I know that green and red are traditional colors for the holiday season...I just wish it wasn't my leg that was decorated thusly.

It's nothing major, I'm sure, but it's totally screwing up my schedule for this week. I think it started with a little overstretching, which I've done before. But then I had this fight scene to do; nothing too complicated, but it involved a lot of flips and throws and, of course, one thing about stunt fighting is that you have to fall on just the same part of your body in just the same way a dozen or more times.

...and, unless it's in the script, you're not supposed to be limping while you do it.

On the plus side, I got my set moved to the beginning of the shoot, so at least I didn't have to stand around for too long. And I didn't really feel too bad afterwards.

It was the day after that when I started to feel bad.

I figure I should be back up to where I can at least do some biking in the next day or three, but for now I'm feeling like gnashing my teeth over it. It doesn't help that I'd planned to get more serious about the weights in my lower-body workouts right when this happened, and I've had to cancel out on a couple of acrobatics practice sessions that I really could have used.

Oh, well. I'll see how it feels after a few more days. In worst case, I guess I could take up pogostick drills for the new year, and I know I could stand to get a lot better doing one-legged squats.

I'd just prefer not to get too lopsided in the process.

It's one of those silent nights people sing about this time of year: there's a couple of inches of freshly-fallen snow and no wind or sound to speak of. Not that there's ever much traffic around here, but I think it's been over an hour since I last heard a car in the distance.

Despite the cold and the snow, my hair is still plastered onto my face and my clothes are wet and clingy with sweat.

It's possible that doing several sets of squats has had something to do with this. In fact, as I'm catching my breath typing this, I'm pretty sure there's a correlation here.

It's been a good day and a particularly thigh-intensive one, especially for a cold day in December. The day started out dark and overcast with the mountains disappearing into the beginnings of the snowstorm. So, naturally, I figured I'd better get any biking I planned to do in early, while the trails were still dry. It was a good day for riding, even if it never got much above freezing, and with half the day looking like it was just about to start snowing, I ended up riding quite a bit longer than I'd originally planned.

It felt good, despite the cold, except that once I did stop, it seemed like nothing wanted to move in any direction besides what they'd been doing for the past few hours. Riding was easy and felt natural, but all of a sudden, the whole "walking" concept wasn't working quite right and it took a moment to get all the parts moving the way they're supposed to for this particular operation.

That part was a little weird, but one thing you can count on when riding on a cold, December day: if you do something that looks silly out on the trails, there won't be anybody else around to notice how silly you look.

In between the biking and the squatting, the mail arrived, undeterred by the snow, just like the mail-deliverer's creed says. Nothing too exciting, but it did include other examples of holiday horrors you can get for your house. Today's winner of the "Holiday Horror" award comes from the store where Buzz Lightyear presumably buys his washcloths: "Bed, Bath, and Beyond!": Reindeer Card Holders, possibly the ugliest adaptation of that particular tundra-dwelling beast ever designed for household use. If I suddenly get hit with a torrent of incoming holiday cards that overwhelms my available shelf space, I'm sure I can invent some more palatable solution for card storage. (Involving LEGOs, perhaps; you can do anything with LEGOs.)

Fortunately, I don't have anyone on my Christmas list who deserves these. But in case you do, I'm sure Bed, Bath, and Beyond! still has some in stock. (Not that I've checked personally; I already have plenty of washcloths.)

...speaking of which, I think I'll go make use of one.

    ...or maybe a squeegee.

It must be that time of year again: one of my neighbors has managed to cover all of the trees and buildings on his lot with multi-colored lights and now has a giant inflatable teddy bear in his front yard. Somehow, I just haven't fully accepted the festive nature of giant inflatable things. Seems to me that some things--teddy bears, for example--really should stay smaller than an automobile. It doesn't help either that this particular inflatable teddy bear only seems to stay inflated about a third of the time; the rest of the day it's more like a giant plastic teddy-smear.

Personally, I think that if people are determined to celebrate every holiday these days with some giant, often deformed-looking, inflatable creature, it would make a lot more sense to have a Cthulhu Christmas this year. Just imagine the advantages: if the giant inflatable Nyarlhotep on your front lawn starts to sag a bit, it'll still look like Nyarlhotep. None of that worry about having a horrifying deformed bear-face flopping in the breeze and frightening the children--your inflatable Nyarlhotep will look just as horrifying no matter how deflated it gets between recharges!

Besides, Christmas sales and horror movies have a lot in common: screaming crowds trampling over the unlucky and unwary. I guess the biggest difference is that Cthulhu won't promise to save you a $29.95 DVD player when you get stomped on, whereas Wal-Mart will.

For some, no doubt, that makes it all worthwhile.

But Christmas is fast approaching and that means it's time to start tracking down those unusual and distinctive gifts for those unusual and distinctive people in your life.

Today's gift idea, perfect for that special someone whose bathroom already fills you with dread and horror, the Skull Head Toilet Brush Holder Normally, I don't recommend cleaning supplies as gifts, for much the same reason as I figure it can be a dangerous game to present a loved one (or soon-to-be-former-loved-one) with the gift of personal hygiene products, but in this case I'm sure it's something that could be put to good use. ...at least presuming that its recipient can still find it again once it's been placed in the aforementioned bathroom of terror.

Well, that's one gift down so far. Better make a list of who else's stockings I'd like to slip something into this year....