Kitchen Sink

Ooh! Tomcat's parents gave us iPods for Christmas! The first thing I downloaded? LIVE AT LEEDS, Deluxe Edition. Best live album ever. Definitive My Generation. Serious Magic Bus. Shakin' All Over. Young Man Blues. Raw, pure, back when Keith Moon and John "Thunderfingers" Entwhistle were still alive. Great banter between Pete and Keith. Deluxe edition includes the "new" rock opera, Tommy. Best ever "Sparks."

Check it out, here , also here (for a bit about the follow-up Live at Leeds II).

---------------------------------------------------

A man ahead of his time: J. Edgar (Who needs habeas corpus?) Hoover, who wanted to round up 12,000 Americans shortly after the Korean War began.
Check it out, here.


---------------------------------------------------

From the Fundies Say the Darndest Things department, we learn:

There are four main religions in this country that are engaged in a holy war against Christianity. The number one religion, The Abortion Charismatics.The abortion religion in truth has as its foundation the worshipping of anti-submission to men. These death Stalinists use accusations of oppression as their guardian while marching on, putting the sword to the enemy, the trespassing fetus. Conversly, The Bible advises us to choose life and states that those who side with death are with the devil.

Religion number two, The Orthodox Homosexuals. The homosexual hit squad, they worship immoral sex and preach its acceptance with a formidable vigor. The religion of orgasms, just as long as you partake with someone of the same gender.

Religion number three, The Pentecostal Environmentalists. They worship myths and have as their god mother nature. This includes the global warming cash cow. They worship animals, the same animals God instructed us to subdue in Genesis. They worship the earth, the same earth God advises us in the Bible not to love due to the fact that it is fallen and ruled by Satan.

And the forth religion, The United Church of Envy. The religion of envy has as its decree welfare, social programs of all kinds, and higher taxes. It wishes to crucify anyone who is successful. The wealth of others is condemned. They fiercely seek conversion, not conversion of souls...conversion of other people?s money - to themselves. This faction is represented by Poverty Pastors from all status levels in society.

The Mega Church of Liberalism houses all these religions. They are extremely tolerant of any religion so long as its not that of the true God. Their enemy is not Satan as in Christianity, but their common enemy is in fact Christ. Hence the unity among the various religions.Their strategy is to incrementally replace Christianity with their false gods and religions of idolatry. At the same time they are attempting to diminish the credibility of God of the Bible and of Christianity.

---------------------------------------------------

And finally, here's "my" Cranberry Chutney recipe, from Cooking Light Magazine:

Cranberry Chutney

Ingredients

1 cup chopped Granny Smith apple
1 cup raisins
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup sugar
1 cup white vinegar
3/4 cup chopped celery
3/4 cup water
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 (12-ounce) bag fresh or frozen cranberries

Preparation

Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer, uncovered, 30 minutes or until slightly thick, stirring occasionally. Serve with turkey, chicken, roast pork, or ham.

Note: Refrigerate remaining chutney.

Yield

4 cups (serving size: 1/4 cup)

------------------------------------------------

For your weekend perusal

To get into that Christmas spirit, I like to peruse the Cavalcade of Bad Nativities over at GoingJesus, a website run by the marvelously witty Sarah, former church lady secretary, divinity student, and now full-time mom and web geek. Enjoy!

Original Cavalcade of Bad Nativities

Second Cavalcade of Bad Nativities

Current Cavalcade of Bad Nativities


(Check the Current Cavalcade often - she adds a new bad nativity every day during Advent.)

I don't get it (as usual)

Why is this called "Black Friday?" It's the day after Thanksgiving, and apparently lots of insane people queue up in front of the shopping malls at oh-dark-thirty to do their Christmas shopping. Shouldn't it be called "Green Friday?" Is it called "Black Friday" because the retailers hope to be in the black by the end of the day, as opposed to the red? What?

When did they start calling it Black Friday, anyway? Did they call it that last year? I don't remember it if they did. Is this a new term, or was I just not paying attention until this year? Help me out here.

Are you one of those insane interesting people who braved the stores this morning to shop? If so, please tell me why. I really want to know what that's like from your perspective. I'm not a morning person. I'm not a crowds-of-people person, either. So, from my perspective this would be the absolute worst day to get out there and shop, no matter how much money I might "save."

Is it the thrill of the hunt? The blood? What?
________________________________________

Reality check

I got a catalog from Mary Maxim Needlework and Crafts, touting Over 400 New Items! plus 21 Pages of Exciting Christmas Crafts! There was a time when this would have set my lil ole heart to pitt-a-patting, but today? Not so much. No, it isn't because I'm now an atheist and therefore the Christmas holiday hasn't the same meaning it once did. I still "do" the holidays. It's just that my interests are changing. No, no - that's not it, either. It's that ... I've had to narrow my interests down to what can actually be accomplished in Real Life. (Oh, and that reminds me of a great cartoon I recently StumbledUpon. This will only be funny if you've spent any time in VR... But I digress.)

I used to have a craft room full of stuff, with hundreds of projects tabbed and indexed in hanging files. I used to have boxes of patterns for clothes and drapes and Christmas projects. I used to have tons of fabric and yarn. I used to spend summers crafting everything from afghans to ornaments, from decoupaged footstools to clocks.

Then, several things happened. One, I started writing, and that took up a lot of my crafting time. Actually, now it's like everything takes up my writing time.

Another thing was a bit of arthritis in my hands, so I had to give up thread crochet - no more lacy bookmarks for friends at Christmas. Then I had to give up all but Q-hook crochet - that's the huge hook that can be held comfortably, but you can only make afghans with it, and after a while, meh.

Here's the thing. I'm getting older. Not old, mind you, because that doesn't happen to us Boomers. No, it doesn't. Stop laughing - it does not happen to us! See, I'm getting older ('course, not as old as Hoss), so I'm more aware of the fact that chances are, I'll never get around to doing those hundreds of craft projects. I didn't come to this realization just now - that was a year ago when we were going to sell Maxwell House and make our alleged move to North Carolina - hah!

It was back then when I realized that instead of packing all those nicely-indexed projects and craft supplies, I should face reality and only keep the things that I (1) enjoy doing the most (and can still do), and (2) that I might actually get around to finishing.

That left ... needlepoint.

And writing.

I and my creative muses will be perfectly happy concentrating on those two things. See, when you're young, you believe you really can do it all because you're not thinking about practical things like time. And maybe some of you overachievers (like my in-laws) out there actually do get it all done. I applaud you as I mutter under my breath.

So, the Mary Maxim catalog goes into the recycling pile, and until the day that I do the same, I'll be here happily writing and needlepointing (hmm, there might even be a way to do those at the same time...)

I hear this a lot

Tomcat subscribes to Family Handyman and, oh I don't know, a couple of other magazines like that. When he looks through a new issue, sometimes he'll start snickering. I'll look over to see him read a little further in the article, and then he'll begin cackling, his face turning red, tears squeezing out from the corners of his eyes, knee slapping - the whole bit. That's when he'll show me an article like, for example, "how you, too, can build a tri-level deck combination spa/hottub/compost maker in just one weekend." Except, Tomcat points out, they left out one tiny little step in the plans, the one where it says, "and then, a miracle occurs."

That's one reason I got him this for Christmas.

Miracles Happen

Happy Holidays from Scruffybutt and Katycat, who for the moment are behaving themselves in my sleepy presence.

A Very Merry PC Whatever!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS !

Christmas Stockings

Lisa and Bart are ready for Santa in the Happy Wings Hotel that Tomcat built for them.

I made these, except for the cat's stocking, which I found at PetSmart. I made a cat's stocking back when I made the others, but gave it away when our last cat, Hopsing, died. Now I wish I had kept it because we sort of inherited Katycat with the house.

P.S.

By popular demand, I've changed my Gravatar, which hasn't been changed since the time John, who has chronic foot-in-mouth disease, substituted my profile pic for a hippo's butt. Blogger didn't save the pic, fortunately.

Awwwww...

My Scruffles in her Christmas dress = adoramous!

We tried the hat on Katycat, too. She was NOT amused. (See her pic HERE.)

Silly Saturday #10

Has it snowed where you are yet?

Who Dat?

This is Scruffybutt, in her Dallas Cowboys T-shirt, after the Saints' win on Sunday night.

The fabulous bowl in the foreground was made by my father-in-law, who took up ceramics only a couple of years ago!

And here's the artificial, prelit tree. We can't get over how real it looks, even up close.

It's Been a Frustrating Few Days

First, I was sick with some sort of 72-hour bug, and then when I did feel like logging on, I discovered that I couldn't make comments on anyone's blog, not even my own. Not only that, I could only log on to Blogger from my laptop, so if I was going to post something to my blog, I would have had to get out of bed and go downstairs to do it. Why not bring the laptop up to bed? It's portable, right? Well frankly, I didn't think of that until Friday, when it was finally safe to drink coffee. The synapses in my brain won't fire without caffeine, okay?

I've just spent an hour or so catching up on everyone's blogs. You guys are fascinating! There are so many blogworthy things going on in this world. I love it.

I'm about a week behind on Christmas stuff, so on Friday I went shopping in my PJs, in bed, with my laptop. Surf, point, click, done. I even muttered a couple of fa-la-la-la-las.

Today we put up the artificial tree we bought, a 9' majestic fir, hinged, prelit, with pinecones attached. It even came with a stand. Sent Tomcat to pick it up last Monday while I was in bed recovering from a yucky medical procedure, he set it up today while I sipped some wine. Surf, point, click, done. Fa-la-la-la-la. No more going out in the freezing cold to choose a tree, bringing it home, getting needles all over the place, trying to get the tree in the stand, putting the lights on, remembering to water the tree...

I hear there's even a Christmas tree spray scent. I'll just Google that right now! Fa-la-la-la-la.

Yes, I'm definitely getting into the Christmas spirit.

Tell Us Tuesday #10

Tell us, this year will you send out

Generic Christmas cards,

Personalized Christmas cards,

Personalized cards with family picture on them,

A Christmas letter (Hoss has a swell fill-in-the-blank one you could rip off),

Christmas emails, or

No cards at all?

Tell Us Tuesday #9

For Christmas this year, will you have

a real tree,

an artificial one, or

no tree at all?

What Kind of Reindeer Are You?

You Are Rudolph

Sweet and shy, you tend to be happiest when you're making someone else happy. Why You're Naughty: You sometimes stick that nose where it doesn't belong Why You're Nice: Christmas would be a sad affair without you!

Which of Santa's Reindeer Are You?

Online or On Line?

The first time I did all my Christmas shopping online, a friend's husband looked horrified at the very idea. Shopping online, he said, deprived me of the total holiday experience. It removed the human contact and depersonalized the whole season.

Yes, it deprived me of the joy of human contact ...

and let's not forget the magic of the lines ...

The guy is a doctor, and I doubt very seriously that he has ever had to do the Christmas shopping for the entire family, or even for his office staff. No, I believe his wife does all that, and has done for years, plus the party planning (that's where this conversation took place), the card-sending, the cooking, the wrapping, the decorating and everything else. His office assistant almost certainly found the gifts that he would give his wife. Why do I suspect this? Because I worked for lawyers for 25 years and I remember all those wives' gifts I had to find. And I know that that their wives did all the shopping. I figure doctors are the same. This may all sound terribly sexist now, but remember, I'm in my mid-fifties and started working in the early 1970's. It was the norm that men were in the professions, and it was expected that their (female) support staff would do the Christmas shopping for the wives' gifts. And it was expected that the wives would do all the shopping. This particular doctor and his wife are old enough to be my parents, btw, so things were even more sexist in their day.

But all of this is not the reason that I prefer to shop online. Tomcat is not anything like the lawyers I used to work for. So that's not it. And I do love to shop. Love it. So that's not it, either. No, my problem is that I can't stand the feeling of having a deadline when I shop. Maybe it's all those years of working under deadlines. It's just not fun that way. So, I'd much rather do the Christmas shopping leisurely and in my PJs late at night while I'm watching Letterman or something.

This is the magic for me:

Click, click, click. The presents are selected, the giftwrap option is checked, and the package is shipped directly to the recipient so that I don't even have to go to the post office. This may not be for everyone, but it suits me.

I'm finished with the shopping for this year. I don't feel deprived. I feel relaxed. I'm done, and there's lots of time left over to see all the lights, watch the Christmas movies, listen to the music, and of course, blog.

Merry Christmas, ya'll.

O Tannenbaum

This morning my friend Grace, the artist, emails: "I'm irritated by the flap over the "Christmas" Tree. A decorated tree predates Jesus' birth. It is a pagan custom adapted by Christian missionaries so that new converts wouldn't have to abandon their traditions. That is also the reason that Jesus' birthday was made to coincide w/ the Winter Solstice." And what a flap it is! You can Google "pagan" + "Christmas tree" and find oodles of sites offering completely opposing views about this subject.

From my studies about the Victorian Age, during which I fell in love with Albert, I remembered that Albert is generally thought to have been the one to introduce the Tannenbaum, or Christmas Tree, to England. It was until then a "foreign" custom. The Victorians went wild with the whole concept and they produced those wonderfully sappy (get it?), over-done sentimental ornaments that we so love today.



So, I then Googled "Victorian" + "Christmas tree" and found this wonderful site put up by the University of Illinois Extension. There's lots of things to explore and learn from this site, like ...

"The first record of Christmas trees in America was for children in the German Moravian Church's settlement in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Christmas 1747. Actual trees were not decorated, but wooden pyramids covered with evergreen branches were decorated with candles."

and

"Since 1971, the Province of Nova Scotia has presented the Boston Christmas Tree to the people of Boston in gratitude for the relief supplies received from the citizens of Boston after a ship exploded in 1917 following a collision in the Halifax, Nova Scotia Harbor. Part of the city was leveled killing and injuring thousands."

and even a link to another site detailing the best way to photograph your Christmas tree.

Are you planning to have a tree this year? What kind? Real or artificial, green or flocked? Multi-colored lights or all white, or all one color? What size? Or maybe this just isn't for you? My ex-husband just put a single white bulb on a sign in the yard that said "Bah, Humbug."