Christmas

I just have to put this out there, get it off my chest - this year, Christmas sucks. There are a variety of reasons, one of which, of course, is that fact that neither of us has much in the way of money and so presents have been put on hold. So there's nothing to get excited about there. No wondering what to get for him, or what he's gotten for me, and that's rather sad. I had plans, too, of what to get him. One of the things that's becoming a tradition is to adopt an animal at the Toronto Zoo. They send a certificate with a picture of the animal, a little brochure with information and the recipient's name goes on their wall of donors at the front entrance of the zoo. It's really neat to go there and see your own name on that wall. I hadn't decided which animal to adopt for him this year - in the past I've adopted a red panda, a polar bear and a black panther for him. The year I got him the polar bear I also found a framed print of a mama polar bear curled up with her two cubs which seem very serendipitous. 

There's also the fact that we're in week nine of the strike and there still doesn't seem to be an end in sight. On the news website this morning it was announced that one contractor had approached the union with an offer, but that's not our employer or union so it doesn't matter that much for us. It matters in that whatever they're offered, we will be offered as well by our employers, but if the offer sucks then, well, that doesn't do any of us much good.

The weather has been really weird, warmer than usual, and while I'm not complaining because I'd rather be out picketing in temps over 0C than under, since I do live in Canada the weather does shape our perceptions of the holidays and with rain, not snow, and temperatures above 0C, it just doesn't feel like Christmas. When I lived in Australia I had a hard time at Christmas because it was summer and that just seemed so wrong to me. I'm sure if I had stayed I would have gotten used to it (and there are times now when I wish I still lived there - sun, beach, warm weather...) but at the time it just felt really strange. There's the point too, that we've had very little sunlight for the last couple of weeks and that does start to get one down after a while. All around it's rather depressing.

To add insult to injury, one of the pipes in the house developed a crack - the one leading from the kitchen sink and dishwasher - and has been leaking all over the floor in the back bedroom, causing mould to develop and just be icky in general. It went unnoticed for a while because there was a table in the way, and I just didn't see the carpet getting wet, but when the mould sprang up (in what seemed to be) almost overnight I freaked. I found it at 3 am when I had to get up to check on Honey, and when I turned the light on I happened to be looking directly at the area in question. Ugh. I couldn't sleep in there after that, thinking that every time I breathed in I was inhaling mould spores. My biggest problem with it is that that bedroom is where I escape to if I can't sleep because he's snoring. I can be a very light sleeper, and I have a hard time *getting* to sleep, too, so sometimes it's just easier to go sleep in there than it is to get grumbly and antsy and really irritable.

To finish this off with something much more pleasant than my whinging so far, here are the photos we had done of the four-feets earlier this fall. Our local pet store had a photo competition for the cutest pets and if you spent $50 or more in the store you got to book an appointment to have the glamour shots done and have your pet entered in the contest. After it was all over and done with, you could order prints from the photographer which is what we did. Here they are :)

Aren't they lovely girls? It would have been nice to bring the cats too, but probably only Milo would have made the trip successfully. Maybe next year :)

Later.