Happy-Happy-Joy-Joy

That's what it says on a T-shirt that Tim digs out every holiday season, the words running beneath the cartoon  figures of Ren, an emotionally unstable Chihuahua, and Stimpy, a good natured, dimwitted cat.  The shirt cracks me up whenever Tim shows up in it just as I am beginning to feel emotionally unstable myself….

In fact, it has been one of those days when I teeter between tears of frustration and tears of hysterical laughter. It is raining quite hard causing the powers that be to veer from dire warnings about a fifth year of drought to dire warnings about the strongest El Niño yet, floods landslides and associated mayhem.

During a lull in the current storm we walked the dogs down to the creek which is finally looking and sounding like a creek again. And our lawn is looking like a lawn again.

The power went out in the night which had OilMan up at 6am muttering about resetting clocks and thermostats, which involves locating the manuals.

Putting up the Christmas tree involved a geometric progression of rearranging.  The cars must come out of the garage in order to get the decorations down from the rafters. The chair which occupies the space where the tree is to go must be moved elsewhere. The appalling dust , spiderweb and  dog hair clumps must be removed. 

The tree looks quite small but has a hidden trunk that must be 8 inches in diameter and weighs a ton. We attached the stand  before dragging it into the house, so that OilMan wouldn't have to lie on his stomach making adjustments. The result of that brainstorm is in the extras. Right now OilMan is on his stomach making adjustments. We have yet to move on to the mulled wine and Christmas carol phase from the shouted curses and dire mutterings phase.

Good thing we have Blake helping us….