The Nutcracker, and its Unexpected Finale.

Oh, Lordie Be, as Heather would say.  I have been woefully lazy for the past two weeks.

Or have I?

Mostly I've been working on my Christmas spirit: decorating, planning, shopping, advent calendaring, and then keeping up with all the other non-holiday minutia that gobbles away at my time like the Cut the Rope Om Nom guy crunching up his candy.  Although a better metaphor might be something about my plans to be productive sadly failing, like the candy dropping swiftly out of sight while Om Nom looks all pathetic and dejected.  Speaking of which, Marley and I have been playing Cut the Rope on Todd's iPhone, and she's addicted, and I have more to say about that, but not now.  And then, I broke down and broke the bank (sort of) and got an iPhone myself.  And that's the other thing that's kept me busy.

But way back when, the weekend of Thanksgiving, Todd and I took Marley to the Nutcracker, and that pipsqueak wore her cutest fancy dress yet, purchased late on Black Friday, at an overstaffed Target where I was asked about a dozen times whether I needed help finding anything.

Actually, that dress is sort of like Marley's grand finale, because after years of insisting that she won't wear pants and especially not jeans, she's had an unexpected reversal and now wears jeans almost every day.  I'm sure it has something to do with her kindergarten pals, and of course, growing up in general.  But my fancy friend Marley looks different now, and even though her everyday ensembles consisting of party dresses and skirts that were more like tutus made me bananas, I also loved them because Marley was insistent on them and that's who she was.

I mean, I knew what I had, but now I really know what I had, because I think that Marley is gone.  Sigh.