fa rah rah rah rah

over 14 rivers, through lots of woods, watching emmet otter's jugband christmas, veggie tales, half of shrek and one stop at mcdonald's to grandmother's house we went. after arriving we soon discovered we had forgotten dog food, among other things, and it was off to the store. just what we wanted to do on christmas eve afternoon. i didn't think wal-mart could get any worse than a regular day. i thought wrong. then, just when my last nerve was about to give up my husband decides he needs a new pair of shoes. right now. it's 3 p.m. on christmas eve afternoon, it's pouring rain with drops as big as tennis balls, freezing, windy and did i mention it was 3 p.m. on christmas eve afternoon? i suddenly realize that after being gone for an hour, with the unexpected shoe shopping, we took our car with all of the diapers, food and bottles. rushing back to my parent's house we get the call. i am assuming it is my mother frantic to tell me the kids need their diapers or the specific brand of cracker we buy because hers just doesn't taste right. although what i heard on the other end of the phone was certainly unexpected it was not shocking considering this happens at their house about every 3 1/2 days. the power is out. sure enough, we turn the corner and there was the fire engine. a christmas miracle, alright. firemen at our house for christmas. this was the best present. ever. so, we spent the afternoon waiting for power guy to show up and decorated cookies for santa under the rapidly deteriorating daylight. grumbling because the griswold's across the street were still able to pull their fair share off of the grid. and then it came to me. we were going to get to go out for chinese just like ralphy! i, of course, have always wanted to do this just to say we did but now we had no other option. nope. my dad wouldn't even entertain the thought. wouldn't even go and try it. so, we dined on ham sandwiches. i would have preferred my mom's homemade potato soup, freshly baked cheese rolls and shrimp cocktail as our yearly tradition predicts but it just wasn't going to happen this year. so after hooking up the generator and running 97 extension cords into the house we at least had some light. about an hour later, power guy shows up and we have power. for about 8 minutes. long enough for us to have shut the generator off and put away all of the extension cords. we had to run out to catch power guy before he left to try, try again. so, off to hook up the generator and run the extension cords. for the second time. power was back on shortly after but this time we left the extension cords where they lay. my mom bought that generator last june. she has used it 4 times already. power guy said it is from squirrels getting in the transformer. since there are 1,298,576 squirrels (one less after last night) in their neighborhood i believe this to be a good investment. ho, ho, ho, hooooooooooooo. you'll shoot you're eye out, kid.