The police came to my house last night at 11pm.

Okay, so it was only one policeman, and his dog. There are two cops--both in the K9 unit--who workout at the same gym I do, and in casual conversation I'd told them that I'd recently moved to the area and that I worked weird-ass hours. Well, on Monday, one of them told me that he'd driven past my house (I'd mentioned the street I live on, and since there are only three houses on my street it probably wasn't hard for him to figure out which was mine, especially since he knew what kind of car I drive) around 10pm the previous night, and that he was half-tempted to knock on the door and wake me up. I muttered some dark imprecations about people who wake me up, and so they asked me when I usually got up.

"Ten thirty," I replied, "though I usually hit the snooze til almost 11."

So why was I totally not surprised when there was a heavy knock on my door the next night? It was the other one this time, and he tried to insist that my alarm system was going off--until I told him that it wasn't connected yet. So, I got to meet his dog--90 pounds of German Shepherd--and then he (the cop, not the dog) came in for a cup of coffee. (It was Darn Cold last night, and with the dog in the car they can't run the heater.) He stayed long enough to finish his coffee and then I kicked him out so that I could get ready for work. It's very comforting to know, though, that I do have friends in the sherrif's department who will swing by my house every now and then, even if all they do is drive by.

Okay, I admit it, I finally succumbed to xmas. I actually went out and bought a $12 3-foot fake tree, and even bought lights and ornaments to put on it. My boss shamed me into it. I'd decided earlier to forego doing a tree and other xmas stuff this year, since I couldn't see spending a bunch of money on tree and lights and miscellania for xmas decorations that only I would see. "But it's your first Christmas in your new house," Steve said. "Even if you just get a little dinky tree from Walgreens, at least in later years you can look back on the little tree you had for your first Christmas there." Steve is absolutely overflowing in Christmas Spirit. It's almost strange to see nowadays, when most people are pretty darn cynical about it. So, I grudgingly admitted that I should probably go ahead and do a tree this year. And it actually didn't turn out too bad. I'll take some pics of it, and hopefully finish off this roll.