Still A Rebel

I didn't do it last year and I wasn't going to do it this year but on Friday afternoon when we came home from an appointment Fifi the 8' Flamingo was leaning away from the garage wall like she'd tried to get outside.  It was nice yesterday so after I got the candy and party mix made I moved the cars out so I could plug her in and darned if she didn't light right up.  So I rustled up the crowbar and the big tie-downs and screwed them into the ground in the flower bed, then I reattached the easel-back to the bird, stood her up and tied her down.  I unearthed all the big weight belts and a couple of wire what-look-like-croquet-wickets that I use to hold the ends of her base down.  It's windy out there, I have to do what I can to keep her on her feet.  One of the neighbors cruised by and teased me that God was going to "punish me" for putting up the bird but I reminded him that God made flamingos so he must like them--and I said that next year I'd get the palm tree up again too--just as soon as I figure out a way to make it lighter and less of a sail.  I set my phone to remind me on June 1 to work on it instead of when it's too cold out to work on it because it's way too big to drag it down to the workshop.  That'll be one surprising reminder, I'm thinking.

Then I dragged the tree and ornaments upstairs.  I put the tree together, plugged it in, and about half the lights didn't light.  Grr.  I read the directions and spent about 20 minutes making sure all the lights were set in the sockets but that didn't do anything.  I googled how to fix it but didn't find a darned thing, except a place to order a new tree from (Sears) because they took our Kmarts away, the dogs.  Info about the LightKeeper Pro Light Tester came up too so I went to Home Depot and got one.  That thing is brilliant.  It beeps when you move it along the wire as long as there's current but stops when the current stops so you know which bulb to replace.  Using that got the bottom half lights on.  The top half wasn't so easy but I persisted and found a loose wire.  I had an idea of how to fix it but Durwood had a better idea that worked, so it took at least an hour (and only one trip to the store) to fix but by 9 o'clock the tree was lit and I was hanging ornaments on it.  For some reason this bison ornament is the one that pleases me most this year.





I feel sorry for the poor schmucks with tickets for today's Packer game.  A thunderstorm was rumbling through around 6:30 this morning and it's been raining off and on since then.  Durwood said he was glad it isn't snow but I think it'd be a whole lot easier to sit in the stadium in a snowstorm than in the rain.  Snow doesn't trickle down your neck.

December 13--Allan Luftig, 4015.  Isaac was proud of his glasses.  Now the letters in books were crisp and straight, and he knew he'd be able to read what was on the board.  Mama had told him that his grades had better improve because glasses were expensive.  He promised that they would.  The next Monday he was glad to go to school until he saw the faces of people making fun of him and his glasses, saw them clearly for the first time.  Their faces looked mean and their eyes were ugly slits.

It's probably time to go hang up the dry laundry and flop the wet stuff into the dryer.  Then I'm going to sit on the couch and crochet snowballs until I run out of yarn--or it's time to go to bed, whichever comes first.  Toodle-oo!
--Barbara