Life's easy as pie, you know.  It's just a big fat breezy stroll.  Here, have some Juicy Fruit, walk with me, talk with me...

Last week, wasn't that a great week?  Got the lights up on the house and cleaned the gutters at the same time.  Nice.  And just in time for the rolling brown-outs.  Sounds like a Pillsbury holiday treat, doesn't it?  Mmm, nothing says yuletide like the wholesome goodness of fresh rolling brown-outs.

Speaking of... well, Steve, wasn't it fantastic that your main sewer line got blocked with tree roots this week?  Life's Rich Pageant, dude.  You have made a plumber and his metal snake very happy this Christmas.  He likes you and he likes your trees.

And you know which trees I mean.  The ones that gave you forty big trash bags full of leaves this week.  Forty.  Raking is fun.

The annual Individualized Education Plan meeting with the school district on Wednesday was just the perfect way to add spice to the season, don't you think?  Couldn't you just feel the love in the room?  What's nice is how these meetings just sort of come together by themselves, the school is so on top of what's going on, the testing, the spreadsheets, the goals, the objectives, poof!, suddenly these big binders full of documentation and analysis just appear, you lucky man, you.  What?  The school didn't generate them?  You and your wife did?  Oh.

Speaking of lucky, wasn't it marvelous that both the Occupational Therapy Evaluation and the Physical Therapy Evaluation meetings were on Thursday?  Keeping up with the home program, are we?  Yes, you sir, are the king of weaving therapy and school homework and charting it all so diligently.

And how 'bout that after-school birthday party for Amy's classmate on Friday.  Nothin' says lovin' like a dozen kids with various diagnoses hopped up on cake and jumpin' on a trampoline.  On a rocky backyard slope.  Leg brace, schmeg brace, knock yourself out, girl.  Yes, Steve, you know how to relax.  Don't worry.  One of the parents who lives at this house will be up here anytime now so you don't have to supervise this all by yourself.  Yes, it's getting dark, but isn't the cool air bracing?  And yes, Ricky, the dog has a rat in its mouth, but it is not my dog, and it is not my rat, and you need to stay away from the edge of the tra... ooh, that's gotta hurt.

Hey, those seven hours at Viv's company party on the studio lot on Saturday were a gas, weren't they?  There's just something about a Tilt-A-Whirl that makes you say ahhh, corn dogs.

You know what I like about you, Steve?  You're just so dang flexible and easy going.  Even though you were informed days in advance about the Sunday morning mission to get the Christmas tree, and you built your schedule around that, Viv's rescheduling due to her need to go out and purchase new wardrobe items didn't faze you as you emerged from the shower.  You went directly to laundry folding and ironing and child wrangling.  You're good.  You're very good.  You saw the look in your wife's eye when she said she needed to go out and buy a new top because her singing group would be singing at the Reagan Library in a few hours and the top she had, while lovely, was a smidge too warm for the weather.  And then you went with your daughter up to the Republican shrine and they sang and it was very nice and you saw the Christmas Trees of All Nations and lots of pictures of The Gipper and Nancy and the whole thing creeped you out like it always does and then you went to the Christmas tree lot where Amy decided this was the place she was going to have the big bloody nose and you found a tree and brought it home and now it's got lights on it and ornaments and it's watered and yes you can sit down now.

And you've still got all your Christmas shopping to do!  Woo-hoo!  Christmas cards?  Hahahahahaha.  You kill me.

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