Whooo, baby, it's cold outside!

Or, "Watching lame Californians try to figure out how to cope with cold weather;" or

"My children are going to freeze to death on the way to school because they can not read English," or

"Global warming my sweet patootie!!," or

any one of any number of other nice subtitles I could think up!

Yes ladies and gents, it's friggin' cold out there. It is 11:31 am, and it has reached a lovely high of 35 degrees thus far.

I have tried very, very hard to warn my children of the risks of things like going to school with wet hair when it is 20 out. I have typed in clear, large-font English that the boys need to wear BOTH layers of their two-layer winter coats. None of this appears to affect their behavior at all. I'm deeply puzzled by this. Am I missing something, or is it called "teenage boys," and therefore unavoidable?

Anna seems to be doing better, thank goodness, since she has the least body mass to help keep her warm. Lloyd reports that she almost forgot her gloves this morning, but was otherwise well prepared.

Some of our neighbors-- not so much. Apparently, some of the dorks at the mouth of the court (because all of us here at the end of the court are wonderful, aren't we?!) thought it would be a great idea to hose off their icy cars this morning. While their windows didn't all crack, lucky them, all the water they used to wash them off ran into the street, where it instantly froze, making a curb-to-curb ice slick. Brilliant!!

If our little part of the valley would hurry the hell up and get some precipitation, we'd have snow. But nooooo, the one cold snap of the decade or two where it's cold enough, and we don't have any moisture. So sad. Everyone else has snow. Snow would perhaps even convince me to leave the house. We're *that* close to a white Christmas! I've told Lloyd we should get up at about 4 am when everything is covered in heavy frost, turn on all the outside and window Christmas lights, and take pictures.

Ah well...right now, I'm nestled all snug in my bed, not because I really am that lazy, but because for the last 24+ hours, my body seems to have this annoying habit of barfing every so often. I'll be find for a long time, and then out of no where...... GAK! Hrm. I don't know what's up with this, but it's sure making it rough to get any food at all in me. So, even though I woke up at nearly 10 (ah, such a rough life, I know), I'm still nursing my first morning Dr. Pepper, fighting the random waves of nausea, making sure I'm really, really ready to leave the security of having the bathroom so close by before I head downstairs to face the day.

We finally got our Christmas tree on Saturday, after a week of false starts. Costco was offering 7-8 foot Noble firs for the unheard-of price of $41.99, and they were supposed to be in on the first. Then the second. Then maybe 5pm on the second...and so on. So, finally, we went to get ours on the fifth, to find out that A) it's a damn good thing we did, 'cause there weren't enough trees to last the weekend, and B) bringing the whole family for a tree-picking adventure was pretty pointless, because Costco's trade-off for the dirt cheap price on the tree is that you pretty much have zero choice in what your tree will look like. They've got one or two of them unbound for display, but the rest of the trees are wrapped up tight in twine, and about the only choice you get is, uh, this one or that one. It's all a big surprise when you get the tree home!

We did luck out-- it's a beautiful tree, about seven and a half feet, perfectly shaped. I guess I just have to trust the Costco elves to know their stuff. It's all installed in the stand, waiting patiently downstairs for me to start the oh-so-crucial first steps of putting the lights on. After I do the hard part, I can turn over most of the decorating to Head Elf Anna. Then again, we still have to finish decorating the rest of the house too...and cards to address...and gifts to buy...and wrap...and...and...and.........

I guess I should get out of bed now, huh? I still feel rather gak-y but the tree ain't gonna light itself. It's up to 37 outside, which is supposed to be close to the high for the day, so this is about as good as it's gonna get.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!