… It wasn’t me, that’s for sure!

They say time flies when you’re having fun.

Apparently it also flies when you have so many responsibilities putting a vice grip on your skull that your eyeballs are in danger of popping out.

Of course, I’m sure that magical time when I will have magnificently fulfilled all of my responsibilities and am able to spend all my time cuddling in a cozy blanket with a warm cup of tea and surveying the wickedly-organized serenity that will characterize every aspect of my life from my sock drawer to my day planner is just around the corner, right?

RIGHT?

Ah, well. I have a vague notion that all of this is good for me, somehow. And by “all of this” I guess I mean “life,” because I honestly do not expect it to get any less hectic. But we’ll see.

• Cockroaches.
• Cats.
• Flying Squirrels.
• Owls.
• Moths.
• Tree Frogs.
• Skunks.
• Me.

Readjusting to a school-like schedule has not been easy.

2:00 am is a perfectly reasonable time to eat dinner, don’t you think?

Why, you may ask?

Is it because I got a few new articles of clothing with my Christmas money?

Is it because I shot a wedding all by my self (successfully, I might add!)?

Is it because there lies ahead of me a crisp, brand new, fresh year?

Is it because all my friendlings are returning for school?

Well, the answer is… yes, yes, yes, and yes.

But this is why I’m REALLY excited:

That’s right… my very own pocket-size Weekly Moleskine 2007 Calendar.

I’ve had it since the beginning of November. But now I can start using it.

*SWOON *

Tonight at work I had the distinct pleasure of meeting a very well-spoken woman.

I discovered this fact about her as I was ringing up some dog paraphernalia she was purchasing. She informed me that the dogs on the cards and ornaments she was buying were called Westies. “I have a Westie at home,” she said, “and she’s very aunry.”

I stopped and stared.

“What did you just say?”

“She’s very aunry.”

I still remember the day I discovered the controversy surrounding the word ‘ornery’. I must have been only nine or ten, sitting hunched over my little Performa, furiously tapping away at some undoubtedly eloquent prose.

That’s when it happened: I tried to call someone or something in whatever I was writing ‘aunry.’ I was usually good at spelling, but for some reason I could not call to mind the spelling of this word. I suddenly realized that I had never actually seen it in print. I knew exactly what it meant—stubborn, willful, unpleasant—because I had been called ‘aunry’ by somebody at least once every day for the first seven years of my existence—but I hadn’t the foggiest idea how to spell it.

I figured I would be able to sound it out phonetically. I tried ‘aunry’, ‘onry’, ‘aunrie’, ‘onrie’, each attempt looking more ridiculous than the one before. After several minutes of quiet consternation, I finally asked my mom, the resident expert on the English language, how it was spelled.

“ORNERY?” I exclaimed, sounding out the strange syllables after she showed me the word in the dictionary. How could a word pronounced ‘aunry’ be spelled ‘ORNERY’? This did not make any sense to my ten-year-old brain.

But growing older (and hopefully wiser) means coming to terms with the fact that your own family’s idiosyncrasies are not the only way to do things. Alternatively, it means coming to terms with the fact that everyone in the world except your family does things wrong. I chose the latter route.

Ever since that fateful discovery I have refused to succumb to my friends’ insidious suggestion that ‘ornery’ might actually be pronounced just like it is spelled. I am not sure where my family picked up ‘aunry’—I can only assume it is southern in origin—but now that I have grown up with it I WILL NOT BE TURNED.

So you can imagine my joy this evening, while standing behind the cash register of the anonymous retail location employing me, when that wonderful woman up and said “AUNRY.” Oh, that wonderful woman, and her wonderful, aunry, aunry Westie. I felt like I was facing a long lost relative. Stars danced in front of my eyes, somewhere a band of fiddles struck up, and I reached across the counter and embraced her as I squealed, “Auntie May, you’ve come HOME!”

Just kidding. Actually, I just kind of stood there staring at her until we both felt awkward and then I finally sputtered “You… you say that word right!”

She laughed politely, then turned equally politely away from the counter and started looking at more merchandise, obviously unwilling to acknowledge the fact that there was any other way to say that word. My kind of woman.

I reluctantly continued ringing up and bagging her merchandise, all notions of bringing her back to the farm to bake pies with us slowly slipping from my mind.

But I will always remember her—the woman who proved once and for all how the word ‘ornery’ is correctly pronounced. And don’t any of you try to tell me any different.

My long-time friend Hope made me this lovely garment for Christmas:

Freakin’ Sweet.

(A Christmas post is a’comin. In the meantime, Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope that Santa brought you exactly what you wanted, or if he didn’t that you take this opportunity to build some good, solid character out of the whole experience.)