DON'T MESS WITH GRANDMA

 I'm digging through old picture files searching for pics I created for our own Christmas cards over the years. Well this isn't anywhere near christmas but I just had another birthday and this badass gal made me smile.

And it doesn't look like she's even out of breath or even messed up- her dress. 

TOO WEIRD FOR WORDS

 I did this one a few years ago. Too bad it fits right in with all the conspiracy theories floating through the social media semi madness. Recognizing that LGBTQ citizens exist is not going to change anyone else through some "magic" spell. I still believe that there is enough real weirdness in the world. There is no need to make it up. Although at this point no one was advocating wholesale murder of gays or sticking them in concentration camps. 

There was an article on Huffington Post a couple of days ago about a gal who refused an invitation to her son to attend a birthday party for a little girl with two dads. Turns out the story was a hoax perpetrated by a couple of radio dj’s whose names don’t really matter at this stage of the game. With luck they’ll be drawing unemployment this time next week. Don’t know what they thought they were going to prove. Stories about real bigots are easy enough to find without making them up. And it just makes it harder to get people to believe the real stories when they surface.

Did lead to some very interesting comments though. And I gotta tell ya, there are some folks out there that are even weirder than I expected. One of the odder commenters seemed to believe that somehow giving gays equal rights and allowing them to marry would lead to the extinction of the human race. Unfortunately that original comment has been deleted. Can’t imagine why, HP’s moderators get a little too zealous in their duties sometimes, in my opinion. As long as the folks aren’t cussin’, calling people names and so on, I can be fairly cool with that. But, apparently, according to this commenter there is a world wide conspiracy of gays to force us all into same sex unions or some equally outrageous actions.

Anyway this is the salvaged comment.
"You just live long enough to see a very large number of LGBTs hold Political offices all over the World. It is a mathematical certainty, once you start pairing Humanity man-man and woman-woman, then, you eliminate the manifestation of Babies. And this will affect everything, the Economy and all, once Humanity stops making babis, then, it is game over-Extinction Point reached. "

I did get a reply to my reply and I’m including that. It didn’t get posted either. If I could have replied it would have been along the lines of just because gays have the right to marry; it doesn’t follow that straights are going to stop getting married (although they seem to be doing that any way) and having kids (the kids are arriving with or without benefit of clergy, a justice of the peace or the local Marrying Sam). Most of us with two X chromosomes are still attracted to those humans with the XY combo. Gay rights won’t change that. Gay marriage won't change that. Biology is still biology and at seven billion plus we're in no danger of extinction on that front.

Too many cases of terminal stupidity just might do the trick though.

PAINTING WITH WORDS

 This is a blast from the past. From back when Sarah Palin hit the news. Hard to believe we're "blest" with some who are crazier than she was.

This meditation, essay whatever was brought on by the news that Sarah Palin’s contract with Fox wasn’t renewed. And both sides are saying it was their idea. Whatever. A sorrier example of verbal illiteracy I’ve seen yet.

So, this is a bit  of a departure from what I’ve been writing, but maybe not so much. Back when the boys were little we picked out a few books that we thought would be fun to have on hand to read from. Turned out to be a complete flop. Kids that wore out my Sleeping Beauty tape couldn’t sit still long enough to listen to one of Kipling’s Just So Stories. I was entranced by The Elephant’s Child. They weren’t. (very long sigh here) BTW I ran into the Elephant's Child when I stumbled across Reading Rainbow. Mr. Burton you were and are still wonderful.

My generation were probably the last to be verbally rather than visually oriented. Read Kipling. Read Dickens. They drew word pictures and your imagination was free to run riot. Dicken’s intro to A Christmas Carol is really priceless. The winter cold. The fog. The growing dark at three in the afternoon. Fog so thick it was creeping through the key hole in the door. Scrooge, who went through life with an icicle hanging from his nose in the middle of July.

The elephant’s child with his ‘satiable curiosity and endless questions setting off to find out what the crocodile has for dinner complete with a supply of melons (green) Sugar cane (purple) and bananas (the little red ones) in search of the great, grey green Limpopo River all set about with fever trees, where, he’s told, the crocodile lives. On the way he meets a bi colored python rock snake… and the crocodile. Only to find that today, he’s on the menu. And did I mention that up to this point elephants had noses that looked more like a boot than a trunk?

So, here’s the elephant finding himself in the middle of a tug of war between the crocodile who has hold of his nose and the snake who’s hanging onto the hind legs with all his snaky strength and advising

“Then the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake scuffled down from the bank and said, 'My young friend, if you do not now, immediately and instantly, pull as hard as ever you can, it is my opinion that your acquaintance in the large-pattern leather ulster' (and by this he meant the Crocodile) 'will jerk you into yonder limpid stream before you can say Jack Robinson.' An ulster was a long coat with a built in elbow length cape. 

This is the way Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakes always talk.

Then the Elephant's Child sat back on his little haunches, and pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and his nose began to stretch. And the Crocodile floundered into the water, making it all creamy with great sweeps of his tail, and he pulled, and pulled, and pulled.

And the Elephant's Child's nose kept on stretching; and the Elephant's Child spread all his little four legs and pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and his nose kept on stretching; and the Crocodile threshed his tail like an oar, and he pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and at each pull the Elephant's Child's nose grew longer and longer—and it hurt him hijjus!

Then the Elephant's Child felt his legs slipping, and he said through his nose, which was now nearly five feet long, 'This is too butch for be!'

Then the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake came down from the bank, and knotted himself in a double-clove-hitch round the Elephant's Child's hind legs, and said, 'Rash and inexperienced traveller, we will now seriously devote ourselves to a little high tension, because if we do not, it is my impression that yonder self-propelling man-of-war with the armour-plated upper deck' (and by this, O Best Beloved, he meant the Crocodile), 'will permanently vitiate your future career.” (Talented snake. He can do double clove hitches)

The crocodile the elephant and the bi colored python rock snake. 

I loved it. My nephews couldn't be bothered. They were too busy playing Super Mario Brothers. Heck I watch movies. I watch some TV. Not as much as I used to. But, we really lost something in the transition. The old authors painted pictures with words in a way that most film just can’t match. And that most writers can’t match either. No matter how many awards they get.

And that may be part what attracts me to the Celtic traditions. The old bards and poets were masters of the word. The best of the old poets could compose a satire that would topple thrones or cause a king who chose to ignore the rules of hospitality to break out in boils. So the old tales tell us. It was not wise to insult a bard.

MY OFF THE WALL SENSE OF HUMOR

 Yeah, I guess I did sort of fall off the face of the earth. Or a bad case of writer's block, Or whatever. More on that later. I hope.

Last Sunday was the first Sunday of Advent. The four weeks leading up to the Christmas Season. I grew up in a Methodist church so liberal we didn't do Advent or Lent. Don't remember the prophets being mentioned all that often either. Anyway. The lead up to the Christmas season plus some reading of the prophents over the past few years plus my twisty, off the wall sense of humor produced this:

Of the few of you who actually know me you will know that my sense of humor is well, sort of off the wall. Out in far left field actually.

God has sent prophets over the years from Amos through Jeremiah to Zechariah with mixed and apparently futile results. This is how it goes in my weird imagination,

"Son we need to have a talk. Remember that conversation we had a three or four eons ago on the other side of the Milky Way."

"Yeah, the one where I end up on earth eventually learning the difference between oak and cedar and end up walking the length and breadth of the Holy Land, depending on the hospitality of strangers and all that goes with it, while basically repeating what those who came before me tried to teach?

"That's the one. It's time. I've got a great family chosen for you. Joseph is a carpenter and Mary is willing to take the risk."

"OK dad, Catch you on the flip side. I've got a feeling I'm going to get into more trouble that all the other prophets put together."

"Afraid so, Son."

STILL KICKIN'

 I did not drop off the face of the earth. No matter how it looks. Ran into some medical problems last month tied to my chronic cellulitis.talk about a gift that keeps on giving. As in a week in the hospital and the better part of a month getting my mojo back, such as it was or is, and clearing out the cobwebs. Between the meds and therapy I've been about as ambitious as a sponge on the good stuff.

Not really sure what to write about these days. but here's one. The ads have been pitching fake Christmas tree since before Halloween. Right down to the fake smell of the fake fir tree. Darn it half the fun of Christmas was decorating the tree. Picking one out that looked like a good one. Installing it in the tree stand, trying to avoid stepping on the cat's tail while she checked out the crinkly paper wrapping the ornaments. Standing up the tree and turning it so the best side was facing the room. 

And when I was little watching dad check out the lights on the string. We have at least two generations that probably don't have that memory. Sigh of relief if they all lit the first time. The going through the string one by one with a good bulb until you found the burned out one. After he had checked to make sure they were all screwed in good and tight. So you have a couple of strings of lights that light up. Those old lights were real light bulbs. They got hot. So when you put the lights on the tree you had to make sure that those lights didn't get anywhere near pine or fir needles. 

So the tree went up the week before Christmas and came down by New Years.Then it was on with the garland, the ornaments and the tinsel. Anybody remember tinsel? Remember the really good Hallmark ornaments? The skating moose. The fiddle playing bunny rabbit? The ornament celebrating the birth of my oldest nephew? A couple of really delecate ornaments that came from Grandma. 

So in reverse. Carefully removing the tinsel. Save that for next year. Rewrap the ornaments. Don't step on the cat who is batting the stray pieces around. Remove the strings of garland. Save that too. Finally the lights and all that's left are fallen fir needles and bits of tinsel. Did I mention the checking of the needles every day to make sure they are still firmly attached to the branches. 

There was that one year when we got the tree up and four days later we took it down. Little sucker was shedding needles like crazy. The only good thing about those fake trees it that you probably can't set one on fire.I don't have any pictures of those old trees. And guess what you can watch youtube videos to find out how to decorate an old fashioned tree.Youtube for cryin' out loud. 

Darn I wish I had a picture of the fiddle playing rabbit. Or the one that was ice skating. Or the drunking front legs crossed, ice skating moose. He was really a prize

SMALL BOYS

 

Yeah I haven't been posting very often but this caught my eye. It isn't the kittens. It isn't the kind of scruffy kid. The only thing missing are skinned knees. No it's the sweater. A prime example of making a virtue of necessity. Call it Fair Isle. Call it Norewegian. It's a way of using up the odd bits of yarn you can't see going to waste. Heck you probably spun and died it. Or know who did. The stripes are matched, or pretty closely. Probably almost impossible to get the kid to sit still long enough to get his hair combed but he will stop for kittens. 

IF YOU WANT TO MAKE AN APPLE PIE

 

Perhaps if all our recipes began with "if you want to make ____________ first create the universe we'd be reminded of our place in it/ SF classic author Robert Heinlein is said to have began his recipe for rabbit stew with "first catch the rabbit." To be honest the aple pie in the Cosmos segment needed a pie crust. This one sounds like a Dutch Apple pie with a crumble topping. Both are delicious.