Stupid story. Tell me about the woman.

(Link via Obscure Store.)

Happy New Year to all y'all,
and comfort to those who grieve.

Possum's Thursday Three this week concerns Christmas gifts:

1) What was the best gift you got (or gave) this year?

Michael was mighty pleased with his donation to Mike the Tiger's habitat, and our young gentleman in Iraq was pleased with the phone cards.

I'll count the painting as a Christmas gift. It always cheers me to look at it.

2) What was the worst gift you got (or gave) this year?

The packs of superglue in the boys' stockings aren't bad of themselves, but they don't exactly sing "Hark, the Herald", either. I bet a tube will be used within a month.

Then there are Lucy's hated wiffle balls.

3) What gift are you going to have to go back and get for yourself because someone forgot to read your list to Santa?

Not exactly a gift, and not exactly going back. Lyman ordered a pair of moccasins for me from a company in Taos. He received an e-mail that they closed during the holidays, and won't reopen until Monday.

I am most disconcerted this year because I have discovered that my feet are too bony to go barefoot anymore. No more wearing just slipper socks around the house in the winter. I'm old!

"The Deerslayer", as Jason calls it now, is back. About a day and a half turnaround. Small town living can be pretty remarkable.

Original cost of car: $11,000. Cost of repairs: $2200.
Cost of having children at home for the full week of Christmas: Endless.

But they weren't vacationing in Thailand. Costs aside, they're likeable people.

Maybe Craig can help me here. Anyone is welcome to take a shot.

1-1/2 inch wiffle balls with rattling beads inside and a leather thong tied through each end were among the toys in Lucy's can of tricks. She hates them. She attacks them violently with her beak and throws them off the cage, in a not playful way.

She doesn't like other balls either - little balls, big balls, hard balls, soft balls. No balls for Lucy. Is there an explanation?

Rotten Lucy.

She was standing on her playtree today saying "Bye, Bye, Bye Bye" in every singsong intonation we've ever used, laughing after each phrase.

She has still never said it to anyone leaving the house.

Two stories in the Natchez Democrat today about the big blaze yesterday evening that burned a part of the historic black Natchez College. Lyman saw the column of smoke as he was returning from the grocery store on our side of the river.

UPDATE: The cause of the fire was electrical, the Democrat reports.

Do things ever change?

I am a listmaker and notetaker. I always keep a pen and pad handy for shopping needs and answering phones. So when Lyman was to set out for the store yesterday for three items - we follow "the rule of three", which is if there are more than two items to buy, write them down - and I found my pen and pad missing, I asked "Who has my pen and pad?"

"Jason does," Michael said.

"Jason, give those back right now," I said. "I put pens and pads in your stocking. Where are they?"

"I didn't want to mess them up before I got home," he said.

I said "Merry Christmas" and checked in on the skateboard. It's, like, way cool. Every part is right.

When it came into this house, I was telling the grandmother, Michael and I stood over it a long time and looked at it. I'm 47 and Michael is 37, and we be way too old to take that stuff up now. But there was longing.

We don't do much in the way of babies. I can't say I've had much to do with the buggers since my nieces and nephews were born.

We had a beautiful little six-month-old visitor yesterday - a blue-eyed girl in a red velvet dress. Her parents are tall, rather willowy people. She's built like an ABC block, including a square face with fat little cheeks built for gobbling.

She likes noses and hair.

Mr. Terry, you have possum specials here and here.

Who can blame him, but who will replace him?

Now, about that deer.

After dining on chicken-fried venison steak and brown gravy, Michael started back down to Baton Rouge on Friday night to pick up equipment for a DJ gig at the sports bar in Natchez on Saturday night.

He had rounded a curve in Woodville, MS, driving at 45 miles an hour in a Chevy Cavalier when a buck bounded into the road. He hit the buck and knocked it into the oncoming lane. A couple driving north in a large pickup hit it again. Both Michael and the other driver pulled over.

The poor thing was still not dead, so the driver of the truck put it down with a .22 pistol shot to the head. Police were called. A report was filed.

The driver of the pickup called his dad up here in Ferriday to tell him why he was delayed. His dad told him to load the deer up and bring it on home. So they did.

Big Daddy said, "Shoot. The boy can kill 'em but he don't bring 'em in."

The car is not terribly damaged, and is mechanically fine. It will go in for repair Monday. The boys will take mine back to Baton Rouge, preferably while it's still light.

It could have been much worse. The police told Michael that a woman was driving at about 70 on another part of the road. A deer came through the windshield still alive.

Michael said his was a good-looking deer with a trophy rack. "If I'd shot it, I would have mounted it," he adds.

UPDATE: Mac Thomason points to a pertinent article here.

I think, sometimes, that children can be reared too well. Friday we received a thank-you card from Iraq for the phone cards we sent.

Here's your Christmas card.

We'll deal with the deer hit down the road later.

Last night's party was fun. There were friends and family and a large lot of young men who were Seth and Edward's friends.

It's a shame Lucy couldn't go. Too many people, too cold. But she would have been in Lucy heaven. She's a fool for Seth and young men his age.

There's the skateboard! Kewl.

It's 29 degrees outside. At this time yesterday it was 68. Where are my longjohns?

I have added this site to my blogroll at the bottom, because if you scroll down a bit you find a conversion device for Fahrenheit to Celsius temperatures.

Kitchen Hand is moving into summer down in Australia as we are moving into winter, and I want to know.

UPDATE: This one is better. I can read his recipes with it, too!

By way of Ann Althouse, I came across this gallery of children frightened of Santa Claus.

I seem to remember I cried when I met Santa Claus the first time.

Girl's hairdresser has a three-year-old girl. She told her mother that she didn't want scary old Ho Ho to come to her house. "Mommy," she said, "you can go to the store and bring something for me." Convenient, hunh?

Must say, I'm not sure I'd like this fellow in my house, either.