A Christmas tree, some Crosby, B. and a splash of Jameson in my tea

I took that photo yesterday but a cold front is roaring through Austin AS WE SPEAK so by tomorrow all those lovely leaves are likely to be gone, baby, gone. Which is just as well. It's always weirded me out that it doesn't really start looking like fall here until December, if ever, and in December it's supposed to be WINTER in the Northern Hemisphere, not fall. Stupid Texas.

Our Christmas trees, all two of them, are up but the big one fell over Sunday night, OMG. I was asleep when this happened but I am assured by those present that the dog was the victim and not the perpetrator in this incident. Putting the tree back up meant undecorating it and taking it completely apart first (it's an artificial tree; we're all allergic to real trees) and fiddling with the broken legs on the stand and putting it into a stand meant for a REAL tree instead and now it's up again but OMG, you guys, it is the wonkiest tree that ever wonked. It is so bent and crooked now, I had to load all the heavy ornaments on one side for counterbalance and it's kind of a miracle it hasn't fallen over again. Yet.

This is going to be kind of a rambly and haphazardly punctuated post, in case you couldn't tell. I just ate a bunch of chia seeds! I am SO HIGH AWAKE RIGHT NOW.

Have you been watching all those crappy Christmas shows on Lifetime/Hallmark/UP/etc.? They are kind of dumb. I saw one a couple of weeks ago where Lea Thompson was playing a mother figure (not actually a mother, though she did end up marrying the dad)(SPOILER) to Danica McKellar's character and you guys, that is not right. Danica McKellar's character was like 30 and the end of that movie, and Lea Thompson is only ... in her early fifties, OMG. Damn you, IMDB, for making Lea Thompson and me feel old.

(Incidentally, favorite Christmas movie ever: White Christmas. When they sing to their old Army general at the end, I cry EVERY TIME. Least favorite: Holiday Inn. A blackface routine on Lincoln's birthday, WTF? I know it was a different time and all that, but I just can't, y'all.)

I haven't made any Christmas cookies/treats yet, but I've been drinking plenty of coconut milk eggnog. Boy, howdy.

Hey, let's talk about books! I've been looking over my Goodreads list to see which books I liked in 2013, because my memory is like a sieve that's been gored by a herd of longhorns, and apparently I gave the following books five out of five stars:

• Mark Sisson's The Primal Blueprint and The Primal Connection, both of which I read in January right after I went primal/paleo. Loved them both. They go way beyond diet into more of a mindset/lifestyle kind of thing and I dunno, they spoke to me.
• Hugh Howey's Wool Omnibus and the first and third Shift books. (I only gave the second Shift book four stars. No idea why.) I love this dystopian post-apocalyptic series so much, though I should tell you that I recently tried to read the final book, Dust, and could not get into it AT ALL. I'll read it eventually but man, it's boring. For the first third, anyway.
• Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple. I'll always associate this book with airports and motel rooms since I read it while traveling to/from Ohio for my grandpa's funeral in February, but oh, it is so good. Loved it.
• Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I read this back in March, mostly in bed while nursing a UTI-induced Very High Fever, and I haven't seen the movie but I'm pretty sure I don't need to because I totally hallucinated every scene from this book all over my bedroom. (Did I mention I just ate a bunch of chia seeds? How are these things available over the counter without a prescription? LIFE IS SO BEAUTIFUL, YOU GUYS.)
• Wheat Belly by William Davis. Life-changing. Davis is a cardiologist and I've got a lot of heart wonkiness in my family. I was already 95% off wheat when I read it but I'm even MORE off it now.
• A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny. This was the fourth book in a series that I love about a police chief inspector in Canada. Reading the sixth one now, Bury Your Dead, and loving it. I only gave the fifth book four stars, though. NO. IDEA. WHY.
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. I had never read this before. Loved it. I can't say it was a happy read but there was a sweetness about it. Along with all the poverty and cruelty and racism and whatnot.
• The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin. This one almost cut a little too close to home, and I found the ending perhaps OVERLY happy (spoiler!), but I loved the main character so much.
• The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. The praise for this book is well-deserved. Excellent characters and a beautiful, heartbreaking story. This has "movie adaptation" written all over it, which is not a bad thing.
• Horns by Joe Hill. I freaking love Joe Hill. This book broke my heart in the best possible way.
• Grain Brain by David Perlmutter. In the vein of Wheat Belly, but written by a neurologist and focused on brain/neurological health -- Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Multiple Sclerosis -- all of which P has in his family. Again, life-changing.
• I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. This was my Halloween read this year. SO SO MUCH better than that stupid movie with Will Smith. Genuinely creepy/scary and grim. I wish I'd never seen that movie now. I'm kind of angry that it even exists.
• The Great Cholesterol Myth by Jonny Bowden and Stephen Sinatra. The overly sensationalistic title of this book is unfortunate, because it has a TON of great information about lipoproteins and how they function. I read this right after I'd gotten the results of my yearly physical, complete with lipid profile, and it really helped me understand what those numbers meant as far as what was actually happening in my body.

Yep, that's it so far, five-star-book-wise. I had a bunch of four-star books but you don't have all day to read my book reviews, right? Right.

And this post is long enough to make up for not posting in November, right? Okay. Good. I'm off to run a marathon or visit a methadone clinic or something. Next post: My Uterus, the Lining Thereof, and Why I Ablated It. You won't want to miss that one! Or you might VERY MUCH want to miss that one. I leave it up to you.