BLEPHAROSPASMODIC

War on Terror, The Board Game

Liberate the war from fear and terrorism, or, conversely, fight to terrorize the world… fun for the whole family.

It’s that time of year - everyone is busy.  The days are shorter and Christmas is right around the corner.  I have, again, procrastinated in my shopping.  I do this every year.

Work is hectic.  Image testing, merging 2 departments, hiring, evaluations… I’m getting stressed trying to stay afloat.  I guess we all are.  I’ve had the hardest time staying awake the last 2 days.  I don’t know why; I don’t feel sick - I think I’m just run down… as is everyone.

Oh well.

My Snow and ice storm dance was a little too effective. We’ve been without power since Thursday night (it’s now Monday). While I’m thankful we have someplace warm to go (moms), it’s a little frustrating knowing you can’t go home. Sunday afternoon, the house was hovering at 48 degrees; not too bad considering that the temp outside has been between 5 and 25 degrees. I just wanna go home. Estimates are several more days before power is restored.

I should stress that I am more than thankful that we do hve someplace to go. there were half a million people without power (it’s down to 300,000 this morning), and many of them do not have anyplace to go. Hotels are booked solid. Of course there are warming shelters set up, but people fear leaving their house due to getting robbed; especially in the metro areas. i don’t blame them. They’re sitting there in the freezing weather waiting to get power on, protecting what’s theirs. The power company still refuses to give any sort of estimate for anyone’s power. Not that unfortunate things don’t happen, but this is the second time in 6 months that half a million people were without power, and much of it is blamed on poor tree management. I hope somebody gets a wake-up call. Why didn’t they learn from this summer’s outage?

From Weather.com:

The national weather service in St Louis has issued a winter storm warning…which is in effect from 6 am Thursday to 9 am cst Friday. The winter storm watch is no longer in effect.

Freezing rain will mix with sleet Thursday evening before changing over to all snow after midnight. The snow will be heavy at times with gusty north winds. Ice accumulations are expected to reach a quarter inch by midnight on Thursday night…with expected total snowfall amounts of 4 to 8 inches by midday on Friday.

Everyone at work is giddy with anticipation of closing down; myself included. My Calendar is booked completely solid starting at 8am on Friday: Major proposal, meet and greets, Faculty training, staff meeting…

With all of the talk, the snow and ice won’t come. We’ve jinxed it. The only time it snows really big is when nobody talks about it and it just sneaks up on everyone…

I wanna a snow day… *whines*

… well both a great time and the closest thing I know to hell at the same time.

The days themselves are great, and being a parent, I am looking forward to this Christmas day. Thanksgiving will be nice - one in Dyersburg with Amanda’s family and one here in St. louis with much of my extended family the day there after. It’s everything in between that drives me to bah-humbug mode.

Who the hell needs to go shopping at 4-5am the day after thanksgiving? I know there are people out there that like that rush, and i don’t blame them; I blame the retail industry. I blame the retail industry for much, if not all of my disdain for the holidays. Here’s my point: If stores didn’t open at 4 am (and I’ve heard that several places are opening at 12:01 the day after Thanksgiving) and if they weren’t open Christmas eve, people would get their shopping done at other times. Why do theyhave to take time away from our families? Every Year, Amanda works longer hours, Christmas eve, the day after thanksgiving, etc etc. How long can we keep this up as a society before people say “enough?” Will it just get worse?

I want to spend time with my family during the holidays. I want to be able to relax. I want to be able to take a nice nap after stuffing myself with turkey instead of jumping in a car and driving 4 hours to get back home so we can go back to work. That’s no holiday. The holidays should be rushed.

I learned a lot living in Austria about the quality of life and how we, as americans, do not value it like we should. There is absolutely NO need for us to go to the lengths that we do every year in an attempt to please people. We spend so much money on gifts; much of which doens’t really mean a lot to the people we give them to. Why can’t we revert to 50 years ago when stores were closed on sundays and the holidays meant more than shopping? Why is it so material?

I’m looking forward to spending Christmas with my family. I hope that I can learn to look past the bad and enjoy the good, no matter how short it may be…

I think that if I had this guy’s name, I’d probably go by “Richard”

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