I’ve got approximately 40 people coming for brunch tomorrow, so all week has been a bit of this. Actually, it’s worse, because I thought I’d avoid the last-minute frenzies by spending the week cleaning up in advance; this way my New Year’s Eve could be spent calmly. Serenely. Contemplatively.

Ha.

In reality, my New Year’s Eve will be spent under a mushroom cloud of Pine-Sol as I re-clean the entire house. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this experience it is:

Nature abhors a clean kitchen. It also abhors clean bathrooms, clean living rooms, clean walls, clean floors—

Let’s just say that if it’s clean, Nature abhors it.

My plans for today: clean each room and then lock the door. My theory: if they can’t reach it, they can’t mess it up. Things might get a little stressful after I clean the bathrooms, but hey! If it’s a real emergency, they can use the facilities next door.

Some 2005 thank yous are in order:

I want to thank all of my readers, new and old. Converting Ballpoint Wren from a static, HTML website to a dynamic, XHTML blog has been a wild ride. I’m still learning and I hope you’ll continue to bear with me.

Thanks to Eric Scheie for giving me my first big link and to Miss Snark for the biggest, baddest link of all. Even if she removes it tomorrow, I’ll always be grateful for her notice.

Thanks to the people who created WordPress blogging software. Maintaining my site has never been easier.

Thanks to Podz and MacManX who helped me out so much in the WordPress forums.

Thanks to my boys, who make me laugh every day. Thanks to my Sissy, who is always there for me.

And finally, thanks to my Hubby, who has always loved me and believed in me no matter what, who gave me permission to write about him (as long as it’s funny and I do it frequently), and who pesters me if I don’t post daily (you should’ve heard him complain this week).

Happy new year, my friends. Here’s hoping 2006 will be a good year for all of us.

WHAT: Assorted Christmas Ornaments

HOW: He bypassed a Bulldog Barricade consisting of one sofa, one loveseat, one chair and one foosball table. Then he plucked his hapless victims from the tree. One. By. One.

We actually rescued several ornaments before they were inducted into the Cemetery of Chewed-Up Christmas Decor. We assume we didn’t catch them all; some are no doubt travelling through his intestinal tract even now, lost forever to us—well, maybe not forever, but you know what I mean.

REPLACEMENT COST: None. But I did snap this picture of the culprit returning to the scene of the crime. Note the guilty face.

Santa plowed right into Squirt’s foosball table last night.

All last week the foosball table was an integral part of the Anti-Bulldog Christmas Tree Protection System created by Squirt and Tiger—a protection system which not only proved useless, but which provided much amusement to the bulldog.

Yesterday morning I told the boys the battle had been lost the day we brought Mojo home, so we might as well put the furniture back. I also asked Squirt to move his foosball table elsewhere because really, it was just too much to have a foosball table in the living room with a Christmas tree, too.

So Squirt relocated the foosball table to the entrance to the bathroom door. Why he chose this location, I have no idea. Probably it has something to do with how much 14-year-olds love obstacle courses—just look at Squirt’s room and you’ll see what I mean.

Anyway, Santa apparently needed to use the facilities and in so doing busted his shins in a most spectacular way. In fact, if anybody had the right to explode on Christmas Eve, it would be Santa, but no, he held it all in like a champ. He just moaned in an aggrieved sort of way, and then moved on to do his business.

What a trooper, that Santa. Mrs. Claus is one lucky woman—I expect she’ll help him ice it this morning.

Here are my two favorite gift tags this Christmas:

To Tiger
From Squirt
Happy holidays, butthead

…and…

To Mothar [Squirt's nickname for his mother, based on a Mike Meyers sketch]

From: Zombie Beheadding Master # 1, Squirt (you must be so proud!)

My favorite “just like his dad” moment went like this:

TIGER: What’s this strap for? I can’t figure it out.

BONNIE: What does the manual say?

TIGER: (disgusted) I don’t read manuals! Hmmm, I bet it goes this way.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to help a certain someone with an iceway ackpay.*

Christmas, bulldog, gifts, Mike Myers

My friend has lost her dearest love, her husband, the father of her two young children. He went unexpectedly. Suddenly. Without giving them a chance to say goodbye.

He was too young to die, and yet he did.

Ladies, hug your men and tell them you love them.

Men, squeeze your ladies, kiss them and tell them how much they mean to you.

All this holiday hustle and rush… it’s not important. Nothing is as important in this world as the people you love. Give them your attention right now.

Right NOW.

Because you never know.

I meant to turn south yesterday morning on El Camino Real from Encinitas Blvd., but when I saw an enormous wave at Moonlight Beach I had to pull off and watch. Normally our waves range between 2 and 4 feet and a little higher at times, but these were much, much bigger.

I didn’t have my camera with me, but found an article with this photo:

Here’s some coverage about our big waves from the North County Times, but The Seattle Times had the best series of wave photos.

I challenged my friends to reinvent themselves as snowmen via Michael Whaite’s Snow Gallery… and some of you came up with some really good ones!

I think Kait of Kait’s Chaos looks like she could be my sister. You decide. Compare Kait with my snowman, which you can see up in the header:

And here is Kait’s infamous Dawg.

Kait raises a good question: how come the Snow Gallery isn’t equipped with coffee?

Mel from the Smooshie Diaries has a bustier take on her snowman:

Right about now my snowman feels like she needs to pad her snow bra.

Of all these, I think my favorites are from April of Desperate Writer:

If you haven’t seen them already, check out Kitty’s Texan snowman and Pat’s wickedly fun version of herself and her man.

If I missed anybody else, let me know! Don’t be coy… e-mail me and tell me you’ve done one. Otherwise I might miss it with all the Christmas stuff I have yet to do. I still haven’t sent out all my Christmas cards!

But here’s the good news: yesterday I mailed a card regular mail from San Diego to Los Angeles, and it got there today! Hooray for the United States Postal Service!

snowman, fun

WHAT: One Ceiling Fan/Light Remote

HOW: When you live with a canine Cuisinart, eventually you learn three things:

1. Never leave anything on the floor, or the sofa, or the lower shelves of your bookcases—in fact, if the item is at bulldog eye level, you might as well just say goodbye.
2. Closing the door to a room seems to offer some protection to items in that room, but only if the door is tightly latched. Otherwise the bulldog will chuckle softly at your foolishness.
3. Houseguests don’t really believe you when you tell them all this.

HOUSEGUEST NO. 1: I told him not to leave it there!

HOUSEGUEST NO. 2: She did not! (turns to Houseguest No. 1) And if you saw it, how come you didn’t pick it up?

HUBBY: (looking very stern) You left something on the floor, didn’t you?

BONNIE: Oh, no! Your book? Your shoe? Your cell phone? Omigosh, it wasn’t your wedding ring, was it?

HOUSEGUEST NO. 1: Nothing of ours, we’re sorry to say. (reveals the mangled remote) We’ll pay to replace it, of course.

HOUSEGUEST NO. 2: Yes, we will replace it!

(Bonnie starts to protest but Hubby raises his hand)

HUBBY: This is a very serious matter. You could have killed my dog.

(houseguests look stricken)

HUBBY: Mojo?

MOJO: (snorts) Snort!

HUBBY: He’s alive! He survived our houseguests! (turns to houseguests) You’re off the hook.

REPLACEMENT COST: None, because it still works.

Even those BloggingHeads guys got into the snowman concept:

Today’s Super Sabado will be short, because Christmas is almost here and I’m short on time. But I think I’ll focus on Michael Whaite’s Snow Gallery, which is addictive enough that it ought to be illegal. So flick off the virtual snow flakes, grab a margarita and some chips and check out some wintry creativity.

Slide that salsa bowl down this way, will you, please? (Read the rest of “Super Sabado: Snowmen and other diversions”)

When Squirt was three, he ate all the homemade sugar-and-egg-white ornaments on the Christmas tree—or rather, all the ornaments he could reach. The ornaments were older than he was and kind of dusty, but he didn’t care.

Not to be outdone, our standard poodle, Casey Dog, ate all the plastic red apple ornaments he could reach—only he threw them up on the carpet later. I’d say Squirt won that little bout of ornament eating.

Turns out Casey Dog had a thing for little red plastic apples, because the moment he had an opportunity he ate all the little red plastic apples he could reach on my brother-in-law’s Christmas tree. Thank goodness my brother-in-law had wood flooring.

Then there was the year Casey Dog took the baby Jesus out of the manger in our nativity set and ate him, too. He could’ve eaten a camel, or a sheep, or even one of the Wise Men, but no, he had to eat the Main Event.

Little Lego Jesus, asleep on the hay. Sort of. He’s standing up because he’s got to stay alert and fight off household pets.

I told him, “You may be going to hell because you ate the baby Jesus.” But he didn’t care, just sat there and licked his chops, like he was remembering how extremely tasty Jesus was and how easy He went down.

Now we use a little Lego man for our Jesus in the nativity set. Sure, we laugh about it, mainly because you know, these things happen sometimes.

Besides, Squirt finally came to understand the inherent wrongness in eating old sugar-and-egg-white ornaments, and we’re clean out of little red plastic apples that might tempt our Casey Dog.

Then Squirt said something today that brought my Christmas complacency to a crash:

Squirt: What are we going to do when we finish wrapping our presents?

Bonnie: Put them under the tree, of course.

Squirt: Mom.

Bonnie: Squirt.

Squirt: Mojo, Mom.

humor, bulldog, Christmas, dogs

I have Kait to thank for all the lost time I spent playing with the dang thing, too.