Now Wait Just A Minutiae

So we're back to school ...hang on while I do the happy dance for a minute, okay? I am back now. That was fun.

Rather uneventful winter break for us. We seemed to have passed that flu bug around the house. First the little one. Then the big one. Then Hubby and I.

On New Year's Eve we played some games (our new favorite is Pictureka) and had lobster and caviar ((an annual tradition for me). I didn't even have a drink 'cuz I felt like crap. The best thing about living on the left coast is we can celebrate NYEve at 9pm and not have to wait until 12am! So- we watched the 'ball drop' in New York .

The following is the real conversation between the 4 11/12ths year old and her Nyquil -ed up mommy:

Rachel: "Where's the ball? I don't see a ball."
Me: "It's not really a ball, it's more like a big crystal light up on top of that building"
Rachel: "Where do they drop it?"
Me: "Well, they don't really drop it - they sort of lower it as they count down to 2009."
Rachel: "You mean they drop a crystal ball on the street on top of all those people?"
Me: "Not really, Dolly -- it's sort of a symbolic representation of the new year - aaah fuck it. Ready for some chocolate?"

After a little strawberry and bananas dipped in chocolate (nuthin' fancy, just melted some chox chips ) - and a tuck in...they were in bed by 10:00, and I was in bed by 10:30. I think I slept until Sunday. It was truly the best nap I've had in a long time.

So - maybe it's because I am trying to do this on my own , without benefit of cold and flu meds..but since the weekend , I have a slight bout of insomnia. I roll around for hours on end and just can't fall asleep. I keep thinking the same things over and over again. You wanna know what these things are? I am not contemplating world peace or the state of our economy, for crap's sake...but I seem to fixate on minutiae (and I googled that word to make sure I spelled it right BTW)

1) Is it New Year's Eve or New Years Eve? I believe it is grammatically proper to use the apostrophe s. The Eve belonging to the New Year making it a possessive. Pet Peeve #2564938....when people say "What did you do for New Years?" They should say, "what did you do for New Year's Eve? or "Have you made any resolutions for the New Year?" not " Have you made any resolutions for the New Years?"

What the fuck does that mean anyway? More importantly, why does it bother me so much and why am I rolling around at 2:00am for two nights in a row in a self-debate about this?

2) Remember the song "Same Auld Lang Syne" by Dan Fogelberg (R.I.P., Dan writer of one of my all time favorite songs "Part of the Plan")?. Aside from that being an annoying song, and arguably one of the sappiest songs in the history of song-dom...I confuse it with another annoying Fogelberg song called "The Leader of the Band" . And for some reason, the past few nights have afforded me the time to 'sing' the words to myself over and over and over again. Well, I couldn't remember the words to "The Leader of the Band" and it was really bothering me.

"The leader of the band is tired and his eyes are growing old. But his blood runs through my instrument and his song is in my soul. My life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man ...I'm just a living (insert the word I can't remember here) to the leader of the band. "

So my mind starts to wonder and insert all kinds of words there..and in the process, I start 'singing' the other song and now I just have to get up and out of bed and Google the frickin' songbook so I can get the stupid words to two songs I don't really like in the first place.

By the way - the word I couldn't remember is "legacy". "I'm just a living legacy to the leader blah, blah, blah.."

3) How come whenever I have tried the old stick toothpicks in an avocado seed and put in water trick , it never worked for me? I have a green thumb and I love avocado. (I actually prefer sliced avocado to guacomole which, if blended too smooth, is rather like baby throw-up, no?) I even have a Chia Pet Donkey and can make that grow and grow - but no avocado. Woe is me.

4) I am almost 45 years old and I have seen more shooting stars in the past few weeks than I have seen in 40 years. Seriously, I have seen about 10 in the past month. Where do they go when they fall? Is this some cosmic event or another effect of global warming?

5) Can you get addicted to tylenol PM? I'm willing to try it out and I'll let you know.

6) What I want to know is where that frickin' owl is living in my neighborhood. We have an owl. An honest to goodness hooting owl. I don't live in the woods or anything, There are not tons of trees or prey for that matter. But we're hear Hooty just about every night. Our Planned Urban Development is just a hop, skip and a jump from the Santa Monica Mountains. Don't you think Hooty would find better eats over there than the occasional mouse that he might find in our 'hood?

7) How can I turn all this rumination into an interesting blog post? (abject failure on this one, I guess)


Okay- so that's the rundown. Lather, Rinse and repeat. Over and over and over again.

Last night I finally did get to sleep by midnight or so...and let me tell you - it's a good thing I did.

Now that I have tackled the minutiae - I'll see what I can do about that world peace thingy.

PS- Hubby has agreed to join this major Bloggy event ...oy.