Tuesday, December 28, 2010

A lump of coal in my stocking?

Well, it turns out that our "Merry Freakin' Christmas" turned out to be pretty good after all. In the last few days and hours leading up to the point that the fat man (yes, he has not been doing his P90X) left stockings and toys for the kiddos they took a turn for the better. While I can not say that they were perfect, they were certainly as excellent as a band of elbow high sibling twerplets could be after spending a week together. Yes, Christmas went off without nary a hitch and everyone was as happy as could be. Sydney received a laptop, Graham an iPod touch, and Ainsley was bestowed 3 toy Volkswagen bugs (don't ask). The point is that they could have been no happier. For the grandparents it was iPads and for Lynley it was her much coveted Slingbox.

Everything was wonderful.

Well, it was wonderful for everyone but me - the grinch. Santa did not bring me what I wanted. In fact, what he brought me was worse that a lump of coal. He brought me a burst pipe in the guest house. If that was not bad enough, our clever plumber was able to find 2 other leaks.

$3000.00 later I found myself wondering if this was a sign that I should give up technology and go to plumber school.

All in all, I suppose it could have been much worse. In fact, all things considered, my family is together, the kiddos are happy, and Sydney has not been thrust back into the cancer world. Given that scenario, I guess it is about the best Christmas I could have had.

Christmas is all about perspective - and purpose.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Go for the plumbing training! I majored in linguistics, which is a fascinating but pretty impractical social science.

During our senior year, we had to take a seminar course on field methods. The year I was a senior, the language we studied was Yiddish. Our professor, who was the departmental chair, mentioned offhandedly that her plumber spoke near-fluent Yiddish. When a classmate asked her how she came to know this information, she replied, "I'm not sure if I should tell you guys, but my plumber has a Master's degree in linguistics. He makes more money than I do."

We all wondered if it was too late to switch majors.