Help! I'm locked in the house with my children!

LOL--no, seriously.

Well, the good news is we have heat for now, and the bad news is the water heater is... well, frizzing. So, yes, we DO get out of the shower into a balmy 68 degrees, but since the shower possibly dropped our core temperatures down to our blue and frozen toes, well, it's, uh, cold comfort. (ba-dum-bump.)

Oh!

And ZoomBoy is sick!

*headdesk*

The good news--and there is plenty--is that I am with my family, and while it's having a deleterious effect on my writing production (ie I have about two hours at night to actually get shit done!) it is, of course, my family--and they're delightful.

You may notice the picture!  Through no fault of her own--as in, she ordered them a good month and a half before Christmas--Chicken's present got here this morning. Mine says "Hail Santa!" and, yes, that looks a little, uhm, Santanic. I adore it. Also it fits me, and not much does. Mate's is a Batman ugly-Christmas-Sweatshirt--it's awesome <3 again="" chicken="" p="" wins="">
Well-- she DID place second with her Christmas gift to Squish this year. Squish's FAVORITE was a graphic novel that Squish has said--repeatedly and dreamily-- "Oh, wow--it's SO PRETTY!" Also it was beautiful and sad-- a teenaged girl's trifecta in storytelling, so go Big T!

And delicate as that is, I need to remind everyone that sometimes teenage girls can compete with the boys in the gross department-- witness this little exchange:

Squish: Dad, the cat smells like Mom's butt.

Mate: Oh God--no, just--

Squish: But he sits in mom's seat all the time-- here, smell him!

Mate: I WILL NOT SMELL THE CAT!

Me: Hey--I am not the only one who sits in that seat.

Squish: Okay-- so not Mom's butt, but he smells like--

Mate: I'M NOT SMELLING HIM!

Squish: Fine, fine. Whatever. He seems to like that seat anyway.

And speaking of cats--and cat names--the following just occurred to Mate:

"Nebula, would you--oh. Hey. We have a boy cat named Nebula and a girl cat named Steve.  And a, uh, girl dog named Geoffie. Is this a thing?"

Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

And as for ZoomBoy, well, he's feeling a little better, but this evening as I was walking down the hall he jumped out of his bedroom ahead of me and hugged me until...

"What was that?" he asked.

"I burped. You were SQUEEZING me!"

"Oh." And thence proceeded to shoulder his way past me to run down the hall--until I grabbed his shoulder.

"No!" I told him. "You leap out of your door, tackle me, and squeeze me until I burp, then you shoulder your way down the hall? WHO TAUGHT YOU MANNERS!"

Mate called out from the living room, "I did! I'm sorry. That's me. ZoomBoy let your mom go first."

*headdesk*

By the way--the grocery store is out of sparkling cider, and we are depressed. But without it, I'm pretty sure we'll still have a wonderful New Years Eve.