Back from the Zombieland that was the month of December

Someday I'll have a job like my husband's, where they strongly urge you to take the week between Christmas and New Years off since no one else is working anyway there is no reason for you to be there. In the meantime, I'm still in the world of health care where the only day I had off was Christmas itself (because that would mean paying double time), a day spent in a stupor watching my boys assemble some freaking huge Lego sets. Like a cargo ship and a pier with a crane to load 'er up.

So I'm still in the recovery phase. On the bright side, the health care holiday work load is still nothing compared to retail holiday work load.

I'm not even remotely going to try to catch up on two months' worth of news and books and such. I even abandoned my Heinlein marathon. Two words: Glory Road. Three more words: Pissed me off. It's one thing for a guy to threaten a woman with a spanking if she doesn't stop try to tell him very important information. It's quite another thing for this woman, the ruler of 20 galaxies or some such, to actually shut up and go all meek and "of course you're right". The fact that she had to have her ovaries harvested to stop her monthly cycle before she could become ruler, because clearly she would go nuts 3 days out of the month and be totally unprofressional, you know like all women do, am I right guys? That really pissed me off. But the part where one Heinlein woman tells another that a man who wants to sleep with you is paying you the most sincere compliment a man can pay a woman? That was just funny. So I took a break and read His Dark Materials instead, just so I could stop putting my hands over my ears and humming real loud to avoid spoilers, virtually impossible when there's a theatrical release involved. (I would highly recommend those books, except I'm pretty sure I'm the last person to read them, so that would be redundant).

We did finally figure out how many frogs we had in our tank when Spike shattered it on the floor 2 a.m. Christmas morning. The instructions that came with the tadpoles (you know, the ones that assured us we'd be lucky to see one make it all the way to adulthood) recommended not putting them in a tank with a filter, so they'd been living in a slimy green and orange cloud for weeks. People who came over were invited to nudge the rock they hid under and guess how many little critters were stirring up the murk.

As it turns out, we have six, five little ones and one big fella. (And we went to Petsmart and dropped a chunk of Christmas bonus on a tank with a filter and a pagoda, because clearly nothing is going to kill these frogs, not even a cat who took hours to come out of the laundry room ceiling, he was so freaked out by what he had done). I named the big guy Mr. Eko. Not Mr. Echo from the Young Ones bit, but Mr. Eko:

'Cause all I did in December was work and watch TV (that's pretty much my definition of zombie), namely Lost Season 3, which I got for my birthday.

Today was officially back to school day, but the elder fell mysteriously ill. Quin says it was because I laughed and showed them all this blog entry, but that couldn't possibly be it, could it? So he spent all day in bed and I just schooled the one. (Quin called it our soft opening, because after we were done with Lost we watched Ocean's 13). It was actually kind of nice; Oliver is transitioning from first grade to math to second grade and we decided to celebrate by having him start formally learning spelling. Which might not sound like a celebration to you, but then you don't desperately want to write but are self-conscious about your lack of spelling skills, do you?

Dinner beckons. But I promise to get back to an every-couple-days kind of schedule. And who knows? Maybe I'll even write some fiction...