It's what date?

Ah yes, I'm alive! I know I was silent for a few days... I'm sorry. Insomnia kicked my ass last Wednesday night, carried through Thursday night, and by Friday I had a massive fatigue headache. It was bad enough that we had to cancel going to a friend's holiday party that night because I was just fighting to stay upright. Headache meds barely touched my pain... so it was a night to stay home. I was in bed (not exactly asleep... but pseudo-conscious) by ten.

Errands kicked off Saturday, in which we had a fabulous lunch of messy subs at Quiznos, followed by a trip to the liquor store that always has cops directing traffic. Seriously-- what could be so fantastic about a liquor store? Well... this one had EVERYTHING and then some. We now understand. Fruity drinky things (Smirnoff Ice drinks), fixings for blueberry cobbler martinis (including graham cookie rimmer), and 3 bottles of mead later, we understand the attraction to this place. For the basics, we'll hit the one close to home. But for those serious shopping trips, we know where to go.

The traffic getting there was hellish, due to the road layout. I think every single moderate-sized city has one of Those Roads. You know-- the ones that have every. single. commercial. property. on them. Everything. Two lanes on each side with the left turn lane in the middle (often sans lights, which means you sit there forever). The traffic is crawling because everything's so close together and everyone's out shopping. I wouldn't doubt that half of the population of Rhode Island was on Route 2 in Cranston/Warwick on Saturday. It's not like anyone in the state lives all that far away from it. But we survived, got our booze, and headed home.

On Saturday night, we drove up to Brighton, Mass in the neighborhood I used to live in during my final years at BU. Michelle and Maria, two of my sorority sisters, threw a holiday party. It was a nice little intimate gathering with lots of food & drink. We had a great time. I want Michelle to come decorate my tree next year-- or at least do my lights- because I clearly am not a master of tree lighting. I'm in envy. Anyway, in true collegiate fashion, the party went into the wee hours of the morning. Erich and I crawled into bed around 4:15 or so. We were not happy when Noby and Gus informed us just before 9 a.m. that we really needed to get out of bed because we were stealing their morning sunbeams.

Sunday was an amazingly warm day (as it has been recently) in the mid 50's. We took advantage of the sunshine in the morning and put up our Christmas lights outside. We were late in buying them-- so we're one of Those Houses this year. The front steps look pretty- we wrapped the two front columns in some lovely sheer red ribbon so each pillar looks like a candy cane. But our lights on the bushes are a little scary. Eh... 'tis the season. We put up lights. We're festive. :) Next year we'll improve on them.

So as I got up this morning, I realized that maybe I should get some shopping done.. since Christmas is a week away. Eep. Guess I know what I'm doing in the evenings this week!

- Mel.