You think you're serious about the holidays? You have not met the people of Saugus, Massachusetts. This is for St. Patrick's Day (and, if you look closely enough, for someone's birthday, as well). I don't know if anywhere but the Boston area celebrates St. Patrick's Day like we do. Of course, nobody's as adamant as these folks. This whole section of Saugus is insane at Christmastime, as you might imagine.

Laurie (the better photographer) just sent me this picture in response to my picture. She got closer to the same house this December. As she says, "You can't be timid and be a photographer!" Truly insane about the holidays, Saugus people are. But yet so full of holiday (ANY holiday, apparently) cheer.

Today, I was very grown-up.

Considering I'm 36 years old, this shouldn't be as momentous as it is, but I never see myself as a grownup. In my head, I'm still 22 years old, trying to figure things out. However, having a 22 year old's credit rating, housing situation, and job isn't quite as attractive as one might think, so I've been trying to at least act like a grownup in some ways.

Today, it was mostly about finances. I've been disappointed with AT&T Wireless since I got their offer of a phone, but since I had crap for credit, I kept with them. When they merged with Cingular, I thought I'd get better reception, but it was not so. I have more dropped calls than a tunnel worker.

Laurie has Verizon, and she has great reception, so I went to the mall today and checked out what they had for plans. For exactly the same price I'm paying now, I get the same number of minutes, and I won't ever be charged for calling her from my phone (the plan is called "In," I believe).

I walked into the store, and when the greeter asked me if she could help me, I said, "I'm in the mood to change carriers. I'm willing to go with a 2-year plan. What great phone deals do you have for me?"

Immediately, a sales rep showed up and started talking to me. She pointed out an utterly cool phone that cost me (after mail-in rebate, of course), $16.99. It takes pictures, and has great ring tones, and is very thin and cute and I love it to death.

What I thought was so grown-up about this decision is that I thought it through, weighed the pros and cons, decided to go for Laurie's carrier (which she likes a lot), and was very forthright with the sales staff. Usually, I have a phobia about sales staff, but this was much more fun. I felt like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. Except that I'm not a pretty woman. Or a prostitute. Or with Richard Gere on my arm. So not very much like Pretty Woman at all.

But I have a new phone with unlimited calls to Laurie! Very grown-up.

Another word for "grownup" is "adult." Did you know I live in the most "adult" town north of Boston? You have to have proof of age just to ride down this particular street, because just beyond S&M Liqors...

...is Daddy's Donuts! I swear, all we need is Ye Olde Leather Shoppe, and we could hold BearFest 2005 right in the center of town.

The second grownup thing I did today was much more significant.

After listening to Laurie's thoughts on Suze Orman, I went to her website, as well as the Motley Fool website and other places that talk about credit, debt, and buying houses.

The thing I got out of all of these things is that, while a little bit of credit is good (especially revolving credit paid on-time), too much debt is a bad thing.

I don't have very much debt except my car loan. I made the mistake of leasing, and when I realized that the repairs to the car (after a few fender-benders that weren't my fault) and my mileage overage charges would cost more than the car itself, I decided to buy it. I leased the car in 1998, and completed the paperwork to buy it in 2003. As of today, I had another two years to go, paying about $240 each month for a car that I had already paid for at least once over.

So...I called the loan company and asked for a payoff amount. I knew I had that in the bank (much more than that in the bank, but I've been saving it for the down payment on the house), but I was considering investing the amount I paid for the car in a short-term CD or something.

However, the money I'd make from a CD (or even really good stock trades) in the time that I would be paying for the car wouldn't be as much as I paid out for the car in interest, so I'd actually be losing money. Just spreading it out over time, which sounds like a good idea, but in the end, has the same net effect.

So I got the payoff number, wrote the check (the largest single check I've written since I finished my final semester of college), and hopped over to the post office to certify, track and otherwise make sure that letter got to the loan company on time.

I can't wait to get the title. With this one check (which really doesn't bite into my savings that much), I have wiped the debt slate clean, save for a few credit cards I can pay off with my next paycheck.

Debt-free. Entirely. It's an amazing concept. I didn't have much debt to begin with, but to think that every paycheck can be dropped into savings (with the exception of my nominal rent to Mom and whatever I "pay myself" for the period) is truly freeing.

I own a car, outright, for the first time in eight years. (Well, as soon as the check clears.) This means that it'll probably break down the moment I get the title in the mail, but it'll be my wreck, not something owned by the bank.

Something Very Much Not Adult is the movie I'm watching. It's on SciFi, and it's all Laurie's fault that I'm seeing it at all (I usually keep the TV on a music channel when I update). She's been looking forward to it all week. It's called MANSQUITO, and the title tells the entire story. Man, due to a freak accident, becomes giant mosquito. Goes on killing spree. So far, Parker Lewis has to stop him. I have a half-hour left in this movie. I think I know how it'll end.

This is the expression I've been wearing all through MANSQUITO. I have decided to write a novel in which one of the characters is named Ms. Quito. She'll be a bloodsucker of some sort. Her nemesis will be Cal Amine.

Not-so-adult was my joy at the fact that we got to take half the day as a "snow day," even though the snow really never amounted to very much.

It started snowing in earnest around 3:00pm in Cambridge, and Tamra got very nervous about driving home in it. Since Dan had told me that I could make a judgement call about closing the office or not, I chose to send her and Laurie home, while I stuck around the office for a little longer. I sent out a "Please submit your documents quickly so we can work on them!" message to the firm, and after confirming the fact that the VP who never turns things in on-time would not be turning in something scheduled for today, I left for Laurie's apartment.

We worked from home (wireless is a wonderful thing), sitting on her couch and chair, respectively, with cats surrounding us. A very bad Dean Cain movie was on TV while we nudged pixels, and it was kind of warm (for me), so I decided that we needed to go out to dinner, rather than cook, as we'd planned.

We went to Bertucci's, where we had the best waiter in a long time, even though he appeared totally stoned throughout our meal. He was attentive and pontificated on the idea of "good service" while we scarfed down heaps of pasta. I had scallops and linguine in a cream/tomato sauce, which was utterly delicious. I wish I liked more kinds of seafood, because all the interesting dishes seem to include fish of some sort.

After we got back from dinner, I told Laurie that I wanted to scoot out of there so that I could scrape down the driveway before it all became one huge sheet of ice. I went home and did just that.

Not much new with Mom, though I passed on an idea about a potential living situation (involving an addition to the house, but not a typical "in-law apartment" as we'd discussed before) in which she expressed some interest. I'm really rallying to buy this house.

After all, that's what grownups do, isn't it?