I am pleased to report that I am no longer oozing.

Yes, my body has decided that oozing is pass� and it seems to be throwing all its attention to the wonderful experience that is scabbing.

I know this because I am spending inordinate amounts of time in my daughter's bathroom studying my buttal region.

I cannot believe this is a healthy thing.

I think the last time I spent this much time in the bathroom studying myself would probably be my teen years, or as I fondly think of them, The Bad Hair Decade.

Ah, the 1960's. The Beach Boys were singing about Bob-Bob-Bob-Bob-Bob-Ra-Ann when I first realized that I was never going to have 1960's hair. Back in that portion of the 1960's, we would be talking about big, bouffant hair carefully lacquered into a helmet.

Hairspray made my eyes swell shut.

While I was perfectly willing to use a seeing eye dog if it meant Good Hair, oddly enough my parents were against the whole thing.

I know.

I'm still scarred by Their Insensitivity To My Needs.

After the bouffant craze died, fashion went into the opposite direction and cascades of long, perfectly straight hair with bangs cut down into the middle of your eyes became the fashion. Think early Cher and You Have The Look.

My hair is naturally curly.

Thus, I used to iron my hair.

I will just give you a moment to let the whole lunacy of THAT sink in.

Yes, I used to take a large, flat, hot metal thing normally used on clothing and run it continuously over my hair.

Did I mention that I grew up in southwestern Ontario? Southwestern Ontario is completely surrounded by the Great Lakes. In the summer it not only gets very hot, it gets insanely humid.

So, I would subject my hair to a good half hour of ironing, getting my bangs to that state of perfection that pretty much meant that I was only seeing the lower half of my normal field of vision, walk out of the door, and two seconds later my hair would SPROING back into its naturally curly state.

I am living proof that That Which Does Not Kill Us Makes Us Stronger.

Speaking of That Which Does Not Kill Us Makes Us Stronger, today is the final day of the horror which is Christmas shopping. Yes, in a few hours I will be home and my daughter will no longer have to be Mom's Buttal Region Florence Nightingale.

Yep, starting tonight the spousal unit will shoulder the heavy burden and start tending my lizard-shaped scab for me until it heals.

Ain't marriage grand?

--Marn

P.S.--If you're doing any of your Christmas shopping at Amazon this year, why not do it through Blue Sphere? Five per cent of what you spend will be donated by Amazon to Blue Sphere, and will be given to the Foster Parents Plan of Canada.

Yep, you get to make a large corporation cough up five per cent of its profits AND at no cost to yourself you get to help some poor kids out. What's not to love about that, eh?

NEWSFLASH! Now you get the chance at Canuckistani Hot Chocolate for getting the word out about Blue Sphere. Post a link and you're in the contest. Whatcha waiting for? Huh? HUH?