What exactly is it that makes Mondays so crappy?  I spent the majority of my time on the lunatic-filled, ridiculously slow, sour-smelling bus this morning contemplating just that.  While I didn’t come up with a definitive answer, I did narrow it down to a few possibilities, which I will ponder later.  Is it the fact that the weekend is over, compounded by the knowledge that I wasted most of it?  (Again?)  Is it the nearly overwhelming banality of another week staring me in the face?  Is it the bad vibes coming from everybody else around me, also despising the start of their week?  Those are just a few of the most likely culprits I came up with.  All I have to do is figure out which one on my list of 15 is the actual cause, remedy it, and BOOM, no more crappy Mondays.  Boy oh boy, what a wonderful world it will be then.  Until the official announcement of said problem resolution, please refrain from antagonizing me on Monday, and at least the first half of Tuesday.

The weekend started out solid enough.  It may have been one of those frequent scenarios where I hit it too hard, too early.  I had Friday off, burning the last of my excess vacation time, so my weekend technically started Thursday night.  Our friends from the Brooksider had assembled their annual bunch of merry Christmas Carolers, so we headed down there for happy hour to watch them perform.  They are a quite… errr… “festive” bunch of singers.  Yeah, festive;  And nothing if not energetic.  After their traditional opening performance at the ‘Sider, they always head out and grace a select few lucky homes and businesses with their unique style of entertainment.  I was supposed to go with them this year, in the capacity of “videographer,” but I bailed out.  Donette took my place behind the camera, and I headed home to take care of Gabe.  He seemed a little antsy, so we bundled up and walked up the street to Waldo and caught one of the group’s later performances.  Festive.

Saturday, after spending the afternoon running various errands, we again found ourselves at the Brooksider for their annual Christmas party.  It’s an event always worth showing up for, and I think this year was particularly solid.  They put out all kinds of food and assorted goodies, compliments of the house.  We got there early, about 3:00, and enjoyed several plates of just about everything.  We made it until about 4:00, when all the riff-raff started filtering in, then we bailed out.  For evening entertainment, we headed over to the home of one of Donette’s co-workers, for our second Christmas party of the day.  More good food, more merriment, etc.  Since it was actually hosted in the boundaries of our usual geographic circle, we even stayed quite a bit later than we normally would have.

Saturday we had yet another party, but this one of the birthday variety.  We crossed the street about noon for our buddy Graham’s big second birthday extravaganza.  He was in high spirits for the event;  Two-year-olds seem to enjoy such things.  All went well, maybe with the exception of his unfortunate decision to grab the (lit) candles off his cake.  Hey, live and learn, kid.  He bounced back from that quickly though, distracted by the absolute mountain of gifts.  After the birthday party we headed back home, where Martin was waiting to whip up a pot of gumbo.  He had amassed a pile of meat scraps over the last few weeks from various cooking escapades, so we gathered it all up and made a recipe of BBQ gumbo, so that he can take over the preparation at the American Royal next year.  That took up the remainder of the day…  We didn’t actually get to test it out until about 8:00.  Came out good, if I do say so myself.

Sunday doesn’t bear mention.  Donette woke up with some kind of flu-ish bug, and as for myself I just never got off the couch.  I made a turkey sandwich for lunch…  That’s about the extent of my Sunday entertainment.