Could there be Xanax?

So holiday time is upon us again. Last year (a mere 5 or 6 posts ago, how sad), a peeing cat rescued me from Christmas. This year, I go forward, into the family hearth as it were.

My brother, his wife and 3 little ones are staying in Austin to do the family Christmas rather than engaging in the madness of cramming 13 people clown-car style into a house built for 5. This is a house, I should note, w/ seriously fucked up plumbing. You have to use a bucket to flush the toilet 4 out of 5 times, running the washing machine causes sewage to back up into the bathtub and the cold water taps ricochet from "off" back to "on" requiring attention, concentration, multiple twists back to the off position and serious under-the-breath cursing so as not to scare the children or have them piously imply that you have that certain je ne sais quoi that suggests a sinner racing headlong into the fiery pits of hell.

Luckily, you are staying in "The Freezing Back Bedroom of Death" again, where any extra warmth (save your sister's body sleeping next to you) is welcome. Hellfire can be appealing, little ones. Yes, sometimes it can.

Ah well, at least there will be Christmas morning. Mother's cat will run about the house in a panic, chased by a turd that magically grew around the end of a piece of tinsel that now flies out taut behind him, only half-excreted from his sweet fuzzly-wuzzly little bunghole.

God bless the fuzzly-wuzzly ones. I am, and ever shall be, thankful for the joy and laughter they bring.