At the Bottom of the Steps

At the Bottom of the Steps
watercolor

Monday, December 27, 2010

Twas the day after Christmas...

WE KNEW where the Paperjam Drums were, but where was the back to the battery case? For that matter, where was the package of twenty double A's I bought? Never mind. Paperjams take triple A's, like the camera and the remote control vehicles. Which makes the fact that I bought double A's irrelevant...unless you actually wanted to USE any of those things.
Irrelevant like the stack of Christmas cards I found around 2:00pm. Too bad I didn't find them earlier...say, two weeks ago for instance. I could have mailed them.
They weren't with the dish of cranberry relish I found on the dryer, or I would have discovered them when I found THAT delectable bit of slime.
SO, off to church. The family was singing Oh Holy Night. We prayed about it, and I knew it would go well in spite of the fact that I had misplaced the accompaniment track we were supposed to use and we had to sing accapella.
But THAT went well, as I said. God was not surprised that I lost the music.
The dog's food bowl was empty. I felt terrible; I wasn't sure I had remembered to feed her on Christmas Day, and she spent much of that day alone. So, the fact that she stared at me with baleful eyes didn't shock me. But my remorse over forgetting her needs led me to do something which I would regret later. I gave her the leftover turkey drippings. I poured all that rich, golden broth over her Kibbles and Bits and she lapped up every drop.
She was one happy pup.
For a while.
That evening, as we watched one of the beautiful Christmas programs we had recorded, Charlie went to the kitchen to refill his coffee. We heard his hard-soled boots as he left the carpet of the dining room and stepped onto the kitchen tile.We heard the whoosh as he left the tile and hit the air. We heard his landing as he came down on the puddle of dog throw-up he had slipped in.
We rushed into the kitchen, where we saw Charlie sitting on the floor, wiping his goopy hands on his already gooped slacks. He was fine.
That's when one of the kids made the statement which I can only compare to Tiny Tim's sage, "Gawd bless us, every one."
"Dang," said Marques. " I can't even do the splits!"

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