Is here. Merry merry!

… in every sense. Didn't have to drive 200 miles, that was a plus! Got Mom's Christmas cards written & addressed. Just printed four restaurant.com gift certificates for the teachers in Lex's class — $100 worth of GCs for eight bucks. Niiice.

Monstro and I watched “Art School Confidential” last night (enjoyable and unpredictable) and it got me thinking about the nature of great art. After puzzling it for a while when I couldn't sleep, I edited it to this:

Great art makes us yearn.

It has been a long day, compounded by a shocking tableau. I'm so optimistic it blinds me sometimes. Also, “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” is a horrible movie. Half an hour into it and Wii Fit Free Step and it feels like I've been stepping for at least twice that long. Also, the batteries on my balance board are nearly dead so at the end of half an hour, it said I'd done 297 steps and my time logged was three minutes. Also, today would have been my parents' wedding anniversary. It doesn't bother me that I don't know how long they'd have been married by now.

Mom passed the assessment I gave her at the hospital and so I brought her home. She is resting comfortably right now. Yay!

I and my family have shepherded my mom through two brain surgeries in as many Mondays. Last Monday's was the big whopper surgery; yesterday's was not so brain-related as between-the-skin-and-skull related. She does not tolerate anesthesia well and yesterday was all about advocating for the best place for her to be: namely, the hospital, even though “oh, nobody spends the night in the hospital after this second procedure.” After no sleep Sunday night (she and I shared a hotel room near the hospital; she was up every hour for one reason or another, and our alarm sounded at 5:00) I sat in her recovery room all day Monday (yesterday) and then drove the hour-and-a-half home through Darkest Vermont, where I was very happy to hug my kids (one of whom Mom couldn't name in a photo, even though she lives with them) and have bendy-like relations with my husband. It was hard to fall asleep last night so I finished loading the dishwasher and cleaned up the countertops. Lex's preschool doesn't empty for vacation until Thursday so that's a help. Not sure when I'll be going to get Mom but it'll probably be today. I asked three of the more established matrons in my church if they could please arrange for someone to bring us a meal last night but no meal came. To be fair, one of the women gave us a gift of two-dozen eggs laid by her “going crazy” chickens. We had egg-salad sandwiches for lunch after church, and Lex is eating two hard-boiled eggs for breakfast as I type.

I might get some Christmas cards in the mail today. We'll see.

Facebook is not for announcing your miscarriage, or the four-year anniversary of when your sister found your dad dead in his bed. It is not for announcing your diagnosis or updating the world with your family drama. It is for social networking, not personal-bummer spreading.

Really, I wish people would realize that these, and so many other, pieces of news ought solely to be spread the old-fashioned way: On your blog. In your Christmas letter.

Get it together, people

Love,

MMM (Motormouth Miss Manners)

I was thinking of this the other night… I'm so thankful to have so many people to care for in my life, because hell, some people don't have anyone. Right?