In the Christmas Spirit

Here are the lyrics to one of my son's favorite Christmas songs (probably because Miss Piggy sings it to him):

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat
Please put a penny in the old man's hat
If you haven't got a penny, then a ha'penny will do
If you haven't got a ha'penny, then God bless you...God bless you.

Actually, now that I think of it, this is one of my favorite songs. Unfortunately, I can't give you the tune that you would sing it to, but it's the type of song that gets stuck in your head pretty quickly.

My foibles

I've often been amazed at the foibles that we all have, and I thought it would be interesting to list a couple of mine for future posterity (if I ever become President, I'll disavow all knowledge of these, of course). Here they are, in no particular order...

1. I love to read, and usually have two or three books on my bedside table, however, I cannot read a book from the library. I usually chalk this up to feeling like the due date is putting me on an artificial schedule
2. If, when I am putting leftovers away after dinner, I am called upon to cover a dish with plastic wrap, I must make certain that there are no creases in the plastic. I have been know to take more time making sure that the the plastic is perfectly flat and tightly sealed than I did eating the meal in the first place.
3. On the occasion that I wear a button down shirt, and if that shirt has cuffs with two button holes, I must have both cuffs button in the equivalent hole of the other sleeve...this may seem particularly strange, however, it can cause problems. As I wear a watch on my left wrist, I usually want to button that cuff so that it is looser, but that makes the right cuff much too loose. If I button the right cuff so that it is comfortable, the left cuff is too tight on my watch-enhanced wrist...this is one of my biggest foibles, and I'm still not sure how to solve it other than to get a job that doesn't require button down shirts.
4. I just recently realized how much I like uniformity. Not in all things, but in some very strange and unpredictable places. The cuff buttoning is one example, but another example that just recently came to my attention is in my Microsoft Outlook scheduler. This is the default mail and scheduling client for the university where I work, and so, I have been using it for a while. This scheduler allows you to invite other people to meetings, at which point you are able to see if they have the time free or open (you aren't able to see what they have planned, only if the time is available). After receiving an invitation, the person is asked to accept or decline the invite. Until they accept the invite, it is outlined in pale blue, after it is accepted, it becomes outlined in dark blue (which is the standard for all other scheduled events). I have recently had a couple of invitations sent to me which I did not immediately accept. I've found the difference in light blue and dark blue outline really bothers me...so much that I've had to go back and retroactively accept invitations, even if the event has passed...

Anyway, those are a couple of my foibles...I hope that I don't sound too nutty, especially as I believe that everyone has equally nutty foibles of their own. These, after all, as Robin Williams said in Good Will Hunting, are the things that each of us miss when the people we love are gone...