What a voluptuous mountain ash

Friends, Romans, countrymen and countrywomen: I am terribly delighted for the time being.
Vacay started out marvelously. superbly. STUPENDOUSLY. Ma mère has taken note of my obsession with food blogs and stocked our fridge full of vegetables and other such and suches and we've dug through cook books and made everyone's taste buds happy.
Christmas Eve morning mon père, mère, and I loaded the snowblower into the back of our little Stratus*. Stratuses are little cars and snowblowers are large things and the trunk just wasn't closing. Meaning when mon père drove off he spread Christmas cheer as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir gloria-ed from the speakers in the trunk loud enough for all pedestrians to hear.

And today....

I WENT WILD. I went to my ye olde gem of a thrift store. It didn't fail me, no no no no not one bit. I keep worrying that we'll run out of senior citizens who are giving their closets away, because senior citizens with London Fog coats are a nonrenewable resource. We haven't run out yet and I am going back again. I had to exercise such restraint, I can spend hours in there. HOURS. I didn't know where to look first. I went back to the dressing room quite a few times. I started out with a basket and I had to pick up a cart half way through. It was a treasurable overload. THIS IS THE LIFE! I chill at home with mes parents, watch movies, read books, thumb through records, put together puzzles, cook up storms, lay down on a mismatched couch and stare at the hand painted wooden Rudolph, sit around the kitchen table with ma mère and paint with watercolors. I make a couple of social calls a week and I go to the thrift store. My thrift store. Lovely thrift store.

Don't worry ma soeur, you are not forgotten. Te amo.

And Merry Christmas, Happy New Years, Hanukkah, Seasons Greetings, Happy December, Love to all my family, Joy joy joy to you all.

*(don't worry, no one ever sought to end an argument at the dinner table with "I DRIVE A DODGE STRATUS")