‘Twas the day after Christmas

By: 
Lisa Ingebrand, LRnews@frontiernet.net

My teenager almost wrote this column for me.

Almost.

Thirteen-year-old Anna did agree to help me out, but then, she received a text from a friend… and I lost her.

She was actually excited to finally share her “version” of Ingebrand family life in this space (after having me write about her for so many years), but she IS a teen and catching up with her best friend after Christmas tops helping me do my job.

So, you get me, again.

It’s the day after Christmas, and I have writer’s block.

My husband and I spent most of the afternoon working on a 2,000-piece puzzle. It’s not yet completed. I think he’s still working on it, but I had to leave the table because he started tapping. He started tapping each piece that he correctly placed THREE times.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

I don’t think he knew he was doing it, at first.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

So, I started doing it.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Then, he took notice and began tapping with flair.

Because we’re ridiculous, it snowballed into a crazy puzzle competition with a whole lot of tapping. It was fun, but it got to be a bit too much for me after about 10 minutes.

So, now, I’m sitting in our chilly unfinished basement watching 10-year-old Ellen make slime.

Whoever sold slime, slime-making kits, and sparkly slime accessories made a boatload of money this season. I don’t understand the obsession with the gooey stuff, but Ellen—and all of her 5th grade friends—love it.

I guess that makes me old. Anna did call me “lame” on Christmas morning because I got excited about my new oven mitts Santa brought me. Combine that with my new vacuum, my new battery operated toothbrush, and my new under-eye collagen mask set... and, yes, I’m officially (and happily) “lame.”

And now, I hear clicking.

Click. Click. Click.

Anna must have completed her text conversation with her friend because the clicks are coming from the new cat training kit she received for Christmas. We have three cats, so there’s a lot of clicking.

Surprisingly, our 17-year old old kitty “Grandpa Rocky” is showing the most hope for learning anything. He quickly figured out that a click means that he gets a treat.

Our other two 4-year-old doofus cats might fail kitty school. They just don’t get it.

It’s actually pretty hilarious to watch Anna lead the “click = treat” lesson over and over and over. Anna is way more patient than I. She actually read the entire Cat School manual before holding the first kitty class in the kitchen. The three felines sit there in a semicircle, completely confused, while she waves a wand/clicker thing and passes out treats.

Anna’s goal is to train at least ONE of our cats to give her “knucks” on command, which would be pretty cute. However, all three of our cats will probably get too darn fat to perform any trick by the time they figure out what they are supposed to be doing.

Uh oh. A big bucket of slime just hit the floor.

There’s glitter involved in the mess, which means it’s time for me to wrap-up this column and assist Ellen in the clean-up so John’s blood pressure won’t hit dangerous levels. He banned glitter from the house years ago, but the Super Duper Slime Kit that Ellen received from Santa was stocked with a BUNCH of inciting glitter.

Shhhhh… It will be our little sparkly Christmas secret from the puzzle tapper.

Maybe the glitter ban will have to be reinstated in 2023. Maybe.

Happy New Year to you and your family!

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