Marley Was Dead, or, It's Christmas Eve

And in a desperate attempt to make the title of this blog vaguely resemble reality, I'm going to make as many posts as I can before the end of the year.

So - if anybody would like to know what I would like for Christmas, here goes.

1. Someone to put air in my tires.
2. Someone to show me how to get the lid off the new water softener so I can set the controls.
3. Someone to hold a ladder so I can clean the high addition windows and
4. Someone to ditto so I can clean the gutters which haven't been touched for a year and a half and are probably about to fall off because they are completely choked with pine needles.

However, as me and Barbra know, people who need people are the luckiest people in the world and I am not complaining, simply making my wishes known.

Pluto Sextile Mars Exact

It is of course nothing but a coincidence that also on this day when I need to clean up this house and make it presentable for airbnb guests on Boxing Day Mars is sextiling natal Pluto for me, which at least explains why I found myself taking out the ironing board at five o'clock yesterday afternoon and ironing pillowcases.

It also happens to be the day that progressed Mercury meets the progressed Sun in the second house, and if I dare to assume that the woman who saw my FaceBook post on "RECYCLE: Grant County" about the memory foam for $25 actually comes to pick it up that will take care of that one nicely.

So I could list all the things I would like to do and all the things that I have to do and at the end of the day see how many of them got done, but as both of those are very very long lists I shall be better served by simply getting out of bed - O MBA, thou art my downfall - and getting going.

More later.

Progressed Mercury Conjunct Progressed Sun in Second

So this perfects tomorrow and yesterday I spent the whole day in bed playing Lexulous with two different people simultaneously.

In my defense, although I am shameless about this and don't really think I need one, there was a winter storm with wind and rain and snow, I've over-estimated the time my car can go without an oil change and when I start the ignition the low oil warning comes on and I was not about to drive to JiffyLube under yesterday's road conditions and now that I've moved myself into the Tiny Back Room it seems ridiculous and extravagant to use and heat and roam around in the other rooms of the house, especially seeing as how I've been buying myself Christmas presents since Thanksgiving and had to turn my head when I saw my credit card statement for the month.

The latter part of the above paragraph, however, has not deterred me from buying myself a copy of Dame Edith Sitwell's English Eccentrics from alibris before beginning this one, the end result of a google search for a dimly remembered quote from said dame along the lines of everyone needing to spend one day a week in bed and, I suppose, yet another manifestation of P Mercury (buying and selling) conjunct P Sun (me) in the Second (money).

I did not find the quote.

Pluto Sextile Mars

Well, the bathroom sink pop-up drain thing being too big problem is solved. I showed it to the installers of the water softener and one of them whittled it down for me so it fits down the drain hole, so the chopping board - which has been in the bathroom sink for three weeks to remind me not to turn the water on - is back in the kitchen and the toothbrush and toothpaste are back in the bathroom.

The water softener is installed but as the proud owner I have to input the settings myself, which means I have to find the results of the water testing I had done at the Mimbres Health Fair a couple of months ago. Good luck with that.

The kittens have been gone for a week. Admittedly they have not been mentioned before on here as I've been so remiss about posting, but they are gone and Good Girl - also not mentioned before - is as happy as is possible for her to be while Pretty Boy George is around. (That little saga may or may not be documented on here one day under the heading "Cats I Have Known Recently," or "Saturn in the Sixth.")

The ceramic wall heater has arrived and I need to attach it to the wall in the Tiny Back Room so I can call Delgado and have them come and take out the wall furnace, but as Home Depot, for reasons unknown to me until I call, has cancelled the order for the mirrored bi-fold doors which will go on the front of the closet the removed wall furnace will make room for there isn't really much rush on that.

The 80lbs of kitty litter delivered by Amazon by mistake has finally made it into the living room from the front porch.

In three days I've managed to pack and ship one of the three boxes I'm mailing for Christmas, and yesterday, in a burst of energy, five Christmas cards got written and I'll take them to the post office today.

There's a lot more, but that's all that comes to mind immediately, other than Onward and Upward and Little by Slow.

Mars Square Saturn

OK, so I read astrodienst's interpretation of this and remember it was this aspect that prompted me to start this blog - well, not this one exactly but its predecessor with a slightly more optimistic name - and knowing that I need to drive into town remind myself that I have to go very very slowly and very very cautiously.

Now the day before - Monday - with Mars conjunct Neptune, I did manage to pack up one of the three boxes I'm sending for the festive holiday season before deciding I wasn't going to part with a precious packet of digestive biscuits and opening and eating every single biscuit before retiring to bed to work my way through a second viewing of every season of The Wire.

Not much to do with Neptune there, but the installers did show up with the new water softener before realizing they didn't have the right parts and taking off again, telling me they'd be back the next day, the Mars square Saturn day, and that was the reason I had to go into town to buy salt, one of my favorite things to do, lug 40lb plastic bags around and dream of MetroCards.

So - and if I could only make myself write this every day this boring boring exposition wouldn't be needed -  I decided to be very purposeful and print the label for the one box I did manage to pack up, reminding myself that when I got in the car I would be very very cautious.

OK - remember user name for USPS site, print label, cut out label, take label into kitchen to tape on to box, look at label, realize - because this had happened once before when I was shipping twelve boxes back here from Cambridge and got to the post office with them to be told bar code hadn't printed - that, yes indeed, no bar code on the label, take a deep deep breath, remember what post office service assistant told me on the phone when it happened before, go back to computer, save label as a PDF, print label, bar code prints, tape correct label to box and marvel yet again at the completely unexplainable way that jolly old As Above, So Below continues to work itself out.

Progressed Mercury Conjunct Sun in Second House

 By now I'm resigned to the fact this doesn't mean I keyboard my little fingers away writing the next Broadway hit but does mean I play about ten simultaneous games of Lexulous every night with B and D, taking a break from watching The Wire for a second time because of all I missed on the first go-around every time I hear the little ping that means an email's come in.

The aspect perfects, I think, on 12/23, and I already had airbnb bookings for 12/26 - 27 and January 2 - 3, Mercury proving yet again that among the many things it/he? represents business is high on the list.

Last night, at 11:30, watching The Wire and playing Lexulous, I got a little ping and lo and behold, there's another request for a two-night stay 12/29 and 30. It's beginning to look a lot like me being Mrs. Mopp for the holidays.

Jupiter Square Sun

Oh boy, my kingdom for a packet of digestive biscuits and this every day. That Christmas is only ten days away sunk into my head with a vengeance and I spent hours rummaging through closets trying to find all the stuff I've been amassing all year, unearthing several forgotten treasures and making piles on the dining room table to go into the flat rate boxes.

I've been thinking about my  brilliant idea of going through fifty years' worth of photographs and sending most of them to the person pictured, and yesterday I began the project in earnest. The coffee table is now covered with envelopes with photos sticking out so I know who they're going to and just as soon as I find the Christmas cards I can get going on that.

In the meantime, it's get the boxes packed and shipped, and the minute I get out of bed I'll start on that, but first I have to go and read the Daily Mail. If I do decide to make a new year resolution I think a good one would be to stay out of bed once I get up in the morning and not return there with my cup of coffee and MacBook Air. My *productivity* would probably rise by about 50%.

Pluto Sextile Mars

astrodienst calls this "On a grand scale" and I suppose it's because natal Pluto is in the Fourth that each of the three times (with one more to go next year) it's happened there's been some kind of home-related *circumstance* going on.

Last February I was back in Cambridge shivering inside the locker at Public Storage where the remnants of my New York apartment were costing me $50 a month trying to figure out exactly what those remnants were.

When it happened the second time in June I was back in Cambridge again (I mean, you gotta love this stuff), taking most of it to a thrift shop, having some of it stored by a friend and boxing the rest of it up and shipping it to myself in Silver, thereby saving myself $50 a month.

So here we go with exact transit number three and a new water softener is being installed tomorrow, Eric came and picked up most of the chicken coop yesterday and I need to call him and make sure he's coming back for the rest, I've got two little easy chairs in the addition that has been there since 2002 so I ought to stop calling it the addition that need furniture to match, any day now I'm going to finish painting the little corner thing I've bought and stripping the 1940s phone table/seat thing I got in March and will repaint the kitchen ceiling, a few other minor details in there that I can't even remember and on the grandest scale of all, there's going to be a closet in the little back room so I will have somewhere to hang clothes on this side of the house and will have successfully moved myself into the square footage of what was the original house that we bought in 2002.

I do wonder if, when this transit strikes for one more time in September 2014, I'll sell the house and move into a single-wide so I can recreate the railroad flat I had in New York. Anything is possible.

Mercury Sextile Neptune

Might this explain why this is the day I chose to try to replace the pop-up drain thing in the sink? Mercury (hands) and Neptune (water)? Probably not, as wouldn't a sextile give some chance of success, which it didn't, because after I spent half an hour crouched on the bathroom floor watching videos on YouTube on how to do what I was doing and was feeling so extraordinarily proud of myself, the replacement drain assembly thing I bought from Ace to replace the old one WOULDN'T  FIT DOWN THE PLUG HOLE AND WAS A MILLIMETER TOO SMALL AARRGGGHH!!!!!

However, none of the above is of any importance because since - never mind, I can't upload the image. Will figure out how and continue. Tomorrow.