In which the Christmas cheer has escaped me

Well, hell. Christmas is NEXT WEEK (Saturday?) and you would so not be able to tell that it was that close if you saw my house.

And you probably won't be able to tell on the day, either.

They've been working on our apartment building, which, if you remember from past experience with us, means chaos and destruction. Why we end up living in places that they then tear up around us will be a mystery I can never solve. At least, this time, there will be visible results of the work, as it is a renovation of this beautiful old building and not a retrofit of a badly built new one. So far the stairs in the building are completely stripped, from floor to ceiling, including rails. The windows are out, covered in plastic. There's scaffolding on the building. The roof is being replaced. And the old chimneys are being fixed as well, and guess who ended up with a hole in the wall so they could explore the chimney flue? So random people are running up and around our apartment building at all times, knocking on the door so they can peer yet again up the chimney, tearing holes in the wall and then restucco-ing and repainting. It's a mess up in here. Furniture and stuff scattered all around and stucco dust everywhere, even though they try to clean regularly.

So no Christmas stuff up because we kind of can't because workers keep having to come in to tear stuff down.

Then last night, Rich sprained the shit out of his ankle on the way back from the pub. (The fact he was drunk was a blessing and a curse: he might not have sprained it had he not been drinking but he sure felt no pain and was oddly pleasant when he got home, like "Gee, lookee there, that's kinda swollen, in'it?"). So today, instead of cleaning the apartment and getting a semblance of Christmas cheer going, with him as my Lovely Assistant getting stuff out of the cellar, we are going to the legevakt (weekend/all hours doctor) to make sure he's not too badly injured. This may also put the kibosh on our trip to Spain next week. Guess I should mention it is snowing like crazy outside?

And next week at work is going to be busy, even though my two direct bosses are gone on holiday, I have to do some other stuff for the Big Boss which will take a lot of research and thinking. I was gonna try to bunk off a day or so, but now it seems like maybe not.

So, can someone send me some Christmas cheer, please? I'm running out of time and don't see how I'm gonna get mine up and sparkling!