Ring In The True

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
~Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1850

Ring in the true, indeed.... and the truth, dear internet, is that I have been avoiding you. It's not you, it's me. You see, for once The Crazy was not mine alone, and the world actually lined up behind me in that whole "without pants" brand of insanity.

So, I took a nice break and enjoyed many hours of absorbing the wonder of my boys as we celebrated our holidays and generally hid away from the world in our little suburban kingdom. It was incredibly lovely, to tell the truth. Because when I say the world went a little nuts? Well, that's maybe the understatement of the year. So far.

So, I'll just give my list of excuses and we'll move on because - frankly, dear internet - I'm a bit knackered by this year already.. but that probably has more to do with the Hercules Virus my children bestowed upon me as an extra special Christmas present. It is currently raking my throat over hydrochloric acid and coating the backs of my eyeballs with sandpaper. So I'd like to think it's really just that, because after The Year that was 2006, I figure we're about due for a better 2007.

In Brief:

- Mom returned from Africa for emergency surgery - the particulars of which I will not detail here, as they are her particulars and not mine. That was the first wonky detail -- which was compounded by the fact that my parents are somewhat insane in their own right and decided to keep it something of a secret.

I cannot begin to clarify the numerous horrors involved in finding out a parent has returned unexpectedly from a foreign continent for a critical surgery that is taking place in one day and you had no idea because you were the last to know that said parent had already been in the country for a week. SO! Note to parents: I'm in enough therapy already, thankyouverymuch. It is stunts like that which pose a very real risk of emptying your grandchildren's college savings accounts to pay for mommy's psychiatric interventions. When things like this happen? Tell your kids. That's pretty much what family is for. Got it? Good. Glad we cleared that up.

- Next? The little brother, he is getting married. In about 10 days. Which means that I won't be able to fly out to be around for the festivities - not that I would actually be going to the wedding itself, as it is a Temple affair and I am an unwashed heathen who regularly defiles her eternal soul with Starbucks and Wired Magazine. But it would have been nice to be within a few hundred yards when my only younger sibling takes the plunge. But, ah. I digress.

- Across the street is a beautiful house, about twice the size of mine, that has been vacant since the most recent owners were evicted. They purchased the house last summer, lived in it for 3 or 4 months (during which time, apparently, they failed to make .. you know... mortgage payments) and then the bank quietly foreclosed. All of this is simply the preamble to state that the house has not exactly been as vacant as we believed, as it appears there are squatters making use of it with some frequency. I know this because we (the direct neighbors) have secured it no less than 3 times only to find it again open within a few days. The empty beer cans in the basement were a bit of a tip-off as well.

This would be the part where I try not to dwell too much on what connection this could have to the recent car break-ins in the neighborhood, and decide that maybe the 40 bucks a month for our ADT security system isn't a waste of resources after all. Especially considering the fact that the local Mayberry Deputies have assured us there is not a darn thing they can/would/are willing to do about this situation. The last hope is finding out which bank actually holds the title and attempting to encourage them to take measures of their own to secure the property.

The real tragedy of this? The house is spectacular. Hard wood floors, brand new paint and such... *sigh* perhaps I'm just bitter I didn't come up with the idea of squatting there first?

And on that note, dear friends, I am spent. So, happy holidays and happy new year and happy Wednesday, come to that. I'm here, I've just been dozing, and I'm full to the brim of stories to tell and musings on the vast spectrum of events in this mad existence. Stay tuned. It's gonna be a mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad year.