In my last post, I made a promise to myself – that I’d find myself a good, solid, abdominal-muscle-exhausting belly-laugh before Christmas was over.

I am proud to report that I got one…courtesy of my cat.

So, in case Santa didn’t bring you a big bucket o’happy this holiday, I’ll share mine.  Laughter isn’t like cookies – if you share, there’s MORE, not fewer that you fight over.

Side note: I would totally cut a bish for a good gluten-free cookie.  AND I MAY AS WELL ASK FOR A UNICORN TOO I GUESS SINCE THIS SHIZ DOESN’T EXIST.

Thankfully, THIS does – AND it’s gluten-free:

I did share.  A little.  *hic*  After about a third of it, I had lost my ability to tie the cherry stems into knots with my tongue.  Which I can TOTALLY do, sober.  (So can my daughter, because I taught her, because I’m Mother of the Year here.  Besides, HOW WILL THE CHILDREN LEARN if we don’t teach them?!)  Obviously, I didn’t care at that point…because delicious.  MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ME YO.

Okay.  Before I get to my cat, here’s a car I parked behind the other day:

Do you see it?  On the dashboard?

That is one sexy pny.

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So yesterday, I was getting in the car to go to work.  This is usually a bit of an ordeal, because I’m juggling a couple of things:

• Laptop bag
• Gigundic purse with all the day’s essentials (most of which I haven’t used since I put them in there when I bought said purse….)
• Lunch (pistachios, an apple, and a cheese stick, because I have to at least PRETEND to diet at work, even if my heart hasn’t been in it lately)
• Bag with work shoes in it (I wear my snow boots to work, because we have a big, dark, parking lot with large ice patches and several surveillance cameras.  I don’t want to fall.  I especially don’t want to fall on video.  So the fun shoes go in a bag until I’m safely at my desk.)
• My morning smoothie
• a 32oz cup of coffee

Today, I also have three gift bags for my team.  (They got chocolate and alcohol, because I am an awesome boss.  Don’t you wish you worked for me?)  Suffice it to say my hands are full.

I perform my circus act of getting myself to my car, hauling all my stuff down the steps, out the front door, and into the garage. Once I wedge myself through the car door, I start to arrange all my crap so that I don’t break the wine (a tragedy!) or spill my coffee (at which point I’d have to turn around and go back to bed.)

And suddenly….I hear….something.

whirr

whirr whirrrrrr

whirrwhirrwhirrrrrrrr THUD THUD THUD THUD

Whu??

Out of the corner of my eye, some motion catches my attention.  I’m alone in my garage…

and…

SOMETHING IS MOVING.

It’s…my passenger-side mirror.

IT’S TOTALLY FLIPPING OUT YO.

It’s flopping and turning like a freaking salmon trying to leap to its homeland to spawn.

WHAT THE ACTUAL EFF.

After several long minutes of vacillating between complete bewilderment and terror that AAAAAAHHHHHHH MY CAR IS HAUNTED…I figure it out.  Apparently, when you try to carry the equivalent of the contents of your hall closet out to the car, you should be careful NOT to set the ENTIRE load RIGHT ON TOP of the little doohickey in the center console that adjusts the power mirrors.

<snort>

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Oh yeah, the cat.  I’ve written about my cats before.  Like all good cat people, I find them fascinating and endlessly entertaining.

But I wasn’t prepared for Oliver’s…beauty pose.  Which completely killed me dead:

Sing it with me:

I’M

TOO SEXY FOR THIS RUG

TOO SEXYYYY YEAAAAHHHHHH

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To close the holiday out, allow me to share a Christmas Miracle:

On Wednesday, I was almost DONE with Christmas.  I had ONE more present to wrap – a donation in my in-laws’ name to Heifer.org.  You might have heard of this organization – you make a donation and they use it to buy sheep and chickens and bees and stuff for folks in third-world countries.  It’s a really cool idea, especially if you have relatives who “don’t want anything.”  Because my mother-in-law is a wonderful woman with a generous spirit (unlike me, who asked for Etsy gift cards so I can buy handmade jewelry) this organization is where we get all her Christmas gifts – this year, she and her spouse are getting two goats.

Being the Christmas stickler that I am, though, I really feel like she should have something to unwrap.  So I printed out a certificate:

And, to commemorate the event, we ordered a Christmas goat for them to hang on their tree:

Yes, a legit goat Christmas ornament.  Don’t ever say I don’t make things memorable. I mean, you don’t just HAVE something like this – there HAS to be a story behind such a thing.  Right?

So I’m wrapping this – the LAST present, and then Christmas is DONE! and I can have WINE!

And I ran out of paper. @#$(*#@($@*!!!!

I had ALMOST enough, but, dernit, the paper, much like last season’s skinny jeans, was just not gonna close around the box.  I did the best I could, defying generally accepted rules of geometry and physics, but try as I might, I had a small space on the top and bottom, about 1″ square, of cardboard-colored Christmas failure peeking through the hole and mocking me.

But then I found a sheet of old address labels (why were these in with the wrapping paper, anyway?) – oddly, from Heifer.org.  (You know how that works – once you make a donation somewhere, they thank you by sending address labels.  I have about ninety six gazillion of these, and it’s not because I’m especially philanthropic.  I have so many that one year I actually used them instead of cellophane to tape presents shut.  Because I’m all resourceful and shiz like that.  Especially when it’s totally tacky.)

But this sheet of address labels HAD CHRISTMAS STICKERS ON THEM.

And they fit PERFECTLY on the Square of Shame on my meager offering.

CHRISTMAS IS SAVED!  HALLELUJAH!

May you all have a delightful holiday, filled with sparkles, sprinkles, and new shoes.  Thank you for being part of my joy this year!