Happy Christmas Eve Eve.
Somehow we’ve just stopped celebrating holidays, any of them.
Cowboy keeps the yard decorated, but only a little.
He used to go all out and start early.
Not anymore.
I used to put up a tiny Christmas tree, and I don’t even bother with that now.
I can’t remember the last time we had the full big tree up.
The house is dark and cold and gloomy, with not a bit of Christmas cheer.
They’ve got their own families now and their own traditions.
After that, coming home for the holidays just stops being something they make time for.
I don’t think Cowboy really cares that we’ve stopped celebrating.
He doesn’t have to crawl up in the attic, fight the spiders, and drag my decorations down every year.
He’s getting a bit too old to be crawling through holes and wiggling his way through a crawl space anyway.
Badger doesn’t seem to mind.
Halloween is her thing.
If I ever stop decorating for that, I may have a mutiny on my hands.
Let’s put the sad violin away and get back to what Jane did today.
Not much at all, really.
Badger had her last therapy session at the old practice.
She’ll move to a new one in the new year.
This therapist told her she needs a psychiatrist, and of course she jumped on that right away instead of waiting to see what the new place thinks.
I spent half the morning trying to make the insurance website work, and it never did.
I finally went to chat and they promised to email me a list.
I waited hours.
Nothing.
I went back to chat and they sent it encrypted.
Encrypted.
The fellow told me the link would take me to a page to read it.
No, it did not.
It dumped me right back on the insurance website and demanded I change my password.
Absolutely not.
It took me a month to get that password to work.
So after whamming my head against a wall a time or two, I went to Google.
I copied every psychiatrist in two counties that weren’t Knox and sent them to Badger.
I told her that if she wanted them, she could call and see who takes our insurance, because I was over it.
Then I went back to the bedroom and pulled my hair out over money cards.
The family’s gotten so big, and we don’t even see most of them anymore.
We’ve quit with the actual gifts and just hand out money.
Buy your own darn present, people.
Now I’ll probably get this wrong, but here goes.
We’ve got six children, three in‑laws, nine grandchildren, and five extras.
That doesn’t look so bad, but you try stuffing money in cards and keeping up with who is who.
I ran out of cards halfway through, went out, grabbed Cowboy, and told him to get me to Dollar Store right now or he could be doing cards.
Got my cards and settled back in.
Cowboy decided to sneak in, and the man was about to shake St. Peter’s hand.
He added three extra people to my pile, but we were short on money.
And he forgot Zwei has a birthday the day after Christmas, but I didn’t.
The money I used for Zwei was supposed to be for one of his extras.
We have to go to town tomorrow, but Cowboy works tomorrow night, so it’ll be a fast trip.
That works out, since I forgot phone cards and mine will run out before we get back to town again.
We probably won’t be back until after New Year’s Eve.
We’ll pick up the money we need while we’re out.
Then I called my doctor to reschedule my appointment.
At this rate, if he and I keep doing this, we may as well give up and wait for my yearly in April.
It’s supposed to be a six‑month checkup, but it’s turning into an eight‑month one.
Without asking, Badger got her appointment at the new practice on the same day as mine.
With a new place, you don’t want to start moving appointments around, and it’s easier for me to change mine anyway.
I’m pretty sure mine is one of those “How are you feeling? Taking your medicine?” visits. “I’m fine. Yes, still taking my medicine.”
Two hours later, they finally let me go home, and I’ve accomplished nothing.
Cook’s sent me a text saying their technician will be out Friday.
Yes, the day after Christmas.
I don’t know if I was supposed to reply or not, but I haven’t called to cancel, so I assume they know to come on out.
I managed to get all of this done before Cowboy even left for work.
Once he was gone, I checked my patient portal, and my last test had finally come back negative, thank goodness.
I swear I won’t ever schedule another medical appointment in December again.
So I went in and made myself a very large Irish coffee, heavy on the Irish.
I think I earned it.
From that point on, the day slowed to a crawl and nothing much happened.
Badger and I watched a lot of TV, and that was the whole story.
That was enough, though.
Badger went in and made a burrito casserole for dinner tomorrow so we wouldn’t have to grab fast food.
That was already the plan before we found out we had to run to town.
We didn’t want the turkey to go bad.
The whole house smells wonderful, onions and pepper and taco spice.
It’s finally safe in the fridge, and she’s heading to bed.
I’ll be going to bed once I see Heron safely off.
He came in really late tonight, and he had his girlfriend E with him.
They’re going to her house today, but he’s supposed to be back tomorrow.
We’ll have to be up and out early tomorrow.
If all we needed was the money, it’d be a quick trip.
But we’ve got to go to Walmart for our phone card.
I expect it to be a madhouse on Christmas Eve.
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