Dance of Life

My next door neighbour has just given me an early Christmas. She is one of those people you never see wearing the same thing twice, and, well, she was emptying her closet. And I just happened to be one of the lucky people she chose to offer clothes to. I could hardly CARRY everything. It's a complete new wardrobe! She had this huge garbage bag full, and she just kept pulling out cute thing after cute thing, and I kind of zombie-like just kept accepting thing after thing. I mean, there were these boots….and it's funny, because I'd just seen a girl wearing boots just like them in town, and mentioned to fubman that I wanted them. And they, they just came to me! Law of attraction in action right thur! I gave her two pieces of salmon from my freezer. It felt like a humble offering in exchange for 100's of dollars worth of clothes…but it's what I had! Hmm…perhaps a package of smoked salmon or two will even it out a bit.

Two people came in ALL day today at work. One right at the start of the day, and one right before I closed. It was miserably cold. I had nothing to do, so bravely I decided to venture up into the attic to get the Christmas decorations my boss had told me were up there. The main reason it took courage to venture up there was the cold. As soon as I removed the cover, I was met with an icy blast. I gingerly climbed up (I hate ladders - the other reason it took courage), mindful of spiders. The Christmas decorations were supposed to be at the far left side. It took some digging, but eventually I spotted two promising-looking boxes wrapped in Christmas paper…on the top shelf…pushed to the back. Naturally, I couldn't reach. This next part of the story displays some shocking behaviour on my part. Perhaps brought on my my desperation to get out of the painful cold, I grabbed a metal object that I did not really look at. I used this metal object in a flailing manner to knock the Christmas boxes closer towards me. Well, I succeeded in moving the boxes closer to me…as well as a few other things that I hadn't been able to see up there, which rained down on my face. Also turned out that the metal object I was using was a long clamp, and I was only holding one of the levers. the other one, as I brought it towards me, swung down (just as everything else was raining down on my face) and thunked me right on my cheekbone below my left eye. For a while I was in a daze of pain. I…I may have swore. And stamped my foot. May as well make a clean slate of it. But when the pain subsided, I determinedly grabbed the boxes, got down the ladder as fast as I could, and replaced the cover on the attic. As soon as I replaced it, I felt warmer. And relieved that I'd accomplished my mission. Jeez, those boxes better have some good decorations, I thought to myself. I did.

I also checked out my eye in the mirror. There is a tiny purple bruise on my cheekbone. It's a shiner. I have a shiner. I insist on it. Do not argue.

Anyway, turns out the decorations were…kind of disappointing. The first one I opened just had…other boxes. I just kept pulling out identical, increasingly smaller boxes. The other one had some red ribbon, fake straw, and old christmas cards. But I put my creativity to work, and in the end was quite pleased with what I'd managed. I made a full-on Christmas display using the boxes, and cut a bunch of cedar fronds and stuff.

Anyway, it's the next morning now, and shawn's just left for work. He has this one 11 hour shift each week where he has to start at 7. It sucks. When he leaves in the morning, it feels like the sun's sucked out of the apartment like a vacuum. It's just usually our main time together, when we're both most alive and awake. Ah well. The purring lump of creamy orange fur that is currently sausaging out on our new couch is a comfort.