December 5
School Choir Practice: Preparing for Christmas Concert
We are standing here in our long robes with our toes sticking out underneath.
Ms. Van Lips, she is leading us in the attempt to sing LONGIPES UNIVITTATA. Pia, she is playing kettle drums.
Pia, she is playing kettle drums right behind me. As I am a alto.
We are rendering LONGIPES UNIVITTATA unrecognizable. This is pissing Pia off. Pia is cursing in my ear.
Now we are attempting to sing EUPATORIUM FISTULOSUM. We are supposed to sing all over top of one another in a certain organized fashion.
However it is a disaster.
Now we are stumbling through the fourth movement of MARMOTA MONAX. I did not know that was even a Christmas song.
arundo donax!
marmota monax!
I can hear Chessies voice over top of everybody elses voice. On account of Chessie, she is squeaking 3 times louder plus 3 octaves higher than any of the other sopranos.
Now we are singing the chorus from THE DANCE OF THE SNOW LEOPARDS. That is proceeding somewhat better. On account of we all have seen it on television.
December 7
It is snowing and snowing.
I am reading The Lullaby Kittens of Skittles Hill. It is suspenseful. Also it is slightly more voilent than the movie.
What I need is some hot buttered milk. I think I shall go into the kitchen and make some hot buttered milk.
Snooples and Chessie, they have been baking all day in the kitchen. They are wearing poofy white hats loaned from Nini.
Snooples and Chessie, they have cocoa powder all the way up to their elbows.
Trays of little chocolaty confections rolled in cocoa powder are all over the table and the stove top and the counter. I shall now sample one of the chocolaty confections.
THESE ARE PRETTY GOOD. WHAT PRECISELY ARE THESE THINGS.
they are carob covered rabbit poops and carob covered deer poops.
CEASE THIS OPERATION AT ONCE.
but they are Turdles!
they are for the homely dogs!
THEY ARE ABOMINATIONS.
However Snooples and Chessie, they do not listen.
Snooples has put on two of Ninis oven mitts. Snooples is pulling a large tray of something out of the oven. Nut bar-like objects.
I DO NOT WISH TO KNOW WHAT THOSE ARE.
they are owl scat bars! they are Baby Poops!
they are for the homely -
I SHALL PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED AND RETURN TO MY READING NOW.
December 10
It is the last day of school before Christmas vacation. The little kids, they are putting on a Baby Jesus play.
The Three Wise Guys, they are owl chicks. The camels and the cows and the sheeps and the ass, they are extremely puffy Persian kittens. With pink bows upon their heads.
The Baby Jesus, he is a small gerbil. The Baby Jesus, he is sitting up in the manger. The Baby Jesus, he is chewing bits of straw and dropping them everywheres.
The angel, it has just been lowered on a wire. It is a young blue jay. It is kicking too much.
Now the little kids, they are singing AWAY IN A MANGER.
Amos and Moses the crows, they are striding onto the stage playing their accordions. Bucky Lawless and Bing Hamton, they are striding onto the stage from the other side with their trumpets. Pia and her kettle drum are gliding sideways onto stage. They are getting pulled in a wagon by a skittling dwarf goat.
All the musicians, they are wearing white cowboy suits and white cowboy hats and black string ties.
Now everybody, they are singing HONKY TONK ANGELS.
This is very impressive.
December 12
Helping Dad put up Christmas lights all over the outside of the house.
Even though Snooples, she loves Christmas, Snooples, she refuses to help Dad with this job.
On account of Dad: He uses offensive language. Dad, he describes the Christmas lights which go all over the outside of the house using offensive language.
December 14
Standing on toes with paws upon the windowsill. Watching the snow flakes fall all over everywheres.
It is snowing like bat nuts.
Moms and Dads trucks plus Charlies Mini Cooper plus Pias Miata plus the lawn tractor, they are lumps beneath the snow.
It is nice.
December 15, 2005
Dear Muffin,
I am sending you some snow. It is in the plastic bag. It may require fluffing upon arrival. But it is pretty good snow.
Yours,
Gracie De La Rue
December 16, 2005
Dear Muffin,
I have invented something ingenious. First you put a soup bowl inside this other soup bowl, see
Snooples and Chessie, they are setting up the movie projector in the living room and movie film, it is spewing everywheres. I have to go.
Yours,
Gracie
December 17
Helping Dad string Christmas lights all over the trees and the shrubs and the shed and the garden gnomes and the plastic deer and the mailbox.
Nini, she is standing below the step ladders. Nini is supervising the application of the Christmas lights. Charlie and Chessie, they are unrolling orange extension cords.
I can see why Snooples refuses to assist Dad in this particular venture. Dad, he certainly uses a lot of swear words.
However I am expanding my vocabulary. That is good.
December 18
We are sludging through the snow to go chop a Christmas tree.
Snooples and Chessie and Chickenloaf and Ben, they are wearing 3 pairs of trousers and 4 sweaters apiece. However they do not buckle their boots. Their boots, they are slopping and jangling.
Pia, she is tossing cigarette butts everywheres as we go along. That is bad.
Pia, she is wearing a real nice leather bombers jacket which is lined with wolferine fur. I wonder where Pia got that bomber jacket.
Ben, he is draggling along behind. Ben, he has the ear flaps of his blaze orange hunting cap lined with sheeps fur buckled firmly underneath his chin. Ben has his crabs wool scarf which Snooples knittled wrapped around and around and around and around and around his neck. Ben, he is wheezing and sniffling and hacking and honking and mumbling feebly into his lace-lined handkerchief.
Charlie, he is carrying the axe.
THERE IS A GOOD ONE OVER THERE IN THAT YARD.
That is what I tell Charlie.
Charlie, he says no.
BUT IT ALREADY HAS LIGHTS ALL OVER IT.
Ben, he has fallen over backwards in the snow.
I shall now perish. Continue on. Save yourselves.
Okey dokey. That is what Pia says.
Now we are entering the woods. Dark shadows, they are lurking everywheres underneath the trees. Lumps of snow, they keep dropping from the limbs in the manner of dead rabbits.
DO COYOTES EAT CATS THAT IS WHAT I WANT TO KNOW.
Charlie says yup.
Big snowflakes, they are floating down all around us. Brambles, they are snaggling our sleeves. A enormous batlike thing just swooped silently overhead.
Fuck this.
Pia has just stubbed out her cigarette and has turned to go home.
there's one!
Oh wonderful. Snooples has discovered a coyote.
But no. Snooples is patting a shapely pine tree.
Charlie, he is chopping down that tree.
Now we are dragging that tree across the fields. Snooples and Chessie and Charlie and Chickenloaf, they are singing FOLLY LOLLY LAMB CHOPS. I can see our house in the distance with the eight billion Christmas lights blinking.
Uh oh.
Here is Ben lying on his back in the snow. Bens eyes are pinched shut. Bens paws are folded over his chest. Little icicles, they twinkle all along Bens whiskers.
December 19
AN OLD FASHIONED VIKING CHRISTMAS by the Singin' Vikings is playing on the Victrola. Me and Pia, we are playing chess.
Nini, she is baking Lichtenstein out in the kitchen. I can see Ninis poofy white chefs hat moving back and forth.
Chessie and Chickenloaf and Weakie, they are trimming the Christmas tree. Chessie and Chickenloaf, they are singing along with AN OLD FASHIONED VIKING CHRISTMAS. Chessie and Chickenloaf, they do not actually know those Viking words. They are muffing up those songs.
Now the Vikings, they are singing RUDOLPH THE RED NOSED REINDEER GOES TO VALHALLA. At least Chessie and Chickenloaf, they know the words of that song.
Ben, he is wearing a ruffled night cap plus three of Weakies old flannel nightgowns and he is hunched in Charlies reading chair and he is swaddled in a quilt with reindeers all over it and he has his foots in a steaming hot foots bath.
Ben, he reeks of Bag Balm and Vicks Vap-o-Rub and Meunster Cheese Poultice.
I hub seeb du bribbled gerbil ub doob.
That is what Ben says.
However no one listens to Ben. On account of we are busy untangling the various Christmas ornaments and tinsel and whatnot. On account of somebody wadded everything up and stuffed it into one large box last year.
Now Ben, he is having a sneezing fit.
Snooples has just brought Ben a mug of hot Ovaltine.
The tree, it is trimmed and is twinkling.
Snooples and Chessie, they are holding paws and swinging their paws back and forth and they are singing O CHRISTMAS BABOON in whispy voices.
Ben he has dozed off. Bens whiskers are soaking in the hot Ovaltine.
December 21
DAD ALL THE OUTDOOR CHRISTMAS LIGHTS, THEY ARE HALF DEAD AND SPLUTTERING. ALSO I SMELL SMOKE.
Dad, he is swearing something awful.
December 22
Handing Dad wrenches and pliers.
Dad, he is in a frightful mood.
The Christmas lights all over the outside of the house, they are scortched.
There that is better. They are blinking once again.
December 24
We are watching THE HOMECOMING on the television and we are crunching popcorns. Even Pia, she is crunching popcorns.
John Boy Walton, he is okay. However Mary Ellen Walton, she is on crack.
Okay here is the part where John Boy Walton, he tells everybody about all the animals talking up a storm on Christmas Eve. On account of Jesus and all. This here is my favorite part. Except for the cow.
Here is Dad Walton, he has arrived out of the raging snow storm. Dad Walton, he is a Nice Dad. Some kids, they have Nice Dads.
Chessie has rolled off the couch onto the floor and is lying there unconscious.
I guess it is time to go to bed.
December 25
We are in our pajamas. We are ripping the paper off our presents and throwing it everywheres. Chex Party Mix, it is all over the floor.
Pia, she is hooking up her new Fender bass guitar to her new Marshall amplifier which is the size of a chest freezer.
Snooples and Chessie, they are comparing their matching Flexible Flyer sleds and they are waxing the runners and they are chattering incessantly about their new Gravity Mouse record albums.
Charlie, he is trying on his new snow gaiters.
Ben, he is unwrapping a large present marked From a Secret Admirer. It is a wheel of Stilton Cheese.
Me, I have just unwrapped a new .22 rifle. That is pretty good.
Twaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnggggggggg.
Zweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
Pias Marshall amplifier has deafened us all.
