ryssee's world

Merry Christmas!

Last night, while the cats were fighting and chasing, they turned on the vacuum cleaner. Holy flying furballs! Bet you've never seen something like that before.

#1) A picture of a family that actually shows the parents in it! Haven't seen one of those in years. Chris and Deb and their 3 kids look great, happy and healthy. And I'm glad to be in touch after so many years. A friend of mine used to say that one year, she was gonna collect all the photo cards of people's kids, and randomly mail them to other people. From a random post office, with no return address. Really funny to think about. Imagine getting one? You'd be like, "What the hell? who ARE these people?!" #2) A Christmas card arrived in the mail today. From the cats. No joke. :-) I DO have a sneaking suspicion who the kitties' helpers are. (Rickers!) Either that, or the little meowers know how to drive, and where the post office is.

Storm #2 today. Today's storm involved little shoveling for Miss Ryss...this time Randy the Snowblower came out of the basement like it should have, and made easy work of the snow and slop that fell. (I have to call it Randy the Snowblower. My sweet one is one with the snowblower, the one that mocks me when Randy's not home during storms. Which is most storms. And I can't get Snowblower out so there is no Ryssee the Snowblower). All I had to do was clear snow off the car, shovel my escape route from my parking space on the street, and make a heap of French Toast for breakfast. I would like to be brave enough to put a chair or a traffic cone in "my" street spot, like many people do in congested areas around Boston. It sucks to shovel it out only to lose it to a neighbor that didn't do anything but drive up the street. And then I have to park in a sloppy spot where no one cared about cleaning it out all nice and ever getting back into it. The house contin...

1:30 pm - leave work. Slick roads. Creep slowly in 2nd gear. 2:30 pm - arrive home, 10 miles later. 3pm - shovel several inches of snow. We get fined if the sidewalks aren't cleared after a storm and I want to get a head start. 3:15 - shovel back, 'cause there's another inch. At least it's fluffy. 4:15 - shovel back and forth again. Several inches. 4:34 - Randy calls from Chicago. "Wish I could be there to get the snowblower out." 4:35 - Yep. Me too! It never snows when he's here! 6:11 - WHAT GOOD IS THE GODDAMNED SNOWBLOWER IF I CAN'T GET IT OUT OF THE BASEMENT?! 6:12 - should I go shovel some more? :-) EDIT: 6:20 Shovel snow. Shovel back. 8:10 Shovel snow. 8:30 Clean off car. Can't face it tomorrow. Dig out area in front of and next to car so I can get out in the morning. 8:50 Neighbor with snowblower blows snow all over car and vicinity 8:55 Shovel snow, clear out car (again). 9:05 AVALANCHE FROM ROOF! Must shovel more snow from sidew...

Last year's fiasco: Emmie began spiral-vomiting every time she ate or drank something, requiring a frantic visit to the vet. After a couple hundred bucks worth of x-rays and a hydration pack inserted in her shoulder, we found out she'd likely have to have surgery to have a 1" section of plastic-and-metal tree removed from her digestive tract. It would have cost her a lot of trauma a month after being spayed, and about $1500 from her people. The vet gave us a day, and thank goodness she "passed" it the next morning. Not a pleasant task looking for it, as you can well imagine. We didn't want to relive any part of that experience, so this year, we're ditching the plastic tree and getting a real one. The thought? That the risk would be a lot smaller, knowing that we now have two cats in the household this Christmas, who both love love love to check out anything and everything with their lips and teeth. So, I stopped at Ricky's Flower Market and pic...

So we've had our sales meeting the last few days. It ends tomorrow. Can't wait. We spent 6 hours on Sunday steaming the wrinkles out of our samples after dragging them to the hotel...in 19 degree windy weather. My day started at 9 which stunk on a Sunday, I'd rather be reading the paper with my sweet one and playing with the cats, but it's all part of the job. Sunday night we had a nice dinner-yummy lobster, my favorite! So, I had TWO. Then the reps wouldn't stop buying me drinks so I didn't get home til midnight, and yes I took a cab. Which worked out well 'cause that's when the snow hit. Got to sleep in the next day, whew, and didn't have to scrape the car, just took a nice toasty warm cab back to the hotel. The storm was supposed to end in the morning, but it was still snowing sideways during the afternoon and then the fire alarm went off and they made us vacate. And the hotel is on the harbor, so it's windy, and cold, and icy. Brrr. ...