Man, I am still nowhere near ready for Christmas. My brain tells me I should be stressed out by this situation, but I am not. La-di-da. I think I figure it will all work itself out, but then I'm not too sure about that reasoning, since I can't seem to manage the first step of making myself go out to the shops. Not to ruin the surprise for my family and friends, but I really think I'm going to go with my liquor store plan for one stop gift shopping and buy everything I need in one swoop. Well, except for Kitty and the babies in my life. Can't see them appreciating or sipping on (old boot leather) Scotch.

I'm getting the "What do you want for Christmas?" question a lot lately. My answer is usually vague and leaves the questioner dissatisfied. I really don't know. More and more I've been thinking that a pair of tap shoes would come in handy. Not that I'm interested in taking tap classes or anything (had a brief stint as a kid), but just to make going places like the grocery store more entertaining. I like the clickity-clack sound.

When I was four, I guess I got bored during my aunt's wedding ceremony and decided to perform a little number in my Mary Janes on the shiny floor of the altar to liven things up. My mom reports that she debated about coming up to get/silence me, but Gramps encouraged her to just let me be. Maybe he could sense the marriage was doomed, so who cared if anyone could hear the droning of the pastor or the vows. Or, maybe he could tell that I already had a flair for dance and didn't want to stifle my creativity - ha!

Anyway, as Em helpfully points out, if I tapped my way through a grocery store, it would be a lot more difficult for a prematurely middle-aged man to get mad at me when I say "Way to go, dude!" after he accidentally rams his cart into an end aisle display of tuna fish cans, toppling a bunch to the floor. This happened to me in August. I was in Federal Way to see my dad and visiting relatives, and my cousin and I walked through a Safeway to pick out things I needed before rushing off to a dinner party and a concert.

We passed the mean man right when he crashed his cart into the cans. I thought it was funny and ridiculous and assumed he would see the humor in it too, so I giggled and tried to make a joke with my comment. Just as I was about to quickly follow up with an offer to help him clean up, he shot me this really nasty look and muttered, "You come over here and I'll show you way to go dude....grumble, grumble, grumble." Hmph. Shocked that he was taking it so personally, I responded that this sort of thing happens to everyone and headed down another aisle. A moment later, I heard him one row over yelling at his wife about how much the woman who said "Way to go, dude!" pissed him off. I felt really bad for her and decided that, in the future, it's probably best for me to avoid saying things like that to random people. You just can't know how they will take it. Not, at least, without my tap shoes.