Light It Up

'Tis the season to decorate for Christmas, so that was the big accomplishment for today.

I was all set to break out the boughs of holly when I realized that this is SoCal -- we ain't got no boughs of holly. We've got Hollywood and boobs of Holly, and we've got rows of actors great and smally (ow, sorry), but we're suffering from a shortage of holly boughs.

So I put up icicle lights instead.

Two boxes of them Beth had brought home. The packaging claimed each box covered 27 feet. Fool that I am, I believed them. 27 feet. Yeah, right; try 2.7. Maybe. I stretched them to the breaking point and I still ended up with a bald spot in the middle of the house. I let it stay; there's a kind of symmetry to me and my house both having bald spots.

I don't know how everyone else puts their lights up, but I don't think many of them do it my way. I think most people do it from a ladder, dragging it around the house and climbing up every four or five feet. Not me, too much work with all that climbing and dragging. I start from the top and work my way down: I go up on the roof to hang headfirst over a drop to certain hospitalization. I haven't gone over yet but it's not for lack of trying, believe me.

Before I actually started the work of putting the lights up, though, I had to start the work of hacking a work area through the foliage surrounding the house. It was like the freakin' jungle up there, man. It seemed like every tree in the neighborhood, and maybe a few from the next block over, all got together and sent all their errant branches over my way to hang out over my house. You couldn't see the roof for the, um, trees. I had to cut them all back before I could even start with the lights.

That's why I love housework so much. You get all geared up to tackle one project, then find out you have to do two others before you can start the one. Is it any wonder I never take out the trash? And Beth wants me to build a fence? Please.

But what the hell, I got the lights up today, finishing up just as it got dark. Ti-ming, baby. And now that I've actually done a project Beth wanted doing, maybe I've bought a reprieve 'til the end of the year.

Or... Maybe not.

(The bald spot's not too bad, is it?)

(Lie to me: say "no," like you always do.)

Oh, before I forget (again), a big "thank you" and "you da man!" goes out to Charles Leet of CALeet Designs for solving that image alignment problem I was having on the index page. Charles saves lives -- and web pages, too!