I woke up this morning with that old familiar feeling, an itchy throat and plugged up ears. Yup, time for another cold! I’m currently working to fight it off before it takes hold and makes me miserable. I really really really don’t have time to be sick right now!

It’s finally feeling a lot like winter, though technically I don’t think it starts for another 20 days. It’s so damn cold out already though! Let it snow let it snow let it snow! I am hoping for a white Christmas, but I won’t hold my breath. It so rarely happens, but it would be nice.

Speaking of Christmas, I got some requests for the DVDs my mom bought. Here are the links to them on Amazon.com. The one with the Rankin-Bass specials you can actually find at Best Buy and other stores. However the one on Amazon.com comes with a bonus DVD the ones in the store I’ve seen don’t have. It’s a special called “The Cricket on the Hearth” and it’s based on a classic Dickens tale. I believe it’s where Disney stole Jiminy Cricket from actually. I have never seen it, hope to watch it tonight or this weekend.

The other DVD contains classic TV show christmas specials, some old made for TV movies, and a bunch of short 10-15 minute cartoons. It’s the short cartoons that that will probably be of interest to many, as some look to date back to the 50s. The made for TV version of “Miracle on 34th Street” is HILARIOUS though. It’s not the campy 70s TV movie, but one from some kind of “Fox Variety Hour” back in the 50s. It stars McDonald Carey (Tom Horton from Days!) as Fred and a bunch of other people, none of whom I know. However it’s worth seeing for when Santa “bonks” Sawyer on the head. It’s a completely different take, Santa gets mean and really beats the crap out of him!

My mom’s surgery went fine. She’s home and has a follow-up next week. She has a pin in her toe that has to be checked, to make sure the toe doesn’t turn color, get infected, etc . . . Ewwww! I hope I never have to have a pin in part of my body that protrudes outside of it.

The dogs of course are living Virginia and the big backyard to runabout in as usual. I had planned to give the stinkers a bath, because they literally stink. However Princess has gotten into so much crud that her hair is all knotted in places. I’ve been fighting with her all day to comb them out. She’s not happy with me right now! Nikko never seems to get this knotted, but he for some reason hates being brushed and always runs to hide. Brat!

My mom bought me all these classic Christmas special DVD collections to watch through the holidays, so I’m in the midst of watching some of them now. I think I’ll get back to that. Some of these are so rare I think they probably only aired once and never again!

So I’m back home in Virginia. My mom is having surgery on her foot tomorrow, nothing serious, hopefully. I do get to rise before the sun does, my favorite thing in the world! I have enough trouble rising at a decent hour, getting up earlier is going to be mucho funo!

I told the BF I wanted to name the kitten Pilgrim, he agreed it was cute and fit, so I think that is his name. It was hard to leave the little @%#$!$!. I should have brought him with me, the BF will forget to give him medicine and already I had to tell him he’s supposed to feed it multiple times a day, it’s a growing kitten. He didn’t know . . . . he’s only had how many other cats?

Other than that, not too much excitement going on. I plan to hopefully get a butt-load of work caught up by this weekend. I’m also meeting Keith on Saturday for shopping, lunch and maybe a movie.

When I wasn’t looking for it, there it was! My underwater camera I blogged about a week or two ago from an old cruise that I misplaced. Well I found it. I had put it in a storage bin and slid it under the guest bed. I knew I hadn’t lost it for good, I just put it somewhere I never would have thought to go look for it.

-Dustin

Here are some photos of the kitten! I took him to the vet today. Negative for all the bad kitty disease tests, was de-wormed, given his first set of shots. His paw paws had poo stuck to them and where infected 🙁 They had to scrape it off and he has some open wounds, so he’s on antibiotic right now.

I’m not sure what his name will be. Of course the BF’s already picked out Tristan or Mordred after King Arthur. Um, no and no. He needs a name that reflects him, not some silly tradition of naming cats after knights. Not that the other cats even know their names, he’s not around enough to call them by name, so they don’t know them as far as I can tell. Percy might, since I call him by his name all the time, but they don’t come running when I call them that’s for sure.

I am currently thinking of calling him Grim, short for Pilgrim. He showed up around thanksgiving and is a survivor, so I think it fits. The BF can pretend his name is whatever, but it’s not. I’m the one who will be calling him, I’ll teach him his real name. Plus since I take him to the vet, I’ll name him there too. Hahah!

So seeing as I have become the keeper of the cats in the house, I had forbid the BF from getting anymore. After all I’m now the one who feeds them, changes their pans, takes them to the vet. It’s the changing and cleaning the pans that gets me the most. Some of these cats are big cats, and big cats make big poops! Anyway, he’s become a bad cat daddy, so no more for him. So it was of course bound to happen. Last week the cutest little kitten just appeared at the farm. It looks to be about 8 weeks old. It’s only the one kitten, nobody knows where it came from or how it would up here. So people at the farm had been leaving food out for it, it wouldn’t come near humans. Slowly it warmed up to people and is now the friendliest little thing. Unfortunately it’s getting cold out, and I’m just afraid one day it will try and follow the scent of the BF across the street and get smooshed (yes this has happened before with grown cats dropped off at the farm by people who can’t or won’t take care of them). So reluctantly, it looks like we are getting another cat, unless someone at the farm wants to adopt him and quick. I’m calling the vet in the morning to have them look at him, as I don’t want him in the house with the other pets until I know there are now worms or fleas infesting him.

PS Yes I’ll take and post some photos tomorrow 🙂 As of yet he doesn’t even have a name, so I don’t know what to call him. The BF has a habit of naming all his cats after knights of the round table. I’m a bit over that, and since I have to take care of this thing, I’m naming him.

I set the village up, but it needs more. I need to put lights under the snow, and I need better cotton for the snow. For the time being I used a leftover bag of spiderweb cotton from Halloween. It isn’t terrible, but I didn’t have the patience to fiddle with it and make it perfect tonight.

I also need something else on the mantle. My original plan was to hang a holly garland, but the BF has a drape thingy we’ve used in the past and that will do. So tomorrow I may brave TarJay to get some twinkle lights and better snow.

I wanted to get more to add from Macy’s, but as is the mantle is pretty full! Plus the people who remade the village last year have no products to display on their website this year 🙁 I wonder if it didn’t fare well and they nixed it? Christopher Radko had bought the rights to the patent or what not and released it last year as SparkleTown.

Today is the day, Black Friday! I did not wake up early enough for the door buster sales. Frankly I’d rather not wake up before the sun does if I can help it. Some of these stores were opening at 4am, that is just ridiculous! You have to be giving stuff away to get me shopping that early. Plus the door buster sales are the same each year. Since I do not need a new HD flat screen TV, surround sound system or a new PC; there is nothing that appeals to me. Oh I also don’t need 10 year old movies on DVD for 3 dollars either. I might venture out tomorrow just to see what is left, I don’t know. I looked at Amazon.com frequently but wasn’t impressed with anything they were offering.

I finally took down the Halloween village this week. The mantle is bare, so I’m pulling out the Christmas village to put up there this year. Last year the nativity went there, but the ever expanding village of Bethlehem (the nativity is one of those get a new piece each month by mail deals) is too big to go there this year. I also plan to hit Macy’s at some point to see what new pieces I can add to this village. Last year they had new versions of this village I got from my grandma, the old cardboard houses flocked with snow and glitter that you stick a light in the back of to light up. They are old and ratty, because they weren’t well packaged; so I’d like to get some new pieces to add in.

Yesterday for Thanksgiving I did go with the BF and his brother to the house of the employee that invited us all over. They were nice enough, but it was exactly what I had feared, dinner with a gigantic family, some of the families friends, none of whom I knew. I won’t ever do that again, especially on a holiday! I just don’t like sitting around and having people who don’t know my try and make small talk with me. It makes me uncomfortable.

So tonight I ran out to the store and bought Cresents, mash potatoes and stuffing. I have turkey fillets, I figured I’d get a few more things for a classic dinner. This way I can cook a quick dinner up for myself if I need/want to. I bought a small Boston Creme for desert since it is what my mom usually gets for me. I don’t do pumpkin pie, we actually never did it in my house so I just don’t need it. Tried it once I think, I’ll pass!

More importantly, I bought movies! I picked up “Hairspray” tonight. I never got to see this in the theaters, so I was glad to get it. I love the original John Waters movie, love love love it. I own it, but it if comes on TV, I’ll still watch it. I saw the Broadway show years ago with the original cast, loved it. The movie? Loved it! It was so good. I just finished it and actually want to watch it again. The show took some liberties with the movie, and the new musical movie takes liberties with the Broadway show. A few numbers from the Broadway show were cut out, a few new numbers added in, the story was changed a bit as a result. Still a very excellent movie. I wasn’t too keen on John Travolta’s performance as Edna until the end number. Everyone else I really enjoyed overall.

I also picked up “Miracle on 34th Street” on DVD. I have it on VHS, but no VCRs really hooked up anymore. The DVD has the black and white and later faux colorized version. I figured what the hell! I’ll watch it after the parade on Thursday probably.

So I opted not to go home for Thanksgiving this year, I’m going home the week after though. Thanksgiving is one of those “ehh” holidays for me. I am not a huge fan of turkey, never have been. I would rather and always rathered just eat the stuffing. Don’t get me started on the pies either, pumpkin pie is not getting anywhere NEAR my mouth. As I kid I enjoyed the holiday 1) because it meant no school and 2) because of the parade. However nowadays the Macy’s Parade is just boring. When I was a kid there was still Saturday Morning Cartoons, so every year there would be floats based on some of those cartoons. That, and Santa, is what we watched for. Sure some of the classic floats are still in the parade, but it’s more about watching the stars of some current TV show try and sing a song, or some star from yesteryear who needs work sing a song. I will be watching the parade this year only because they are showing a medley from Xanadu during it.

The BF asked me tonight when I was going home for Thanksgiving. I said I wasn’t this year, I was going home the week after. He expected I was going home, not that it matters. Well I guess it does. His mother, who usually cooks the family dinner, is going to Texas this year to see her daughter and family down there. I think she went last year too. Anyway, his sister and her family are going to a step-son’s house, leaving him and his brother (who is down here helping out for Thanksgiving) shit out of luck. Not that I would think it matters, they are so overworked over this holiday that they see Thanksgiving after the farm closes as a reason to go to bed early. However a coworker invited them over to their house for dinner, but apparently didn’t know I was going to be here. Not that the invitation wouldn’t be extended to me, but it has occurred to me I would rather not be invited! I don’t want to appear rude and turn the invitation down, I’d just simply rather stay home and do work or watch whatever specials are on TV. Like I said, not a fan of turkey and definitely not a fan of having to go to other peoples’ homes for dinner, especially on a holiday.

In honor of Thanksgiving, I present “Turkey Lurkey Time” from the musical “Promises Promises.” I’ve had this crap stuck in my head for days, so I figured you should too. The following is from the 69 Tonys, so the sound isn’t that great. The sound isn’t the point, the dancing is. These poor girls must have had the worst headaches every night after doing this number!

And if you want the words, here is a better version, though not the original. This is the cover from the movie “Camp,” which is how I was introduced to this infectious song. The dancing isn’t so good, but you can hear the music better. The color is a tad on the red side though. Be sure to look out for the little blonde kid and his reactions to the dancing!