Recap: Furry alarmclocks are the best ones

Rose woke me up at around six this morning by poking me in the face with her paw, repeatedly and with her claws out. After fifteen minutes of alternating between shooing her off (which meant a return of the pointy-toed kitty in less than a minute) and ignoring her (which meant continue to suffer through the poking) I got up and fed her. Which temporarily took care of the problem. Note the word "temporarily." By seven thirty I've given up on sleeping completely and who knows, Rose might force me into scheduling my days yet.

It's getting very Christmasy around here. It's also getting very final-y, but we're not going to talk about that. There're enough people wailing about it that instead I'll talk about the Christmas tree in downtown Davis and the lights draped over the bushes. I'll talk about the group of carolers--a group of five guys all dressed in white shirts and black slacks, that I saw next to the town's tree last weekend, and the gingerbread-house-building workshops that're happening both last and this Saturday at Safeway. I'll mention the lights in the windo of the little shop called Aesop's Story House and the star-shaped lights that have been in the sushi shop two blocks down from us ever since September. I'll admit to sitting in the semi-dark for half an hour with a cup of hot chocolate and a purring cat, staring at the lighted Christmas tree until I nearly fell asleep.

And if I talk about it enough, think about it enough, maybe these will be the things I'll remember for the last two weeks of fall quarter. Maybe I'll remember the way the lights gleamed off of the ornaments instead of Ciudad Juarez in Mexico and the story behind its nickname as the City of Lost Girls. Maybe I'll remember the way Rose runs up to me each night when I come home instead of the desk in the library where I sat down one day to discover "fuck Asians" inscribed on the tabletop, and remember the professor's lectures on modern day racial discrimination and how it's repeated all over the world. If I tried hard enough maybe I will think of the smell of cinnamon and the sound of Christmas songs in the stores and not think too much about the Salvation Army volunteers standing in front of each store. And if I tried really, really hard maybe I'll think "holidays are here" instead of "holidays are here and America's still at war" or "there's still a hushed up genocide occuring at Darfur."

I can. And maybe I will, even.

At least for the holidays.

But don't worry, I'll take responsibilities for the past and the present. I'll probably have to, within a year, I expect.