The Strangeness Continues

As I reported in Sunday's edition of Fermented Fur, something strange is going on. Recently, I have mysteriously found myself cleaning closets, and I ventured into Wal-Mart twice in one day, despite not having been there twice in the previous four to six months. Plus, I quit smoking 19 days ago, and I am eating everything in sight. I've developed a disturbingly intense relationship with Hostess Cupcakes. (Not those perverted Little Debbie's Creme-Filled Chocolate Cupcakes. That would be disgusting!)

I was getting nervous. But now... I'm outright terrified.

I was off work today, a fact that might be nearly irrelevant given the time I spent talking to the owner and two of our technicians... one of whom quit today. Oh, and let's not forget the "credit card terminal is broken and it's going to cost a ridiculous amount to take care of this" part of the program. Woo. Hoo. I had planned to sit on the Sofur (Don't act like you're surprised. We all know you're not.), crochet, read a bit, and maybe - maybe - pull everything off my bookcases, dust, and return the books in proper alphabetical and/or Dewey Decimal order. They've gotten a bit jumbled in recent months, and the library nerd in me is finding this to be a source of constant low-grade anxiety.

Instead, I decided I needed to make chili. As you know, I do not cook, yet I somehow have the savant-like ability to throw together an incredible pot of soup or chili. The catch is that no matter how much or little I try to make, it always ends up exactly filling my giant 9-quart stock pot. That's a lot of soup for two people.

So. On my day off, I got dressed, put on makeup (and a bra), and drove to SuperTarget... which I am aware costs marginally more than Wal-Mart, but it's closer, and makes me slightly less homicidal. I got tomato juice, tomato paste, Ro-Tel tomatoes, Hunt's diced tomatoes with chili seasoning, Bush's mild chili beans, a can of organic chili beans which also included black beans, chili seasoning, ground beef, ground buffalo, onion... I think that's it. Oh, wait, I also got some of these:

(How is it possible that I was unaware of these cookies until today? It says "Australia's Favorite Cookie." Aussie readers... is this true? And if so, why did you not inform me, given my recent lust for all things chocolate? I'm deeply disappointed.)

I also got pickles. But that was the end of the semi-normal part of this out-of-character trip to the store on my day off to buy ingredients to make something more or less from scratch. (Wow, when you look at it that way, there's nothing even semi-normal about any of that. Yet it gets worse. Much, much worse.)

I strolled back to the book section. Because... well, if you can't figure that out on your own, there's really no hope. I thought maybe I'd grab the John Sandford book that Tom has been wanting, and for which my name has not yet come up on the library's reserve list. Oddly, Target - which is a Minnesota-based corporation - does not have bestselling author John Sandford's books... and he lives in freakin' St. Paul. I smell some sort of publisher-vs-retail outlet feud, but the point is that I could not get the book.

But this all led me past the holiday department.

And they had these cute clear plastic star-shaped boxes of sparkly little ornaments. Ooooh... glitter.

I bought them. Along with ornament hooks and some sparkly-star garland.

(It's the multi-colored set. Some were shiny glass, some matte-frosted glass... and one half of the box was alllllll glittery ones.)

I honestly have no idea what came over me.

I came home and got the chili cookin', as well as fielding a couple more work-disaster-related calls... and then I ventured down to the Closet Under The Stairs where my 18" pre-lit fake Christmas tree lives. And I carried it upstairs.

Instead of just plopping it on top of the book case (It can't go in the bay window... not since Brody and Darwin moved in.), I actually took every old ornament off, along with the crystal-icicle garland. And I re-decorated it. From scratch. Using not only all but a couple of my old ornaments, but every one of the new SuperTarget ones. I did end up using my crystal icicle garland, because the little sparkly-silver-star one was kind of crappy.

I vow not to even bother with the stupid little tree every year. Then about a week before Christmas I cave, and spend all of four minutes getting it out and plugging it in. Here it is, a full 22 days till Christmas... and I have a tree up. Yes, it's 18" high. Yes, it's fake. Yes, it's still accompanied by my (much-beloved) Grinch and Max figures. But it's there.

(Ho-Ho-What-The-Hell???)

(Kind of lame picture of my favorite ornament. Drunk mousey on a Christmas-tree-shaped wine rack. That is so many kinds of awesome.)

There is something very, very wrong here, boys and girls. After my post on Sunday, Merely Me suggested this might all be a cleverly nefarious plot instigated by my husband. He gets clean closets, home-cooked meals, and some semblance of holiday cheer. Since the odds of this occurring naturally are essentially zero, he must be up to something. He's putting something in my relaxing adult beverages, perhaps. He's spiking my Hostess Cupcakes. I have to figure out how he's managing this, and put a stop to it immediately.

Unless, of course, today's slip into holiday-land had something to do with Target. They might (or might not) be piping some sort of holiday hallucinogens through the ventilation system. There could be subliminal messages in the store's sound system. "You feel overwhelmed with the holiday spirit... you will buy many, many presents... you will buy festive decorations with which to adorn your home... oh, and you need some of those Pepperidge Farm Tim Tams. They are Australia's Favorite Cookie."

Either way, this is not occurring naturally. I'm sure of that. I need to get to the bottom of this - and soon - or I'm going to start buying tinfoil-lined hats.

Oh, and I forgot to mention. I'm also "baking." Sort of. Technically I have frozen bread dough (two kinds) rising in a warm oven. I couldn't figure out why the loaf wasn't rising, concluded it could be because it's probably been in my freezer for a couple of years, and got a package of Texas roll dough out. I'm currently waiting to see if either of them will rise enough to bake before Tom goes home.

So, I'm going to go check on that... and eat some more chili.