Holidays

The Holidays

I'll be leaving for home tomorrow night to spend Christmas with my family. Unfortunately, I just received word tonight that my grandmother is ill. She is expected to pass away in the next couple of days. There always seems to be plenty of drama in my family, but I suppose that is the way it is for all but a very few lucky families. Still, I am looking forward to seeing my parents and spending some time relaxing at home. Happy holidays everyone!

Do You Have A Tree In the House?

My friend's Christmas stop motion spectacular. I like the song also.

Suburban Kids with Biblical Names- Rent a Wreck

Suburban Kids with Biblical Names

I like this band (or is it duo?) Their music has a interesting amateurish edge.

My Ipod Shuffle

A good, very generous, friend of mine recently gave me the new Ipod shuffle as a Christmas present. I'm very excited by it. I remember being in San Francisco a few years ago when Ipod was becoming all the rage. I hadn't even seen one yet where I live in Texas, but I noticed that everyone between the ages of 20 to 40 was listening to them on the BART and in the streets in San Francisco. When I got back, a lady I work with had one, and we all marveled at it like it was a new born baby. I'm anxious to use mine, and I'm so glad I have techie friends!

I've had a yearning to play a good long game of Monopoly. My family really didn't play games very much, and it wasn't until high school that I even learned how to play Monopoly. I think I liked it because all you really had to do was roll the dice. The cards and the board told you how to do almost all the rest. I once played a game of Monoply with a friend of mine who refused to admit defeat. He had lost all of his money, and when I would ask him for his rent money, he would simply say, "No." Then I would say, "Well, I win!" And he would respond, "No you don't..." And then he would roll the dice. I've never decided if I admired or detested his attitude.

Death of a Mouse

Yesterday, my pet mouse Snatch died. I noticed that she was ill Friday afternoon. She had crammed herself tightly into a corner of the cage she shares with her sister Patch, and she was breathing quite heavily. I'd never seen her behave this way before, and it was clear to me that she was sick. It was clear to Patch also. She would run nervously around the cage as if looking for something and then return and lick her sister's face and ears. Sometime during the night, Patch dragged the bits of paper towels (which I had previously placed in their cage to allow them to make a nest) out of their little wooden house and made a snug little nest around her dying sister. When I left for my Saturday morning class, Patch was snuggled up against her dying sister and was still there when I returned in the afternoon to find that Snatch had died. I love animals, but I'm not particularly sentimental about them. I grew up on a farm and learned early that pets will sooner or later die. What I wasn't prepared for was the obvious concern and care one mouse could feel for another. It was very touching and left me wondering what goes on in the mind of an animal. What is death to a mouse? Is it the mystery to mice that it is to man? Do they know something we don't? And if they do know something, is it something we too can learn?