Atten: Office of Humbug

Forget cognitive dissonance.  How about cognitive lock-up.  Like they say on the space shows, “I’m trying sir, but the computer’s all locked up.”  Or frozen?  Do they say frozen?  Or jammed.  Any of those.  That’s where I am: cognitive freeze.  What’s wrong with people in administrative offices?  If you could have seen this letter I got from the property tax people today, you’d go hit your head against a wall.  Okay, my fault for expecting the credit union to actually send my taxes out the day I asked them to.  One day late, and these people slap a penalty on me?  Who woulda thought? This is the same branch of government that makes tortoises look like Mazeratis when they have to get anything done.

(Here comes the part where I ask the question that always flummoxes me: wasn’t part of the whole American thing in the first place, right to own property?  Own it – as in, not rent it from the state.  Safe from governmental seizure ((as if the government isn’t always in the middle of some kind of seizure)).  Not subject to the butt-in-ski assessment and crooked eyebrows of some county toady?)

But I took a chance mailing that late, and it bit me.  Fine.  It’s just this LETTER they sent out.  I read it even upside down and could not tell what the devil they were trying to tell me—except I knew that, in the end, it was going to cost me money.  When you have one column that says “cumulative taxes” and then gives an amount and then a last column that says “total paid” and gives the same amount, what exactly about that information makes it clear that you have NOT paid enough?

And when your insurance company – AIG, to be exact – sends you a letter the very next day requesting MORE money than the incredible yearly premium you have just paid them, and including all kinds of numbers and amounts that don’t seem to bear any relation to the relationship you’ve been enjoying with the company for the last five years – necessitating several ibuprophen and a very long wait on “hold”—and culminating, finally, in the admission of a clerical error?

Whose idea was it, anyway, to end the fiscal year before a nation’s Christmas trees have even hit the sidewalks?  There’s got to be a better way to run things.

Don’t these people know it’s Christmas?  Don’t they realize that people haven’t even decorated their trees yet?  That the house is a mess and all the things that are usually blissfully in place and ready by December second haven’t even been taken out of their boxes?  Am I the only one in this state of disarray?  I am NEVER in disarray at Christmas (happy chaos, yes).  NEVER.

This is an actual photograph of me, drawn by the Chaz: a study in consternation.  I hate years when I decide in November that I’m going to make quilts for each kid for Christmas.  But I haven’t even done that this year.  Here you see me surrounded by a symbolic cacophony of tissue paper and ribbon, trying – I suppose- to make up for the hours this year spent on booking my family history, hours that are usually devoted to noticing what month it is.

I am not cooking treats this year.  I am not getting out at least thirty percent of my beloved yuletide things, and those that are out – no, that WILL be out (will they?) have only been out maybe three minutes.  My tree is embarrassed.  I am embattled.  And I don’t even know why.  I have decided not to go out to get any more mail.  I want to hear from no more offices.  I don’t know they expect anybody in the country to afford to pay them what they want anyway.

I think we all need a nap.

So here are some pictures: what we found yesterday in the morning when we woke up.  It was daaaaark.  And it was cooooooold.  And now, I’m going to go get down that box of ornaments (the ones we cannot live without) and that little pile of stuff to wrap, and maybe finish those last couple of little present project guys.  And then feed the horses, and clean up the living room, and get the secret boxes ready  – please, at this point, do not talk to me about money of ANY kind.

Goin’ down to feed the ponies

All that snow and ice on your back – 

it’s kinda heavy

so you gotta get it off somehow.

Zi was just too darn cold even to roll.

You see the ice that forms on every strand of mane and forelock.

And ear tips and eyelashes.

You eat your hay, and then your little horse engine inside starts to kick over – then you get hot enough to melt the snow on your coat—which freezes over again, soon as the digestion is complete.  Ah, to live in the great outdoors!

This is the day before.  A light dusting.  Evidently not enough to bother sleeping dogs.

This dog certainly isn’t bothered.  Except maybe at the violation of his privacy.

This dog is happy.

The front porch, part Christmas, part mess.  All us.

Not my official Christmas message—but close.

Let’s just say, a fervent cry of hope.