Do I seem familiar?

Yeah, I know, it's been a long time since I was here. I was thinking about making it a full month, but by then some of you would probably think I'd died or something, and I have no intention of dying, literally or figuratively, this close to Christmas.

I've been working, both inside and out. My kitchen is damn near spotless, the rest of my house has moved up from "ewwww" to "ugh," I've made headway on the jungle of my yard, and I've turned in a proposal to my agent for a new book. (But not about Selena and Tony. Not even one to be published under my name. My alter-ego gets the credit this time. She's whiny about that.)

It's cold in Oklahoma these days. Not the bitter Jesus-it's-freaking-COLD-out-there. Just enough to make me uncomfortable everywhere I go. I dress in layers and still can't manage to stay warm. Every restaurant and store has its own discomfort zone, and it drives me nuts.

Robert and I went to the local Christmas parade Saturday evening. Sixty degrees and winds gusting hard enough to make it feel close to fifty. We sat on the curb in front of Walgreens at the official start and got the blast of sirens from two police cars, two fire engines (one with its Federal -- cool!) and a sheriff's vehicle. That was probably Robert's favorite part of the parade. If he could have a Federal on his car, he'd be one happy camper.

Rule of thumb for parades: if the eight kids beside you are obnoxious before the parade begins, they're going to be really obnoxious after it starts. I'd watched these brats running around, each with handfuls of empty Walgreen's bags, but it never clicked in my head what the bags were for: candy. They throw it from the floats; the people walking alongside the floats give it away by handsfuls. These kids didn't give a damn about the parade; all they wanted was the candy. They scrambled for it, they argued over it, they compared it, they fought for it, they begged for it, and when they ate it, they threw the wrappers on the ground. Guess they didn't want empty wrappers mixing with full ones. Jeez, I'd've given them ten bucks' candy to go away and quit raining on my parade.

Big disappointment: no Santa Claus!!! Granted, I haven't been to a local parade in at least fifteen years, but I remember all the years past: the parade always started with a marching band (and we had only two of those this time!!) and ended with Santa Claus on his sleigh, followed by a bunch of horses. (It's Oklahoma.) (And the horses were followed by a pooper scooper.) This year there was no big Santa on his sleigh, and I don't think there were more than six or eight horses in the whole thing.

And note to whoever did the entry order: it's generally not a good idea to put a skittish horse in front of an antique fire engine whose driver insists on blowing his antique siren periodically. Poor horse's eyes were about to pop out of his head.

No Christmas decorating done yet. We've got a huge artificial tree -- remember, the last time we tried a live tree, the dogs thought they'd gotten indoor plumbing -- and it's a hassle to get out of its corner of the garage and into the house. It weighs about a ton and having to get it up on top of our old dining table is a major effort (it goes on the table because of dogs), and then Robert has to tie it securely to the table. (Again, dogs.) Then I have to spend hours going up and down the ladder decorating it, twisting the hooks around the branches because of . . . sigh, the dogs. Every time I try to get started, I think about all the hassle and sit down again to rest. I'm thinking maybe I need smaller trees this year.

Who knows? I may hang my rusted barbed wire wreath and be done with it. Rachel8:45 AM