Annual Murphy's Law Week

Thanks so much for the well wishes! They are appreciated and I'm probably going to need them.

Because this is my third annual Murphy's Law Week.

Every first week in December, D leaves for a week to a conference. It is the perfect start to December, otherwise known around here as Hell Month.

The administrators for the project D works on, in their ultimate wisdom, schedule an increasingly longer conference every December just prior to the project's biggest software release. The release is usually scheduled for December 26th, which means that most Christmas holidays it is impossible for us to join relatives or see much of D at all. So, December consists of Dave being away for end-of-term school programs, most of Hanukkah (remember, we are a mixed family) and then returns to work 18 - 20 hour days, while I try to deal with finals, final grades, writing deadlines, Christmas prep, some sort of Hanukkah acknowledgment, and usually a visit from my mother.

I just love December.

But I love this week even more, because Murphy moves into my house while D is away, and he takes his boots off his stinky feet and sticks those feet up on my coffee table and refuses to budge from my favorite reading spot.

Two years ago, he visited us by blowing up our range top (think safety glass thrown ten feet) and my slicing off the tip of my thumb and being too pissed and stubborn to go to the doctor, so I walked around with bloody bandages for two days. (I know - TMI).

I can't even remember last year, but C seems to remember a trip to the ER. He's probably right.

This year Murphy moved in the moment D took off for his plane.

Murphy arrived and I got sick. This would have been okay, but:

I was hosting two teen events this past weekend.
We had a friend of C's staying with us from Saturday afternoon through Sunday evening.
There were two ice storms.
I had to go in to work to give exams.
My final grades are due.
C's interim grades are due at the end of this week and he's had masses of work.
I discovered a massive tumor on one of the piggies and another piggy was showing signs of a UTI.
First piggy has to go in for surgery tomorrow.
Both piggies were at the vet's today.

I'm still sick.

Did I mention how much I hate Murphy? He hasn't helped with any of this, and he hasn't even touched the dishes piled up in the sink, nor has he done the laundry that's accumulating downstairs.

He's not my favorite house guest.

So I'm going to kick Murphy out on his big, fat tuchus tomorrow. But in the meantime, I can sleep tonight with dreams of sugarplums dancing in my head, or dreidels singing "Hanukkah, oh Hanukkah". And I can talk about this:



BOOK TALK in advance of Day to Read, January 10, 2008:

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. I love Jane Eyre. It may be my favorite book of all time. And I love any kind of weird, funny contemporary fantasy. Jasper Fforde creates a parallel England where Romantic Poets are the equivalent of rock stars and an agent, Thursday Next, is pulled into Jane Eyre to fight against a villain who is kidnapping literary characters and wreaking havoc with the classics. It's funny, if sometimes juvenile and over the top (one enemy agent is named Jack Schitt, for example), but it's definitely a good light read for when you just want to laugh. This is the first in a whole series of Thursday Next books. They just get more and more off the wall, and after a while, they ran a little dry for me, although I'd certainly still read them. I enjoyed the second book just about as much as as I enjoyed the first one(which was a whole heck of a lot) because Miss Havisham is a major character, and it's a Miss Havisham that you've never seen before (among other things, she racks up speeding tickets like a Nascar driver). So for anyone who enjoys classics, and poking a bit of fun at British lit., find The Eyre Affair and have a grand old time.