Smokey Mountain Breakdown

Today was one of those dirty gray days where the light fell like over-used mop water being thrown from the sky. So, I dug around in my photo archives for the sort of sparkling clear winter morning that it really should have been. But wasn't. But we can pretend.

Max continues his interaction with the geese. A few stray tail feathers tell me that he has won a few of the encounters. But every time I see him, he is running for his life with a goose attached to his rear end. The other goose is usually making a ruckus while this is happening. I interpret this as hysterical, mocking goose laughter.

It has come to that difficult point in the year where I ask myself, "Decorate for Christmas? ...Or don't decorate for Christmas?"

Please understand that I have become a bit superstitious about this. Every time I've really done this in a big way, something drastic and calamitous has happened.

I think it began during that memorable Yuletide fifteen years ago when I, thrilled that I had someone in my life I could do this for, went all out with the Christmas thing. For whatever reason...perhaps my family's intensity when we do the Christmas thing is just way over the top or something...I awoke in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve to find my lover standing over me holding a butcher knife. What followed was me depositing said lover at a mental ward for a forced period of confinement and ended up with me using my chainsaw to cut down the Christmas tree...in my living room...and then stomping on the delicate glass balls with my k.d. lang boots. My friends walked in about that time. They are still laughing.

And no...that's an entirely true story.

So, I approach this season with caution. Lest someone go all cuckoo-for-cocoa-pops just because I opened a big ole can 'o Martha Stewart all over their ass.

Happy Sunday.