How old do they think I am?

I received something highly curious in the mail last week. It was a notice from AARP about membership, reading: “Our records show that you haven’t yet registered for the benefits of AARP membership, even though you are fully eligible.” I’m about to turn 29 in January, thank you, not 50!

Printers are a pain

30 minutes: The amount of time it took me to change the Cyan color cartridge in the printer at work.

Six: Number of cartridges/parts I had to remove from the printer during this process.

Four: Number of doors I had to open on the printer.

Not at the reference desk: Location of the printer manual.

Blank: The state of the pages in the online pdf version of the printer manual.

Xerox: A company that has no business making printers.

A Griswold night

I was all gung-ho to get my Christmas tree the weekend after Thanksgiving. But I knew if I got it that early, it would be completely dried out by Christmas. So I waited. And time flew by. And I realized on Monday that Christmas was just two weeks away! So I rushed out and got a tree. By myself. Bad idea.
Last year the Doug Fir I got ended up looking really dinky in my living room, so I vowed not to make the same mistake this year. I got a 6-7′ Noble Fir. Not only is it taller, but being a Noble it’s a lot bushier and the branches are stiffer. The guy at the lot helped me shove it in my trunk, pushing through the hole from the folded-down back seat. Getting it OUT again at home, though, was a different matter. The branches kept getting stuck on various parts of the inside of my trunk. I ripped a few off in the process. Oops.

Sawing the bottom off was so much work that I was outside in the frigid cold with bare arms, sawing away, not feeling the cold at all. And then I wrestled the tree into the apartment, sidestepping curious pets, lamps, and tables en route from the front door to the living room, leaving a substantial trail of fir needles in my wake. I managed to get the tree upright, and plopped it into the tree stand, only to discover that the tree stand was barely big enough! Then there ensued about 20 minutes of sawing off lower branches and shaving off parts of the trunk so it would fit in the stand, because I’ll be damned if I’m going to the store AGAIN and buying a new tree stand!

This time, instead of putting the tree in the stand, I put the stand on the tree, screwed it tight, and wrestled the tree upright. A ha! Oh wait, it’s leaning. Hmmm…. A little “nudge” here, a little shove there. There we go!

Now I have a huge bushy tree in my living room with only lights on it, since I was too tired to decorate after all that. If I had planned ahead better, I would have done all this last week when Greg was here to help me, or at least picked a time when my roommate was around to lend a hand. But when I get the Christmas spirit, there’s no stopping me!

Christmas festivities

What better way to spend the first day of the month of Christmas than doing Christmasy things? Yesterday we went to the historic Pittock Mansion, which is decked out in a different holiday theme each year. This year’s theme is “A Fairy Tale Christmas.” Every room in the mansion has a different fairy tale decorative theme. We saw Pinnochio, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Beauty and the Beast, among others. Regardless of the theme, it’s always fun to see the mansion lavishly decorated for Christmas. Lots of poinsettias, wreaths, garlands, trees, and lights. Very pretty!

After dark, we went out to the Portland International Raceway, which sets up a big drive-through light display every Christmas. It being a Saturday evening, there were a lot of cars there. Not all of them were driven by very good drivers, either. We had a damage-free fender bender thanks to some moron in front of me. After he pulled away from the ticket booth and I started pulling forward, he changed his mind and started reversing back to the ticket booth. On instinct, I started reversing as well, not even looking to see how close I was to the truck behind me. I managed to avoid getting hit by the idiot in front of me, but I bumped the truck behind me. The car in front never looked back, never stopped, or anything, and drove off. I got out and talked to the guy in the truck, explaining what had happened and apologizing profusely. Neither of us saw any damage to our bumpers. But I was still pretty rattled and we were ten minutes into the display before my heart stopped pounding. I’ve never been to the PIR light show before, so it was cool to see. It is, apparently, the biggest Christmas light show west of the Mississippi.

The month is young. More Christmas festivities to come!