Tweedle Dee .. Tweedle Dumb… Tweedle Dumb Ass

You figure out who is who!!

Bubba .. Weed.. and Spaz

This was taken Christmas Day night at Bird’s house.

Yes.. Weed was with us.

Yes.. Bubba is really that big for 15

Yes.. Spaz could play a part in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory if he were blue.

This is the only picture that I have :: after 3 years :: of all three of them together so I thought I’d share.

“TIMBER” – The Story On How The Tree Fell Three Times

.. so I was going to get all Once Upon A Time-ish and start spewing this story about a lonely tree in the the Holiday forest that found a home in my house.

But dinner’s in the oven and I don’t have time so you’ll just have to be bombarded with the real story.

You can't really tell from this picture but the tree really is 9 feet

Ok.

First of all, let me tell you that the painting above the gel-canister fire place is a view of  St. Mark in Italy. My mother has had that picture for EONS and thought it was A REALLY REALLY NICE GESTURE to give it to me after I bought my first house. Mind you, this was after my father died and since he was the one that actually WANTED the painting, I think she just wanted a guilt-free excuse to get rid of it.

I don’t have the heart to throw it out.. but I also do not lack decorating savvy so I only hang it when she either comes over :: which she never does :: OR when I have to send a picture of the tree to her cell phone.

This way she thinks it’s on the wall.. I get away with her thinking it’s on the wall and everybody’s happy.

Ok.. with that said..

You have to picture this so that you get the full effect.

This is a picture of the right side of my dining room. The entry way on the left side of the tree leads to the stairway to the second floor.

The fire place is one of those “real flame” ones that use the big sterno gel things. They’re actually pretty cool. You can’t tell from the picture but the fireplace itself is REAL!! wood and even though they market the ambviance .. it really does throw off mega heat.

So normally … like OTHER normal families.. the tree is put up in the living room. However, with the addition of a hand-me-down sectional from my uncle, the 52″ flat screen and 110 gallon fish tank had to be re-arranged. Putting the tree up in the living room meant that everything had to be re-arranged again.

Man’s job.

I can move around the furniture but there was NO WAY IN HELL that I was even going to think about moving the flat screen and forget about the fish tank.

His babies.. not mine.

NOTE: Although our three year old fish, Mr. Pink :: fuck him, I named them anyway :: did not die after all. I think he was just starving to death because I finally remembered to buy fish food and he came right around. Ah, another story for another time.

Anyway.. so we decide to get the tree on Friday because of the STORM! OF! THE! CENTURY! on Saturday. The plan, as Chief tells it, is to take off the webbing on Saturday so the leaves can fall and then decorate it on Sunday.

Fine. Whatever. I just wanted a damn artificial tree anyway.

So Saturday comes.. and the damn thing is still sitting on the front porch with the webbing still on.

Ok.. so he openned the shop amid the blizzard and had to walk home through it.

Big hairy deal.

Sunday morning comes around and since he didn’t cook the big breakfast to celebrate the STORM! OF! THE! CENTURY! like he said.. I figured we’d get to the tree.

Nada.

By one in the afternoon, he was conked out in the bedroom.

Well.. I guess I’ll at least go up in the attic and get the decorations out. Maybe that will spark a fire in his ass.

So I go upstairs in the attic.. now, mind you, my attic runs the full length of the house on either side. So basically I guess I have two attics. And it’s a big space. If the roof wasn’t slanted you could definitely chain a few kids to the beams and keep them there forever a while.

I don’t normally go in there. Ever. But I went in there this time and it was trashed. All the decorations from last year were just thrown around.. broken balls all over the place.. wreaths strewn about.. stocking with all kinds of shit all over them just thrown all over the place.

The kids put the decorations away last year and when I took a look at what the attic looked like I WAS ROYALLY PISSED.

I MEAN PISSED.

REALLY. REALLY. PISSED.

NOTE: OMG.. I just remembered RIGHT FREAKIN’ NOW that the cops were up there when they raided the house last year. Shit! Not that the kids wouldn’t have just thrown the decorations up there but I bet you the police did the same thing to my attic that they did to my bedroom!! Um.. how do you spell “woops”?

Ok. My bad.

Anyway.. so my little pissed off self had a discussion with my little OCD anally organized self and I cleaned the attic. Not quietly, mind you. Cursing and bitching and all of that the whole time.

I bring whatever decorations I can salvage downstairs :: funny how all the ones that broke were from girlfriend’s past, huh? Talk about irony! :: and then stomped to the front porch .. passing Bubba who was playing PS3.. lifted the 9ft tree.. started to carry it into the living room.. felt something go “ccrreeeiinnccchhh” in my 44 year old back.. dropped it.. and then started to drag it across the living room almost knocking down the flat screen tv.

Fuck it, I figured.. if nobody was going to do anything in the living room to make room for the fucking tree that I didn’t want.. then I’m just going to stick it where ever it could be stuck and that’s the corner where it is now.

Who cares if it blocks the stairs? No one is sleeping in the bedrooms upstairs anyway so go ahead… argue with me.. I DARE you!

With all the grunting and dragging and hollering at the dogs to get the HELL out of my way, Chief and Bubba lined up like little Dr. Who robots to help.

Full of fucking Christmas cheer now, arentcha boys?

So the Ultimate Tree-Putter-Upper stands the tree up in the stand and tells me he isn’t going to secure it to the wall until I put the lights and decorations on it.

ME: What are you talking about? I’m only going to decorate the part that everybody sees.

CHIEF: You’re kidding right?

ME: You’re telling me I should decorate the back of the tree? The back of the tree that’s facing the stairway that nobody is going to be able to use? You’re kidding me, right?

CHIEF: But.. um.. isn’t that.. like.. a little .. um.. ghetto?

ME: OH.. cuz we’re so fucking bourgeois, right? I forgot..

CHIEF: Forget I even said anything.

ME: Good call, Bucky.

So he goes and does something.. don’t remember what.. maybe take a hit to take the edge off.. who knows.. but as I’m trying to untangle the icicle lights to put on the tree :: yes, I did say icicle lights. I like a bright tree :: nobody remembered that we have a very curious kitten in the house. A kitten who’s natural instinct is to get into anything and everything that will make my life miserable.

So while Ernie, The Terrorist Puppy is chasing the kitten through the house she jumps.

Onto the tree.

The tree that isn’t yet secured to the walls because Father Uber-Christmas wanted lights behind it.

And it goes down.

Hard.

Onto the dining room table where I have a decorate basket filled with Christmas balls that goes sliding across the table and onto the non-carpeted floor.

I honestly wanted to cry and I don’t cry over stuff like that but I was SO overwhelmed and that just added to the overwhelmed-ness.

Chief comes running out of the bedroom and Bubba comes running into the dining room and I just put my hands out like Diana Ross stopping love and said;

JUST.

GO.

AWAY.

They knew better then to argue and where probably relieved that they got a free pass.

So I cleaned everything up and lifted the tree up. I couldn’t secure it because I’m not tall enough to secure a 9′ tree.. especially when the steps are now blocked. So I filled the base with water thinking that would at least give it some weight and proceeded to put the lights on.

Everything was going well until my OCD self just HAD to do something with the fireplace.

Remember, it takes gel canisters but I do have real logs in there just for appearances. I had bought these lights last year that look like real flames but found out the hard way that they burn too hot to put them on anything that would burn or blow up so I figured HA! I’ll put them in the fireplace.

So as I was monkeying around with them, I figured I would plug them into one of the icicle light sets. Fine. No problem.

I crawl under the tree and as I’m digging around in the branches for the end of the icicle lights, Ernie decided HE wanted to know what was under there and tried to belly crawl around me.

Ha.. ha.. cute.. UNTIL he used MY BARE FLESH to dig his claws into to pull himself under. I howled.. instinctively jerking back and amid the rain of pine needles, felt the tree falling. And me getting soaking wet from the gallon or two of water that I had put in the base.

Again the boys came running and again I told them to get the HELL away from me.

The knew I wasn’t going to be able to handle this one.. being all wrapped up in a tree and everything.. so they helped and I give them credit for trying not to laugh.

So everything gets cleaned up.. AGAIN.. and I go back to monkeying with the flicker lights.. hoping to be enveloped by some kind of holiday zen.

I finally get the lights just the way I want them :: thank you duct tape :: and go to plug them in. You know.. to the icicle lights? Yea.. well.. the only problem with that is that when the tree was re-erected for the second time it wasn’t exactly in the same spot.. so the end of the icicle lights was further way and when I tugged on the extension cord to get more leeway .. well.. you know what happened.

If you don’t.. just take a look at the picture again..

Picture me sitting in front of the fireplace where that nice little glow is coming from .. see that where the tree is? Now picture where it would fall if you tugged a little too hard on the extension cord.

Actually the tree in the picture is pushed back further then it was when it fell RIGHT ON ME the second time.. but you get the idea.

CHIEF: We’re getting an artificial one next year, huh?

ME: I hate you

CHIEF: Oh, come on.. at least I didn’t say TIMBER!!