This is the week they actually start playing fucking Christmas music in the coffee shop. Mince pies I can stand, but not festive "cheer". It just makes me want to buy guns.
They can just kiss goodbye to my custom from here on in. I'm not going back there until I hear they've started playing Bowie again.
Luckily, Norwich is still stuck in its Frasier Crane stage, so there's plenty of other bookshops which sell coffee and brekkies and have big friendly sofas.
Mum has driven up from Suffolk today as it's the annual emptying of the bank account for the yuletide festival of Mammon.
Luckily, she has not brought any of the Mad Bints with her.
As anyone who has been here at the Planet long enough will know (see The Truth About Everything), Christmas Day is an anagram of Mad Scary Shit and that, for me, is what the spirit of Christmas has been reduced to. And trying to shop in Norwich after the third week in November is blind, suicidal insanity. So mother drives up to Norfolk and we get in a pre-emptive strike before the queues reach critical mass.
That's it … I'm staying out of the city now until the January sales are over. We've just emptied Borders and Waterstones (I always buy people books; force the buggers to read instead of sitting in a drooling heap in front of the idiot box). I'm knackered and both our bank managers are crying in the corner. Then we go back for CDs and DVDs and lovely opera for my mad aunt, Nurse Ratched, and crappy, stinky stuff for the elderly, and tat for the kids …
Christmas may be all about "giving", but I'm buggered if I'm paying £4.99 for a roll of wrapping paper, so I hit the Pound Shop for that.
And it's home-made e-cards all round this year to stick it to those profiteering bastards at Hallmark.
Mike and Sharon are throwing me a late birthday party tonight, so at least I can seek refuge from festive tat in Mikey's strange world of monkeys, robots, video games, large nude women and NOTHING TO DO WITH FUCKING CHRISTMAS.
Quick change of subject:
Robyn's photo scavenger hunt subject this week is "plush".
As my house is devoid of "plush", I'll use the same get-out clause as Robyn has and post my cat.
Meet the late, great, Kate. named after Kate Bush, for the bushy tail they both have, as well as the racket they both made, and because "Kate" was the closest thing to "cat" I could think of.Click on the images if you like a larger pussy (sorry, Robyn) …
Kate was about as plush as a cat can get. I really miss her, though not her habit of waking me by leaping off the bedroom window-cill onto my bladder.
I am catless at the mo, though Jerry next door's cats have the run of my house.
I like them; they sleep in my garden and crap in Jerry's.
Which is as it should be …
12 comments:
Kate is lovely, and very plush. I have to run--I'm late for a little rehearsal, but I"ll read the rest later.
She was gorgous. The laziest, cuddliest old bagpuss of a cat.
She died of old age at sixteen and I could never replace her so I'm not trying.
I know the feeling of not being able to replace a cat. They each have a personality--Tiger is so unique. My daughter's friend went out and bought an orange tabby thinking she'd get a Tiger, and she was sorely disappointed.
I don't have to do very much Christmas shopping, really, so I'm spared the mad store front. I shop online for my daughters, I don't exchange gifts with my husband, and my larger family draws names. I drew my nephew's wife, this year, so she gets the altered book. That leaves my mother, and I usually make her something--a scarf or piece of jewelry.
Last year, I made single-serving cheesecakes and left them on the door steps of my friends' houses. I don't know if I'll do that this year or not.
I have made my own Christmas cards every year. This year, I'm drawing a blank, but it will come to me. All I know is I'm drawing from the lyrics of Peace by Michael McDonald. Go take a listen.
I'm listening to Diana Krall, crying me a river at the moment (after your rash offer to sing it next time you have a cold).
I like the idea of drawing names. I'll suggest it to everyone thins Christmas, ready for next year.
And I'll have to try shopping online for peoples' daughters. Sounds like a winner, that one.
Funny-shopping for daughters. I have to watch everything I say, don't I?
I was just listening to Cry Me A River in my car. She can belt
em out, that one.
Housework.......
I hate christams shopping. I just give gift cards and smiles :)
oohh you cat lovers!!
cats can kill me, personally. they are nice to look at though.
Just thinking about Christmas shopping is enough to trigger some type of neurological event; therefore, I will merely say that Kate is very nice and pretend that you didn't talk about that other thing.
"That Other Thing" is now out of the way until next year (when I'm hoping to put Robyn's excellent idea into practice).
I'm now Chr****as-Free and can concentrate on being the curmudgeon who refuses to decorate his house or put up cards and who just does a peremptory family visit for politeness' sake.
I might clean out the attic or get the oil paints out and make a mess that week; whatever I do I'll be trying my best to ingore the whole sorry mess that is the modern commercial "xmas".
And definitely no TV.
no cat pictures from me but if I catch the one that pisses on my wheelie bin there will be trouble, baby pictures cat pictures, I'm off to post a half naked gurl.(no pussy)
Best thing to do with Trivial Pursuit, I reckon - let a cat sleep on it.
I'm with you on the commercialness of Christmas. Obscene. For the last 2 years I've made a donation to my favourite charity instead of buying crap that the recipients don't really want, and invited those people to do the same. Mum took a bit of convincing, but I think she's got the idea now.
Never mind all that.
What do YOU want for Christmas?
You're the only one (other than some other stuff for mum) who's still to be ticked off the old list.
And don't give me any arse about "nothing".
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