more upbeat than I'd ever expected--still, there's a load of potential bad stuff looming over me, and it really is impossible to completely ignore it...I'm just pushing it into the far corners of my mind and simply doing my best to relax and find what enjoyment I can, this Christmas. It's the best I can do, and more than I'd expected to be able to accomplish.

I've come to realize, that I'll more than likely never be really secure in this life again...It's a fair bet that continual problems, constant unsettlement or upheaval, and worries and fear will be with me forever, and I'm coming to terms with that, eventually. There are times, I must admit, when I get all nostalgic for the security of my childhood home--my room, my yard, my village, my woods and fields, my dogs and, of course, my quirky disfunctional family. Yet, when I think on it--the security was an illusion, sort of. I mean, in the end, the pets were lost, the family broke apart, the home and hometown were lost, the fields and woods largely given over to development, negighbours dying, kids moving away...nothing is really secure in this life, not really, is it? Life is about changes. Daily life evolves every bit as much as nature and man. Or maybe not...it's just a thought. But, I do have some rather interesting and pleasant memories to cherish, despite all the bad things that have piled up against me of late, like a massive car wreck on a foggy roadway, I have those memories as a focusing light, to distract my mind away from the pain.

I remember how when we were little, dad would make a big production out of decorating the tree, and always insisted that we kids hang the tinsel...and how we'd be finding strands of tinsel (not sold over here, anymore, btw) sucked up by the vacuum cleaner three months later. The mulitcoloured christmas lights would be strung up along the roof's rain gutter, outside...and I loved the way the icicles hanging down from the roof, would reflected the colours. One year--and I still have photo somewhere---my older sister and I got plastic ladies wigs..one gold, one brown under the tree...and oranges in our stockings...we have a photo of us girls wearing plastic wigs and bearing orange peel smiles (we kids like to take the orange peel and stick it in our mouths and make goofy smiles)--hey, it was the 60's, no video games or VCR's, and only 3 tv stations--we had to do something to amuse ourselves.

Another "job" we had, was to help mum with the Christmas cards, by licking the envelopes...and, help tape in-coming cards to the railing in the living room, on the staircase that led to the attic. She'd put Christmas music on the record player, or we'd watch the annual Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer special together while doing it. (Good old Rudolf--still an American TV tradition, after all these decades--or so I'm told, don't have tele anymore, haven't done in nearly two years.)

In 1978 or 79, Money was tight, so I strapped on my snowshoes and went to a place nearby, deep in a very deep ravene, and cut down a spruce tree--or rather, half a spruce tree. It was a nice tree, and I didn't have the heart to kill it, just for the pleasure of a few weeks--so I sawed it in half--still plenty big enough for Christmas--tho' I admit, it was a bit scrawny (not many spruce in our upper Hudson valley region, mostly Eastern White Pine--which is totally unsuitable for Christmas trees) and, okay, sort of lame looking...but I cut it, dabbed some preservative over the cut on the living tree, tied a rope to the cut off top, and dragged that little ol' tree home across the field to my house. Mum didn't like it...kept calling it our "Charile Brown" tree (after the bedraggled tree in the Charile Brown Christmas cartoon that was also shown every year). Actually, it was about 5 feet tall, so it wasn't that small--but didn't have loads of branches so it looked smaller than it actually was. I've photos of it, as well...looked...okay, after it wss decorated--that was the year, also, we began our tradition of using unique ornaments that we'd bought each other as gifts.

Good gosh almighty! What a day! Worse day, ever. And I wasn't alone, many of my other co-workers were also cursing under their breath and looking like they'd rather be anywhere else but in our telemarketing office. Loads of people opted not to show up for work today, so only a handful of us were on hand to take the brunt of John Q. Public's abuse. And abuse us they did--from Maine to Alaska, and everywhere else in-between. Merry Christmas...yeah, right...not for some of us, then. On top of everything, my toothache started in about 2 in the afternoon--and was helped along by a massive headache as well...Let's put it this way, my second call of the morning was to some grown man's mum (I'm finding that many guy's don't have telephones at home, over here, and depend on their mum's and grannies phones, which is something that surprised me just a small bit) anyhow, I started the day doing collections--this guy wasn't paying a 70 dollar bill...rang up his mum, told yes the man lived there, but it was "illegal" for me to call her (not at all true, by the way), then when I tried to (calmly and nicely) ask her to let her son know he needed to call the club to see about the debt, dear old mum screamed at me to "drop dead!" and "Go to hell!" So I hung up and coded that one in to be sent to the official collection agency (our office does pre-collections calls and assorted sales calls for a chain of American "clubs" owned by some large European conglomerate). Anyway--it was all downhill from there. Yelling, slamming phones, more yelling (oh, tons of yelling, for every reason under the sun--I was even screamed at for accidentally pronouncing a man's last name wrong!) Merry Christmas? Not in America, it's not...more like Scary Christmas!

Gosh, what I wouldn't give to be able to live in a civilized country (I know there's ill-mannered idiots and bad-tempered people everywhere, but we just seem to breed them by the trillions, of late) where people know how to properly speak on the telephone and aren't terrifed of thinking, and at least have some clue as to what good manners are. Is there any nation like that left? Canada? the U.K.? Netherlands? Iceland? Pitcairn Island?