Another day on the merry go round of life...

And yet another snowstorm on the way... this time they're calling for one of EPIC proportions... and lasting three days to boot. Just what I wanted-to ring in the New Year shoveling snow. Tonight it is chilly, well, freezing actually. Supposedly going to get to 20 below, I've got a comforter in hand, and am seriously thinking of making a hot toddy. Nothing like one of those to warm up your veins and get the blood pumping.

Right now my possessed cat is sleeping, I say possessed because that cat has been running through the house for days now, chasing imaginary string or something. I left some paperwork on my bed this morning and came home at 1 to work on it, and my cat had it strewn all over the bed! Believe it or not there was a fly in the house today. Icy cold outdoors and one lone, solitary fly came from who knows where and was buzzing around my bathroom. I have never seen a fly this late in the year, and I knew better than to tell my mom. I knew it would get her started.

And I did. And she did. See, my mom HATES flies. When my dad was alive he loved to have the windows open. And naturally flies would come in. My mom would spend the better part of the afternoon getting some exercise chasing them around the house with a fly swatter. My possessed cat Stubby even lived with my dad, and if I tell him to "Get the bibit" (French slang for bug) he starts searching walls, ceilings and windows looking for insects.

My dad knew how much my mom hated those flies. And he loved to aggravate the hell out of her. I secretly think he liked watching her run around the house all afternoon swatting flies. It gave him time to watch CNN in peace and swear loudly whenever former President Bush would come on-while chain smoking his cigarettes that would ultimately cost him his life.

When he got sick, Mom would tell him if he ever came back and was re-incarnated, never to come back as a fly because he would be a DEAD fly. When he died on Valentine's Day it was hard on all of us, but more so on my mom. Not long thereafter she began telling me the stories: she'd seen a fly land on the shelf in the grocery store just as she was reaching down to get her soda pop, she was planting flowers for Memorial Day and a fly sat on the headstone teasing her, flies started appearing on her window screens and in her car, etc... so naturally when I told her that a fly had shown up in this cold weather and was on the bathroom wall she figured it was my dad who'd come to wish us a Merry Christmas.

When I came home from work my son told me about the fly, and how he'd hit it dead on-and it didn't die. We tried coaxing Stubby into going after it, but he just raised his head and looked at us, he'd had a hard afternoon messing up all my papers and was exhausted. I guess it could have been my dad coming by to say hello for the holidays-but he won't be sticking around for the New Year. My son finally hit the target this evening, and he's gone on to that big strip of fly paper in the sky.

Goodnight Guy, we love you and miss you where ever you are :)