Dismantling Christmas

I started taking violin lessons two weeks ago as there is a teacher here again. I sound like the beginner I am and I get really, really nervous over the whole thing which is ridiculous since I'm not being graded and will NEVER perform in front of an audience of anyone but my cats. My ulcer is acting up again and I can feel the acid start running the minute I pick up that instrument. I took some stomach acid reducers and they made me break out in an itchy rash all over my body. I am persevering anyhow between scratches because I want to be able to at least graduate beyond "Go Tell Aunt Rhodie" by March. Right now Aunt Rhodie is damn sick of me being such a tattletale and she can't stand to hear what I'm saying anyway. Miss Emma runs and hides in the closet when I play and the other cats hide out in Neal's room. I don't think my playing is THAT bad. But I was wondering--are bows still strung with cat gut and could my cats possibly know?

All good things must come to an end and so we have been dismantling Christmas here at Happy House. We took down the tree three nights ago and put away ornaments and took down the other few decorations we had up. However, 2/3 of the tree is still lying on the floor because we can't find the place where it should be pulled apart. Old eyes and dark house with not enough light. We have just left it lying there until we can see better, maybe later on today when we aren't rushing off here and there during the daylight. Very attractive. The cats find it intriguing. Hopefully they won't pee on it. I can just see it shorting out next year when we plug it in.

In all the tidying furor, I broke the flame off the candle of one of my wooden Santas. I thought I could leave it but when I looked really hard at it, painted white with simulated candle wax dripping down the sides, I decided, no, that way it looked too much like a used dildo, so I glued the candle flame back on with super glue. Writing that phrase just now was a lot easier than the real thing. First I glued a couple of fingers together, and then I got those unstuck and glued two other ones together, and then I glued my fingernail to my finger and somehow my palm to itself. How do I function in life anyway? Maybe this explains my violin playing. Then I tried to get the glue off my hand with nail polish remover because that's supposed to work. Except if it's me. Then the cotton ball stuck to the re-moistened glue that was on my palm so it appeared I was foaming at the hand. Of course, I had just minutes before I had to be, yes, at violin lessons. Remnants of glue remain on my fingers even this afternoon but I'm assuming that they will wash away with time. Or flake off into the broccoli I'm preparing for dinner.

Must go now. It's time to put decorations away in the attic rafters which means crawling into a dark space meant for someone the size of, oh, a Welsh Corgi, which is not anywhere on the spectrum of size where I am located, as you well know. I did buy a stick up light and batteries to go in it, so I will attempt to attach that to the sloping ceiling before crawing in. Since I had lots of practice attaching things yesterday I should be able to accomplish this task and get on with it. If I'm not successful, my husband will be back at 4 and can take the little light off my back where it may have fallen and stuck.