Merry Christmas to All

Well, another holiday come and gone, and another family function survived through. I ended up not getting a list to my parents, and yet they bought me useful stuff this year. Thus I rest my case that lists aren't needed. And I hope everyone else had a joyous Christmas. But enough sentimentality, let's get to the stuff that you really come here for. (And believe me, I'm still amazed that any of you come here at all.)

My mom has this bad habit of always telling people that she got up way too early every day. She's one of those people who brings it up in conversation all the time. For example:
Me: What's the weather supposed to be today?
Mom: Well the guy on the 5 a.m news said it will be 22, but when I got up at 4:00 I swear it was a lot colder than that.
Me: So I should wear my coat today?
Mom: Yes, I've been up long enough that I've already found your coat, knitted you some new gloves, and prepared dinner for the next week.
Me: What time are we supposed to be at our friends' house today to exchange gifts?
Mom: Well, I thought it was 10 a.m., but I'm not sure. I was going to call them when I got up this morning to be sure but I didn't think they'd appreciate a call at 4:00 a.m.

And so on.

What she fails to tell people is that she fell asleep on the couch at 8 the night before, and only woke up to move from the couch to the bedroom where she promptly fell back into a deep sleep. So in essence, she's getting 8 hours of sleep, which is a heck of a lot more than I got.

She likes to think it's all part of growing old. But what I wish wasn't a part of that is the fact that we went shopping last weekend and she wore a fanny pack. It's bad enough when we're traveling tourists and she does that, but we were in the middle of the mall, in Indiana. At least this time she wasn't carrying around a pink flamingo lawn ornament. (Don't ask.)