At The Risk of Alienating The Holiday Happy

Taking this risk, I'm going to tell you what my last few days have been like. Happy Holidays, by the way.

Okay, if you've been around for the last two posts, you already know the wrangling I've been through with the cattle at Target. Suffice it to say that, in the end, I feel I just had a bit too much personality still, even when I toned it down as best I could. I don't do sheep well, and cattle even less so. But I gave it my best shot, even moreso. And they have a right to want "normies." So anyone who sent me notes about boycotting Target, don't bother. I know I won't, especially since I still need three of everything in the store. But I just might go without for the rest of the year, just on principle. I doubt they will suffer.

Yesterday, after getting my swing swinging again, I witnessed my puppy Gus have two, count them, two Grand Mal seizures again. After having his first a month ago. This time I knew what they were so I knew what to do (basically nothing but get everything out of the way) but it certainly didn't make it any easier to witness - or to clean up! Really, mondo frightening. So we go to the vet and they take blood and examine him and, thank god almighty, clip his toenails and they send me home with Valium for my dog. Which is Valium for big people too, but I made my phone calls and we all agreed that I don't really think Valium would make anything any better for me or anyone else around me. Not.

So now my dog is on Valium until Saturday, when they start him on Phenobarbitol for seizure disorder. So far, the effect of the Valium has been interesting. He has licked an entire wall of my bedroom and tried to head-butt the closet door open in my office. His legs don't work so good, so he's needed to kind of army crawl up my front steps after "walking" around the block. The first hour after he takes the pills, not unlike his mom, he is wound tight and needs to patrol and re-patrol the inner perimeter of the house until he falls down from exhaustion. He then sleeps like the dead for about an hour, and begins the patrolling all over again. He is 70 pounds and is now "sitting" on my lap while I'm trying to write at my desk. I'm sure he wishes I wouldn't have lost all that weight, as my lap is not as big as it used to be.

This perimeter patrol pretty much kept me up all night, as my bed appears to be one of the regular checkpoints, which is not good for me as I am an addictive sleeper. So I was really tired when I got up and answered the door for the Fed Ex man, who handed me an envelope from Bank of America. These are the people who hold my mortgage and who helped me work out my Making Home Affordable new mortgage that I signed last Tuesday. I say, "Golly, thanks pal, and have a great holiday." Thinking that they are returning their signed part of my home documents. Bbzztt, wrong!

They have returned my papers, saying that they did not receive them until a couple of hours after they were due and that they were reneging on the deal. Did I want to start over? Okay, this "deal" started well over a year ago, with someone in upstate New York. Today the guy I get on the phone is from Texas who talks to me about the present documents that were sent to me from Pittsburgh. So naturally, in order for me to start this process all over again, I have to talk to the guy in Arizona. And while they are all affiliated with Bank of America, none of them know each other and I have found that taking their names down makes no difference at all whatsoever in working through anything. They say they are making "notations" in my "file" every time they speak with me, and I can hear them typing, but apparently Bank of America employees don't actually have to read anything, just type. So - I would have to get all the doctors from Harborview Medical Center to write letters again, re-contact Jim McDermott's office (my congressman), write several letters explaining that I am not a slacker, even though on paper it certainly looks that way because I cannot get a job, and re-explain to all the persons all over the country who call me to re-discuss my default all over again for another year that my ex-husband is severely disabled, in what way, and on SSDI? After crying and crying and being unable to enunciate words for a couple of minutes...big breath...I tell the Escalation Officer in Texas that either the deal goes through as is or they can have my house. Period. "Call whomever you have to call, do whatever you have to do," was basically the end of that conversation.

Happy Freaking Holidays. Can I get any more down? No one gave me a Hanukkah gift, which was all right because I knew there was no one to do it. My daughter is only 13 and her dad is still too much of a bundle of continuous self-preservation to think of taking her shopping. And there will be no Christmas for me. Even though I'm Jewish, I was raised with Christmas and my mom, who passed away in 2005, was the only one who took it as more than "another chance for Hallmark to make movies and get people to buy stuff" (per my father). Although this year,my father actually did send me a card with a gift, my only gift this holiday season. You know what that gift is?

A TARGET GIFT CARD.

I kid you not. Need I say more about my dad? YES, but not today!

So. I knew what I wanted for the holidays, and today I went to get it. It's a print of a painting that I saw hanging in an art show recently and I happened to know where to get it. And I brought it home and I wrapped it and I told my daughter that I would appreciate it if she could give it to me on Friday and wish me a Merry Christmas. I'm lucky that she thinks this is "cute." Then I went and got something small that I know that I'd like for my birthday, which is the 4th of January and I brought it home and I wrapped it up and I will open that on the 4th.

Today I'm having a lot of trouble finding something to be grateful for. A lot. I'm grateful for the woman who stopped to give my battery a jump on the way out of the gallery parking lot. I am grateful that there is something we can do for Gus. And I am grateful that the holidays are almost over. I hate to say it, but I am. After all, this sentiment has at least provided a place for me to find gratitude.