Christmas

Christmas was a lot of fun. Mom kept me tied up inside cleaning before Aunt Sue and Uncle George came, so I didn't notice dad putting in a fence around the "garden shed". When Aunt Sue and Uncle George came, surprise! They had brought me a goat and two geese! The goat is a female kid, and still should have milk. The geese are older goslings. Six pets in six months! Actually seven, if you count Fuzzy-Doo.

Every year before this year I left out cookies and milk for Santa, but this year I did not. This is why: dogs aren't supposed to have chocolate and all the cookies we have are chocolate-chip. Instead, I left a note that explained why I couldn't leave out cookies and milk and asking him to help himself to some, and to please, please, please, not touch Aunt Sue's pecan pie.

Santa brought me a big pack of tic tacks, some lip gloss, other little things, and Harry Potter 6! I haven't seen it yet, but we have all the rest, so why on earth would we not get this one? I've read all the books, and I love them, but they probably messed something up really badly.

Mom got a microwave. I'm glad I won't have to melt butter on the stove anymore. Dad got a replacement of his long-lost pocketknife, and I got another nerf sword. I was able to beat dad in a fencing match. Also, I got a 10-gallon tank for Forty-Niner. I'm glad I did. He could barely swim in his old 1-gallon tank.

Dinner was great. We had ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potato biscuits, green beans, and pecan pie for dessert. I can hardly remember a year without pecan pie. The last few years when we lived in California, I was able to compare Aunt Sue's pie to the store-bought kind that we had. Aunt Sue definitely makes the best.

Aunt Sue and Uncle George went back to the farm this morning. I think I had better walk Blackie now.

The Christmas Pageant

Today we had the church Christmas play. The pageant was basically your ordinary Christmas play. The littlest kids were sheep or stars. Older kids were shepherds or kings. Everyone else was an angel. You probably understand the basic way it it went, so I will only give a few of the parts that made the mom-in-charge go crazy. The sheep were wearing black socks on their hands and feet and thought it was fun to go sliding down the hardwood isle of the sanctuary. One of the angels tried blowing their gold poster board horn. All you could hear was a weird buzzing sound and then a magnified voice saying "This doesn't work very well!" It was a lot of fun.

"The Golden Mask"

Today we had the performances of "The Golden Mask", our class play. We had a performance at 2:30 for all the kids, and we had a performance at 4:00 for the parents. Now I'm going to say how it went.

1. All the actors went to the bathrooms to change into our under-costume-clothes. To keep from freezing, we all had brought a bathrobe that we wore until we went on stage.

2. All the actors stood in line for our costumes.

3. I finally get to the front of the line. I get the tube dress wrapped around, the headdress put on and the necklace on.

4. I go over to a little table sitting in the backstage room and someone else puts green eyeshadow, black eyebrow pencil, and red lipstick on me. Yikes!

5. I wait for it to be time for the play to begin.

6. The play. I won't talk about it because it was really boring.

7. We go back to the classroom to get out of our monkeysuits.

8. Repeat.

After the 4:00 performance for the parents, we went home. We got to keep our costumes. It was fun, but I'm glad it's over.

The Dress Rehearsal

Today was the dress rehearsal of the school play. It was chaotic. First we all changed into our under-costume clothes (for me, a camisole and short leggings). Then we stood in line for a long time for our costumes to get our costumes. It took a long time to get to the front of the line because most of the costumes look alike and any last minute adjustments had to be made. Finally the curtain went up on the first scene. The only person watching was our teacher. Until the last scene everything went okay. The mummy climbed into the vacuum box that was painted to look like a sarcophagus, and the two boys standing right by the sarcophagus slammed the lid shut. No problem. But when it came time to push the mummy off stage, the two boys standing there couldn’t do it. There were supposed to be three boys standing by the box, but one was sick and wasn’t at school. Finally, despite what the script said, Sohphie had to come and help push the box off stage. I hope the performance tomorrow will go better.

This is odd

Something weird is going on. Dad is working on building a “garden shed” and “firewood holder”. He’s already finished the firewood holder, but it seems awfully far from the house. As for the garden shed, he says we’ll need it in spring, but why not build it then, when it’s warm and sunny? And why in the world is Dad building a fence around the shed?

The Christmas Tree

We got the Christmas tree today! It’s a real one. After we decorated it we drank hot cocoa and ate some of the sugar cookies I made. I played my flute a little. It’s not a real flute, not all shiny and with keys, it’s just one my dad helped me make out of PVC pipe. Aunt Sue and Uncle George are coming for Christmas.

Forty-Niners, not Forty-Niners

On Monday we got an assignment. We had to write a paper about a family member or pet. We had to turn it in on Friday (today), complete with with photo. I chose to write about Forty-Niner, my goldfish. The hardest part was taking a picture of him-- he would zip into the plants whenever he saw the camera. This morning we read our papers in front of the class. No one understood about his name, though. Last year I did a bunch of “California History” and learned all about the california gold rush forty-niners. But this was Iowa, and I was the only one who knew a ton of california history. Some of the boys knew who the forty-niners were, though. We had an interesting conversation during recess. Here is how it went.

Boy: “I didn’t know you liked football.”

Me: “What?”

Boy: “You sure must like football if you named your goldfish after a football team.”

Me: “Forty-Niner?!? I named him after the forty-niners, not some dumb football team!”

Boy: “That’s what I said, you named him after the San Francisco forty-niners, the football team.”

So I ended up explaining about who the forty-niners really were. I wish I’d written about Blackie instead.

Snow Day

No school today because of the snow, but I did learn how to do some new things. I learned how to build a fire and how to make hot cocoa from scratch. I'm planning to write my letter to Santa today. I guess I'd better let Blackie out. Last time I let her out she wanted to come right back in. I don't blame her-- I wouldn't want to go out there anyway.

All Mixed Up

Today I mixed up my lines in the rehearsal for the Christmas pageant. The mom-in-charge said that she didn't care if we sort of forgot our lines, but she really wanted us to talk with feeling. Well, right after Gabriel (Allie) told me I was going to have baby Jesus, I started to say my lines. I said them with perfect feeling, but they were the wrong ones! I said, "O Isis, I shall grant you anything you wish if you shall take away this horror!" Everyone burst out laughing, including me. The mom-in-charge wasn't mad, but once the laughing had died down, she asked "Where did that come from?" I had to explain about the school play. I promised myself that I would practice my lines for fifteen minutes every day after school.

What a Bad Day!

I had a very bad day today. I slept too late and when I went to get dressed all I had clean was a short-sleeved T-shirt and a skort. No leggings. I at least had knee socks to wear with my T-strap mary janes, but there was an cold gap between where my skort stopped and the place where my knee socks began. I had to wear a sweater.

When I got home Mom told me to walk Blackie, so I did. When I let her inside, she bounded upstairs. I didn't worry about her until I heard a crash. Mom and I raced upstairs to find that Blackie had knocked Shimmer's fishbowl off my desk. Shimmer wasn't hurt, but her fishbowl had smashed into a gazzilion little pieces. It was chaos, trying to get curious Blackie out of my room so she wouldn't cut her paw or eat Shimmer, and taking Shimmer and her three biggest rocks out of my room and putting her into the bathroom sink. We ran down to Walmart to get another fishbowl for Shimmer. Mom says aluminum foil keeps dogs from jumping on furniture, so now we have so much foil lying around that our house looks like the tin woodman's castle (see The Road To Oz) . I'm still cold.

A Disastrous Rehearsal

Today we worked on the school play. We practiced on the real stage, not our classroom. A lot of people forgot their lines and when they were supposed to say them. When the person with news came and I called "Scribe!", the water jug person that had been missing came on. After Mr. News had left, in fact in the next scene, where I was playing senet and wondering what I should do, the scribe came in when I called for the priestess to bring me the sistrum. The priestess came in when I was calling upon Isis (without the sistrum). Isis was right behind the priestess and tripped on her costume and toppled into the priestess. It took so long to calm everyone down that by the time the chaos stopped, it was time to get back to regular work.