Happy Festivus.

My husband woke up before 5:00 this morning. I heard him getting out of bed, and the first thing he said to me was Happy Festivus. Anyone who watches "Seinfeld" knows that the day before Christmas Eve is Festivus-- the holiday for the rest of us. We don't celebrate Festivus (does anyone?), but there hasn't been a year that my husband hasn't remembered it.

We've both been up and awake since my husband's declaration of Festivus. The cats all woke up, and Gracie followed my husband out of the bedroom as soon as he got up. Time to start the day-- and it's a warm one. Not even daylight yet and it's warm enough for just a light sweater out there. About 30 degrees warmer than yesterday. Stupid weather.

I've read The Chronicle already, and they printed pictures of the snow in the midwest and northeast. We keep thinking of our friends C & R who have just moved to Pittsford, in upstate NY. Poor C must be frozen solid... that Texas-born man who is now experiencing his first northern winter. He just might be hibernating till Spring.


I just happened to look down at my keyboard and I see that there is no longer an "E" marking on the E key. Every bit of the E letter has been worn off from all of my typing-- proof that the letter "e" is the most-used letter in the English language. The only part of the T that is left is the top of it, and only about one-quarter of the top of the R is left on that key. Three-quarters of the D is still showing, and about two-thirds of the F is still visible on that key, and the B key is about the same as the F. The C key is missing just a smidge of its top curl on the letter. All of the other keys look just fine. None of this means anything at all... just an observation. (Sounds like an Andy Rooney segment on "60 Minutes.") I'm wondering if everyone's keyboards get this way, or is it because I have long nails which click against the printing on the keys.


More pajamas arrived yesterday afternoon, courtesy of a company connected with the Johnson Space Center. They had hosted a Pajama Drive after seeing a re-run of the Pajama Program segment on Oprah. One of the girls who arranged the drive came here with a huge box of pajamas and a smaller box filled with books. I spent the afternoon counting and sorting, and cutting off the store tags from the pjs. I always do that so all the pajama sets can't be associated with any particular store. I don't want one child to receive a pair of pjs with a tag from Wal-Mart hanging on them, and the next child to get a pair from Dillard's.

We delivered pjs and books to a local children's shelter yesterday afternoon. I had never heard of this particular agency before, but there was an article in The Chronicle about it because a former pro-football player spends all of his time there, working with the kids. I had extra pjs and books because of all the holiday Pajama Drives around town, so off we went to the little waterfront town near the Bay. It's called Boys and Girls Harbor, and kids can live there 24/7 if their families are in financial or emotional crisis. They work with the department of children's services, and kids are brought there if they have to be taken out of a home for safety reasons.

When we got there, the kids were all on holiday time-- with "host" families who take them in during the holidays, as well as weekends, so the kids can have a taste of what real family life is like. We left the pjs and books, and the kids will get them all after the first of the year when they return from their visits with the host families.

The Harbor was an impressive place in its set-up...... little cottages on the grounds where the kids live with two adults who are house-parents for them. There's also a working farm on the grounds, where kids can raise livestock to be shown at the rodeo in the Spring. The entire complex is 150 acres, so the kids have plenty of room to explore, and there's various out-buildings with different activities for the kids. Some of the buildings need repairs, others look just fine. The ones closest to the Bay look like they had some water damage from the latest hurricane in September, and they have a posted list of repairs that need to be done, as soon as they find volunteers and the money to do them.

I've added The Harbor to my list of children's agencies, so I will make sure they get pjs and books on a regular basis from now on. We left there with some of their brochures and literature. I was reading it in the car on the way back home and it just made me cry. It made me so sad to think that we take better care of our pets than some people take care of their children.


I just did a spell-check on everything I just typed. Festivus came up as misspelled. I guess The Powers That Be who wrote the spell-check software never watched "Seinfeld."