Well, Christmas has come and gone another year, and as usual I have garnered 4,952 presents. I am sorry. I am an only child.
And by the way, Marvin outdid himself not only on trying to find every way possible to get all the attention himself (and by the way, I guess that stocking is going to be yours for the rest of TIME, Marvin. Gross.), he also got me some fine gifts.
First of all, about three months ago I said to him, "Aren't these tennis shoes the bomb?" as I was looking in a catalog. I swear that was as long as the conversation got, and yet he remembered and even knew my size. He probably felt sorry for me because he knows that dog has eaten all my shoes. And he did actually buy me a left and a right. I don't have to go around with one slipper like that time Mary Tyler Moore won the award and she had a bad cold and had one slipper on. Am I the only one who remembers that episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show? That was a good show. Stood the test of time.
I will tell you the other great thing he got me as the grand finale to this post, as a reason to keep you hanging on through the torture, the drivel, that is the rest.
For instance, I photographed this package because my mother was obsessed with showing me how the tag matched the wrapping paper. She was killing my buzz, man. I just wanted to rip into my gift, and she's all gettin' aesthetic on me. So here it is, immortalized.
Speaking of a buzz, some in our home did not care so much that it was Christmas.
Until a mysterious sock came out, embroidered in mice, that wonder of wonders, had the nip in it.
I love this picture, with Ruby's silhouette-y self leaping up there to see if there is any of her drug of choice left.
They had other stuff in their stocking, too, including Francis' annual Baked Lay's, which he guarded like a sentinel all afternoon, and if you tried to get near them you pulled back a bloody stump, but Winnie was more into the catnip. Which he may have overindulged in.
I am the lizard king! I can do anything!
After we talked old high-on off the roof and washed the gold body paint off him, we went on an afternoon constitutional, where we saw an Irish Setter gladly wearing reindeer antlers. I am not even kidding. She was fine with them.
Really, we saw all sorts of things that were just kind of wrong, and yet oh so right.
Oh! And in a really terrible segue that takes you back in time to the opening-of-presents part of the day which you were probably over already, a while back my mother called me with the Vermont Country Store catalog in hand and asked me to get mine. Then we went through it and I told her what I liked. She kept saying, "Ew. I don't like that, honey. I don't want to get you that." Okay, why does it matter if SHE likes it?
Anyway, this is one of the many items I just loved that she was creeped out by, and as you can see she acquiesced and got them for me. What says Christmas better than scary little holly-headed girl salt-and-pepper shakers wearing Christmas tree dresses?
Okay, but finally, and I know you are glad this whole recap of my day is coming to an end, here is what Marvin did. When I was a kid, I was obsessed with my local zoo. I went all the time. Did I mention I'm an only child? So if my parents weren't taking me, some grandparent or aunt was. It didn't even really have anything very exotic. A couple of spider monkeys, some llamas, a macaw. When I got older, I dragged my cousins there constantly, even as they were teenagers.
I'm the big-haired one on the right, and I know that is shocking news, dragging my cousin to the zoo when she was, like, 17 and over it. See the train in back?
I got married right across the street from the zoo, and the day before my wedding a bunch of my guests and I went there.
The best part of the zoo? The train. It rode you through the whole thing, which took about a minute and a half because this zoo is small. But it went through a tunnel and you had to SCREAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMM! as loudly as you could through that tunnel, for no reason that I can think of, and your throat would be totally raw when you came out the other side.
So. My old boyfriend, the one who said, "Come upstairs, it's cooler" alerted me to the important fact that the old sign for my zoo was on sale on eBay! I mean, this sign is huge. It was the sign that was in front of the zoo for years, and it is a wooden, multi-colored train that reads "Children's Zoo" across it.
I showed Marvin that it was for sale, and who do you think got it for me for Christmas?! It was the last gift he gave me, although it is not physically here. If it were I'd probably be typing you outside as there would be no room. "It's in my garage," my mother said, with the excitement of a tree sloth. Apparently we're going to try to get it this summer. It's so exciting! I think we're gonna set it up in the back yard, although just between you and me I TOTALLY wanna hang it in the living room somehow.
So that was my Christmas, and now it must be time for next Christmas, as that took forever. I will talk at you later. I have to get Winston to rehab.
