'T'is The Day!

How much do you know about Christmas? A quiz.
I am unaccustomed to doing so poorly on quizzes that I choose to take for fun. 55%? Come on!


Yesterday the vet gave me a good gift. She pronounced Maxie "not ready to give up yet."
He has a little UTI and some antibiotics to take care of that, and he has some muscle relaxer medication to make his back feel better. He hasn't complained, but he's been walking around hunched up like an inchworm. Medicated, he seems to feel much more comfortable, and he's very nice and quiet: he's sleeping a lot. Maybe it's so very restful to have some relief from what has apparently been ongoing discomfort. Dogs are stoic. Even the ones (Max) who seem like crybabies . . . they're stoic. They bear things that they don't need to bear . . . if only they would tell me!
On Friday night I moved something and a lost tennis ball rolled out; Max was all over it. Not quite up to Fetch, but very happy to see Good Ol' Tennis Ball. And outdoors, he's still prancing like a Saratoga thoroughbred. So the vet's pronouncement was not unexpected, but still very welcome. I guess we'll have him for a while. 
Nice gift.


So here I am, up at 3:00 on Christmas morning, watching my fire in the woodstove, listening to Angus snore next to me. Max never got up out of bed to come downstairs with us . . . he is still a small lump under the blankets upstairs in the bed. MiMau is toasting nicely in her spot in front of the stove. 
Later Husband will fix the prime rib. I'll make whipped potatoes, or maybe twice-baked, and some salad, and we will feast and give the dogs bits of beef, and then we shall all nap at will. 

I have no desserty material, unless I make another chickpea/chocolate cake, which I could whip up in five minutes or so. Honestly, it is an absolutely delectable item, which must be eaten in small portions. Chickpeas are just chockful of fiber. Trust me: I know . . . now, after having eaten two-thirds of the cake in one sitting. I was so annoyed, last Monday night, that I was required to go back to work for a meeting that promised to be long and awful (and turned out to be, in fact, four long hours of tedium and tension) that I scarfed down, in one of my more memorable eating binges, what was left of the cake. I was . . . uncomfortable . . . for three succeeding days and nights. I cannot stress enough how important it is to control one's portion size of that particular delicacy. 
Wow. The memory alone is enough to give me chills.


I hope you all have the kinds of Christmases that you want, whether that's peaceful, exciting, child-wondrous, spiritually rich, or some variation/combination thereof. May you be blessed today in whatever way you wish to be blessed, and may you have the kind of joy that is so evident in this video from the Richmond, Virginia Animal League: Operation Silent Night.

Merry Christmas.