Difficult Music

The Five Days of Christmas
I worked on Christmas Eve. Everyone started taking off after lunch, and by 2:00 the whole floor was deserted. I went home to wrap presents. That night, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…because it had been crushed by one of our traps! Such killing isn’t in the spirit of the season, but our battle against the Wenonah rodents can’t take a holiday. I managed to dispose of the carcass before Cypress saw it.

Christmas Day was hectic but good. Cypress was up around 8 and immediately found Moff outside on the kitchen window sill. Moff was a dollar store reindeer we left beside the eggnog and cookies for Santa to find, the idea being that Claus would need an extra deer at some point on Christmas Eve. Donner, Blitzen and the others aren’t getting any younger. The old Santa magic would transform Moff’s hollow plastic form into a full-size flying reindeer. And once the toy delivery was done, Santa would drop Moff back at our place. Which is what happened. Unfortunately Moff’s hide took a beating overnight and sloughed off a bit. Cypress had a dodgy moment when she noticed that. We saved her from the dead mouse, but we didn’t anticipate Moff’s fur-retention deficiencies. The belter saved the day by pointing out the giant stuffed dog under the tree. Close one.

On Boxing Day, with Cypress off with her dad for round four of her gift deluge (round one: us; round two: Mel and Adam’s; round three: mom and dad’s), we went to the Sox house for the annual booze-up. Mighty sketchy as always—sitting around in the hallway with Doug’s girlfriend Hilda offering ’round tequila out of jam jars. I allowed Ken to rope me into jamming for a bit, which was okay. Smash and I held things together. A typical Boxing Day for me, except for the lack of shopping. Just as well. I’m not into it that much anymore.

The 27th…what did I do on the 27th? Oh, yeah, I went to JR’s place to pick up my gift. Bumped into him outside his apartment and went to the post office in Lougheed Mall with him. Heard about the latest episode with his dad. JR’s gift was the only present-related mishap of the season. I already owned half of what was inside the box (Bjork: Live at Shepherd’s Bush video). No big deal! Later that night I hooked up with Willingdon Black and visited the Shockk Centre for the first time in a long time. Jammed for a bit, double-drumming with Shockk, who always cracks me up with the fills he attempts—he makes me quite jealous, actually, because he pulls off stuff I can’t get my head around at all. I also scored a copy of the Mongoose CD, which I’ve got to sit down and listen to shortly. (It’s on right now, and it rips! Let’s All Go to the Restaurant!)

I finally did some shopping on the 28th. The belter and I exchanged the gift we’d gotten Mel & Adam and got a load of on-sale stuff for them. We hit A&B, and I got an Alice Coltrane CD and a Goblin compilation, while the belter got the latest Dolly Parton, the one with “Stairway to Heaven” on it (which is a wicked version…I heard it this morning). I also went to Scratch. I wanted to get a Bad Wizard album, but I settled for the new Godspeed You Black Emperor.

Now I have to go back to work tomorrow. I’ve had a nice break, but it hasn’t been long enough to settle into a routine of non-routine, you know?

Next time out, I’ll do a roundup of all the great music I got from all the great people I know.