Is it Christmas Eve or Friday Friday Round-Up

It didn’t occur to me until after we switched off “It’s a Wonderful Life” to watch episode 6 of Season 5 of Shetland that this was Friday. Shetland is a terrific mystery series set on a wee isle in the Scottish Shetland Islands where there are very few people but an extraordinary number of very complex murder cases. Because every time I get an update on my genetic analysis from Ancestry, I’m told I’m more Scottish than the time before, I am quite taken with Shetland. However, I wouldn’t move there now or even visit because it’s obviously such a dangerous, if remote, place.

Speaking of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” we watch it every year but I’ve about had it with George Bailey being so rough with Mary. I know he’s distressed and all about the savings and loan but the guy needs to dial it down. And Mary, she needs to stop being okay with George’s behavior like he gets to get hysterical while she keeps the home fires burning. I’d rather watch murder on the Shetland Islands.

Tonight, I posted on Facebook that this was the 39th Christmas that my husband and I have spent together and a colleague, a colleague, commented that it was her 39th Christmas. After that, I wanted to go in the closet and haul out the very scratchy pink knit scarf he bought me that Christmas which, of course, I still own but never wear, but it seemed too ludicrous for words that I have scarves older than colleagues.

I am a person who once put a kid’s bicycle together by myself on Christmas Eve. It was a nightmare. I didn’t have the right tools. The instructions were indecipherable, and I used Vaseline instead of proper axle grease or whatever the hell you call it. But I did it. It’s a secret badge of honor. When I walk down the street, know that I see you, fellow Christmas Eve bike assemblers, and celebrate your unfathomable bravery.

This isn’t what I expected but I couldn’t have a better life. We went to a small fruit market this afternoon to buy a lemon. We needed the lemon to squeeze on scallops we’d gotten sent to us from Alaska which had been waiting in the freezer for Christmas Eve. When we got home, we discovered that we already had three lemons. There are a lot of lemons around here. We’ll find a use for all of them.