Christmas Eve

Gusty winds, lightning, heavy rain. That's the forecast for this Christmas Eve. The high temperature today will be 64°; the high temperature tomorrow will be 37°. That drop in temperature alone forebodes stormy weather ahead.

Let it rain. I have nowhere to go and nothing to do but laundry. In fact, the laundry can wait ... gotta have something to do on Christmas Day. Come Christmas Day I'll do the laundry, I'll change the sheets on the bed, I'll look around and see what else needs cleaning. Normally I'm not real big on house cleaning. Ask anyone who knows me. The sentence, "That VirtualWayne, he is so big on cleaning his house!," is a sentence you will not hear anyone say, ever. Very rarely, I will have a female visitor to my home who—to prevent her head from exploding—will clean and tidy up my house. Afterward, my house still will not look like one of those homes in the magazines, but it also won't look like a tornado just struck it, which unfortunately is its usual condition. My father once told me, "If it weren't for women, men would be living in caves." That is so true.

The sun is rising. My back door faces east and it's a sliding glass door, so from my computer I can look at the back door and see the morning going from dark to gray. The clock reads 7:21. That's the time for sunrise here. Time to eat breakfast.

That didn't happen. Instead, I went to bed. I slept for two hours during the night and suddenly two hours didn't feel like enough sleep. So I went to bed at sunrise and I went to sleep. I slept until noon. Now is the time for breakfast. Or rather, brunch.

So I heated leftover rice in a small pan, added butter and Lizano salsa, stirred in two eggs, scrambled it together, and added a side of grits and sausage links. That's a decent brunch. This is a meal I've been making all week, and I have one day left before all the eggs, rice, and sausage links are used up. 

Dimness pervades inside and outside. The overcast is thick. Rain falls on and off at this point, but heavy rain is on the way. Christmas Day is on the way, too. 

I have a Christmas card sitting beside my computer monitor. Some people still send 'em out. I used to send Christmas cards to my friends and acquaintances. But as the years went by, and social connections became frayed and broken, I quit sending them. One by one I quit sending them until at last, I looked at the short list of names remaining on my Christmas card list and I asked myself, what's the point? If you enjoy sending out Christmas cards, then good for you and by all means send them out. But when sending them becomes more of an obligation than a joy, then there's really no point. I still enjoy receiving them, however.

Merry Christmas to all my readers. Thanks for all the comments you've posted to my blog. I read every one of them. May you have a blessed Christmas this year and every year.