How I Spent the Turn of the Millenium

My holidays were rather topsy turvy this year. I was crazy busy at work the week before Christmas trying to complete our 10K report; I missed most of a friend's wedding reception because I had to work on the weekend, and my mom was here, also, so I didn't get to do much with her, either. I did almost 40 hrs. of work just in the first three days of the week, but I didn't get paid overtime for any of it because of the holiday (we got Thursday and Friday off). It was nice having those days off, but by that time, I had a million last-minute holiday preparations and shopping that I hadn't gotten to do because I was working the week before, so it wasn't very relaxing. And I woke up Christmas Eve with horrible bright pink puffy poison-ivy-like stripes under my eyes, which I spent all day trying to find a doctor to diagnose. (It wasn't pink eye, which was one suggestion, but some kind of allergic reaction requiring hydrocortisone cream, my initial self-diagnosis!) I didn't start actually wrapping presents until 8 pm Xmas Eve, and was up until 2:30 or 3 a.m. At times like that it sucks to be a perfectionist, but they sure looked nice when I was done. I gave my brother lots of clothes, so I had lots of big boxes to wrap. Afterwards he actually said "I don't know what to wear!" Never heard that from him before! Because my dad is in no condition to argue, we completely deviated from our usual Christmas menu, and instead of our long time tradition of repeating Thanksgiving turkey, etc., we had roast beef with red wine, mashed potatoes and a "Southwestern" relish on the side, papaya black bean salsa. We brought my grandmother from the nursing home and got my dad up to join us. Not sure if he knew it was Christmas, although we showed him the tree and all the special old, old ornaments he had as a child.

I didn't get the flu until Boxing Day, when I woke up feeling achy and tired all over, and really had to push myself to drive home. I actually went to work on Monday, but was up coughing all night; not even the narcotic cough syrup knocked me out enough to sleep. Tuesday, I went to the doctor, and he gave me lots more medicine. I had nominated myself to throw a New Year's party for all my friends, so I had a lot to do last week to get ready, like wash glassware, put up lights and clean out/organize the dreaded Back Room. Luckily, I had a lot of help from friends, and my mom managed to get away. She came up for the party and helped out a lot with preparations, so the house looked really nice. I was still getting dressed at 8 p.m., but most people arrived after that, and the whole shindig went very well, after all. I was afraid that since we got a keg, the party would attract buffaloes who would crash around, behaving badly and breaking things. But everyone was very respectful, perhaps because my mom was there, and it was my house, not just some rented dumpy place. One guy brought sparklers and Roman candles, which we fired off at midnight over the park/ creek in front of the house. Kinda risky, being only a block from the fire station, but even though they drove by, no tickets were issued, and no fires started.

Since then, I have been trying to shake off the lingering effects of the flu. Tuesday, I thought I would take a short nap and then get up and watch "Will & Grace." Nope, just slept straight on through. Guess I must have needed it. I get sick so rarely, but when I do, it really hits me hard. It seems that this is the year of the universal flu, though. Just about everyone I know, all over the country, has been sick, so it's not a sign of weakness.

I just got the new Victoria's Secret "Catalogue" and I noted the striking resemblance my friend Caroline bears to übersexmodel Heidi Klum.

Well, this ended up being very long and chatty, since I just kept adding to it for two days whenever I had a minute. I'll go back and read it years later, and it'll be a nice record of how I spent my holidays at the turn of the millenium.