‘Twas the week before Christmas and all through the house,
not a creature was stirring, not even Ramona.Because I overslept again.

I sat up in bed, yelled, “Good golly! Great sakes!”
“The bosses will sack me if I’m once again late!”

I leapt out of bed to get dressed and get primped
Hit my knee on the sink, so I dressed with a limp

Finally rushed out the door, not a moment to spare,
Thinking maybe, just maybe, I’d soon make it… there

When what to my wondering eyes did appear?

A shitload of ice covering everything.

Apparently overnight snow turned to ice. So I had a quarter-inch of ice all over the ground and—here’s the important bit—my car. It took me half an hour to just get a decent enough hole to make it to work without killing myself and/or others. Halfway through chipping it away I was so frustrated I had to just sit in my car and build up the will to keep going.

I slid my way into work to find a nearly deserted parking lot. It took some people 2 and a half hours to get in. And things didn’t improve during the day, since the sun never really came out.

I hate winter driving. Hate. It used to be worse. Mainly because when I was a senior in high school, I slammed into a semi-truck.

So I was paranoid about driving home. It didn’t help that one of the bosses was telling us how incredibly treacherous the roads were.

The thing about winter driving is that, if there’s no things and/or people to hit, it can be fun. You go slipping and sliding around. It’s like a carnival ride.

Anyway, the roads weren’t even bad. I had forgotten my boss was a complete wuss in terms of driving. God I’m paranoid.

Oh my goodness, I almost forgot. When I got back to work today I had two Christmas cards.

One was from a client we used to do Bibles with. The guy’s hard-of-hearing, so we always had to practically scream at him during conference calls. Duff and I would just crack up.

The other card I got was from a regular reader on my site. Which is the nicest thing ever. In an ironic coincidence, I had promised said card-sender some Planet Claire merch. And completely and totally failed to do so until a week or two ago. I got an email over the weekend that they shipped. So there you go. Merry Christmas, Bridget.

And yes, Bridget, there really is a Santa Claus. He lives on Lake Harriet in Minneapolis—a few blocks away from me—in a huge badonka-donk mansion. The reindeers actually have a house nearby, but they generally chill out in Santa’s backyard. The cool part is that, in the winter, Santa puts them out on the lake where they enjoy skating around.

They’re getting pretty good.