“Evil Christmas Cat with Santa” by rkleine is licensed with CC BY-NC 2.0.

Only six days in, and we’ve already got nearly 100 reported casualties, LDBCers. It’s grim. No question about that. But last year, there were twice as many by this time, so maybe the quarantine lifestyle is an impediment to The Boy after all.

Which doesn’t mean he’s not on the hunt, mind you. Why, just ask poor Emily S., who checked in with this summary of her downfall.

2020 has already been such a flaming dumpster fire that I had a premonition of going out early, but I’m still disappointed that I (technically) did it to myself.

Just made dinner for the bickering kids, who’ve been on the longest school vacation ever, clocking in at 8.5 months. Eeeeeeeeight and a haaaaaalf moooooonths these children have been home with me. Everyone’s heartily sick of Thanksgiving leftovers. They’d been fighting all day over whose turn it was to play Breath of the Wild. (My house is in a heretofore undocumented bend in the space-time continuum where the person currently playing has both been playing “all day” and “just started,” and digital kitchen timers do not function properly, mysteriously going off “too soon.” NASA, hook me up with some research money.)

I just wanted some peace and seasonal joy while I watched them eat four-day-old turkey and dressing and monitored for early signs of salmonella poisoning. I turned on the old kitchen TV to the cable company’s version of Christmas satellite radio: Music Choice’s Sounds of the Seasons. By the dinner table’s second chorus of, “Mine is cold, and the reprise of, “This tastes funny,” I heard the unmistakeable notes. Sharon and the Dap-Kings had kicked me while I was down.

Single parenting = hard.

Single parenting & working from home during a pandemic = really, really hard.

Single parenting & working from home during a pandemic with LDB in the background = intolerable.

Everyone has their breaking point, and this was mine. Plates were scraped into the trash, pizza delivery was called, and a kitchen dance party was held as we embraced the seasonal suck. Sharon’s version isn’t half bad, but I’ll relay my prescient 13-year-old’s comments as wisdom from the mouths of babes: “Pizza makes everything better, and I like the David Bowie one where he sings with that other guy best.”

So do I, kiddo. So do I.

With the help of dancing and pizza, we’ll get through this.

Happy holidays, LDBCers.

Indeed we will get through this, Emily. We always do.

Well, except for these folks pictured below.

For Rigdzin!

LDBC-Elfies: Tragedy Captured

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