Happy December!

Where does the time go? Seems like just yesterday it was December 1st, and here it is one day later.

So, how go things in DeAdder land? Pretty well, thanks for asking. Work at the Credit Union flew by this past week. Surprisingly, it was kind of slow, allowing me to catch up on some ongoing projects I'd been avoiding. Also, on Friday, I subjected Denise (my supervisor) to my haiku prowess, as she was being plagued with phone and Internet service problems at home. Here's my poem, in all its 5-7-5 syllable glory:

Time Warner Tragedy by Chris DeAdder

Change cannot be stopped.

Husband needs conference calls!

Weekend spent on phone.

Having accidentally switched their service from Time Warner to AT&T, Tony and Denise belatedly realized AT&T did not offer conference calling, which Tony requires for work. Attempts to thwart the change, scheduled for Friday, met with failure (despite Denise spending all morning on the phone with them), along with a projected two weeks to switch back. The situation aroused my heartfelt sympathy, as evidenced by my haiku. For some reason, though, my literary attempts resulted in Denise giving me more work to do. You know what they say about good deeds...

And then came the weekend. Getting a nice, early start, Shelly and I went out to dinner at Thai Cafe in Durham, which is apparently a haunt for her and her law school buddies. I can see why- I think my eyes are still watering ! I had a (surprise!) seafood curry dish (rated two out of three peppers) which didn't so much open my sinuses as liquidate them. Since I love spicy food, that was OK by me.

Saturday saw a late rise along with a hearty, southern breakfast, followed by a marathon study session for Shelly's sales exam. Well, OK, not so much- after breakfast, we went to Southpoint to do some Christmas shopping, then when we came back, I left Shelly to study while I took the recycling over to the U-mall. (Just an aside here, we recycle even though the apartment complex doesn't collect it or provide bins. We had to buy a separate trash can and have to drive it over whenever its full. Don't ever tell me I don't do my part to save the planet!) By the time I got back, fifteen minutes later, Shelly was in the final stages of inviting guests over.

Apparently, Charlotte was acting up, and Erika was eager to do something, anything, to placate the poor suffering child, and thought a trip over here to see some hypothetical ducks might cheer her. This was a reversal from the usual formula (IF {Charlotte condition = fussy}, THEN {Chris action = departure}), but in the interests of friendship, we went along with it. The plan seemed to work, as Charlotte largely stopped crying by the time they arrived, as shown here:

Despite the implications of the vacant, unfocused look in the picture, raising Charlotte has not yet reduced Erika to the medicinal use of marijuana.

Scrounging up some bread, the four of us set out across the complex in the hopes of finding some ducks. We didn't find any; however, we were saved from strident wails of disapproval by the timely arrival of these fellas:

These nine Canadian geese were probably on a layover here, so it worked out for all of us. They got a free meal, and we got a few moments of blissful, goose-distracted silence. Here's another pic of Charlotte, feeding her very first waterfowl:

To tell the truth, Charlotte was really good all day. She is crawling and sitting up by herself now, and of course getting into everything. Erika really has her hands full, between her, that miniature greyhound, and that pharmacist husband of hers!

Once the Hawkins clan had departed, Shelly finally buckled down for a few hours and studied. Then, later that night, the two of us went out and got our Christmas tree. Like all well-adjusted couples, we photographically documented the whole event!

We finally settled on a nice seven-footer, and Shelly, showing her flair for negotiation, bargained the sellers down to $50 from $58, meaning we only got 'gouged' instead of 'reamed'. Perspective, people! It's a pine tree!

The next 4 hours were spent setting it up, hauling out all the Christmas decorations, figuring out why the lights weren't working, vacuuming up scads of pine needles, and starting a new Christmas tradition, the ginormous omelet! Shelly and I decided that, every year when we start our decorating, we'd make a huge omelet and eat it while we're putting everything up. Here's a picture of the six-egg monstrosity:

"That's an odd tradition," you say. "Why'd you start doing that?" Well, it all started when I tried to bring up the Christmas tree and three bags of groceries at the same time. In the midst of juggling everything, I dropped one of the bags, and guess what just happened to be in that one? Yep, the carton of eggs we'd just bought! What a lucky guess! Anyway, rather than just throw them away, we decided to make dinner out of them, and the situation was so funny and memorable, we decided to repeat it every year.

Hours later, fed up with the entire endeavor, I threw up my hands and set the tree ablaze:

Actually, that's just my camera set in night mode- believe it or not, the only lights that are on in that photo are the Christmas tree lights.

Well, kiddos, that's about it from Chapel Hill this evening. I hope everyone's alright and doing well. Oh, and Jen, I got your message- I will give you a call back this week! Sorry about the delay!

Happy December again, everyone!