Tis the Season to be Jolly!

Hi friends,
I call you all friends, because no one other than, would bother to read such tripe! You can't even wrap fish in this or line the bird cage when you're done! Best thing I can say is that it's free. I went to a White Elephant party yesterday. As Neil Armstrong would say, "It was a blast". Now there were several dishes. Some were casseroles. You never know what is in those. I kept wondering which one had the white elephant in it. I hear it taste like chicken. I think it was in the desert! No one does chocolate moose anymore. The new rage is Vanilla Elephant! Sounds like a sixties group. Remember Vanilla Fudge, Cream, Strawberry Alarm Clock. Deep Purple, Iron Butterfly? It turned out, what we did was open good and bad gifts. The worst gift was probably the deluxe whoopee cushion set, complete with official Making Whoopee sweatshirt. Making whoopee, used to mean something else entirely. Wear it proudly Mike! Or put it in a time capsule not to be opened before 2050. Imagine what the write-up would say: Apparently due to economic downturn in the first decade of the century, masses turned their attention to the gas filled cushions which made flatulent audibles when sat upon by unsuspecting guests. In the past, we had gifts like the awful-ugly clock, once picked out to be a thoughtful wedding gift. That thing was thrust upon unsuspecting recipient year after year and finally was deposited in Florida. Another was the ugly old woman with sagging appendages, standing on the scales. This coveted item was passed around also. This year one of the gags was a singing frog. We finagled and schemed the best we could to get it in our possession, for we knew it's worth. But some of the other grandparents also wanted the coveted croaker to display for their grandbabies. Alas, we lost possession of the green toad. Just then as the party was over, our friends, the sponsor of the gift, handed us our very own Christmas Frog. We had fought like five year olds for this thing and now it was ours! But more importantly we had thoughtful friends! The Sills, not the Cowsills, another group, not the Window Sills, they might now be known as the Frog Sills. Thanks guys! Now we can listen to the ribit rock all Christmas season! Another time capsule item would be the set of VHS tapes and the 8 year old box of Millenios, the special edition box of Cheerios commemorating the year 2000. Supposedly there is a "2" in there with all of the "0's". We also had fun naming state capitols. I thought of two! That's a really sadistic game! I used to like to play"name that disease". Of course now that most of my lady friends are nurses, it's not as much fun! When you get my age, your lady friends are nurses by default. Fortunately, my wife is a nurse. She won't let me croak until I build up a retirement, so I keep drawing it out. It's life insurance. She keeps hinting that I should get double indemnity. That's where if you loose all 5 appendages in one accident, resulting in death, she collects double. She's been reading those Stephen King books and I'm a little worried. Better pull a little more out of retirement.

I had to go back to work today after five days off. I got home and Jennifer (daughter) says it's cold. My usual response is "put on a sweater". I checked the thermostat and it said 66. A little low even by my standards. I crunk it up, but it wouldn't crank. Just then Aaron "son" informed me there was a notice from the gas company. They had shut off our gas. Well! We found our bill which wasn't due until December 30th, so we called. They admitted their error and promised to shut the gas back on by the 19th. Can you shut things on that have been shut off? Today is the 15th. that's 9 days! Are they crazy?! I told the guy we have four people here who needs baths and dishes to wash and we want our gas back on tonite! I told him we're going to stand around here naked until they get her, because we are ready for our baths! He said he'd check. We went back and forth 3 or 4 times with him and then his supervisor, who was named Teeko, or something. I won't say the name of the company, but I am switching both my houses to someone other than Gas South. I guess all of their guys are busy filling those whoopee cushions at night and can't break free to restore my gas. If I had failed to pay my bill, there would be a $200 reconnection fee and a $5000 deposit!.
Anyway it is now 69 degrees, I guess, after baking cookies. We put up more Christmas decorations and played Christmas music. The tree smells wonderful. It's a big wide blue spruce. We could have gotten an artificial tree for $230 but this one was almost free and we had the fun and adventure of chopping it down, loading it on top of the car and hightailing it out of there before getting caught. It didn't leave that big of a gap. In a few years another will grow right in it's place. I stole that line from my dentist, Dr. D.

I'm going to bed where it's warm. Hope you will do the same. Good night nurse!