creamy caramel filling

12-11-99

that's what this is--just filling. no time for an entry tonight, I'm in the middle of a novel that I don't like much, and I just want to finish it and go to bed.

John and I had a great day; finished up most of our x-mas shopping, including the stuff for Fleck and Julia. Fleck's already wiggled out of his holly-printed jingly collar and left it for dead. He also beat the shit out of a little fake mouse. We give them their presents early; don't want the cats to be wearing jingle bell collars after Christmas is over, do we? Beside, we don't want to wait for their real present: a sifting litter pan. Merry Christmas, kitties!

We also brought home a tree. Put the top down on the convertible and tied the tree to the seats, much to the amusement of onlookers at the tree seller's display. We picked up our ornament of the year. J and I have a tradition of buying one ornament a year, going back to when we had no money. We have a dozen and a half gold balls (one less ball every year--funny,) a string of white lights, and a few ornaments. This is our fifth Christmas together, but the first two were spent apart, so we have just a few ornaments for our tree. Year One we bought a felt teddy bear ornament at Target, the equivalent of WalMart. Last year we got a little pooh bear with piglet, and John acquired a pipe cleaner candy cane from a friend at work. John's parents gave us a gorgeous ceramic Santa playing a tuba, but he's too heavy to hang on the tree. Today we got a classy little glass ball with a tree standing on it. Those things with a half dozen sugar free candy canes make our tree very sweet.

So sweet it gave me a rash. In Michigan we have Douglas firs, and maybe some others, but I just don't remember. Those are nowhere to be found down here. Mostly straggly Georgia pines and what we got: an arbor vita. It's so prickly, I can't tell if I'm rashy or just stabbed to death by a zillion little thorns.

So I had a great day decorating the house, wrapping presents, and making caramels.