Showing posts with label holidays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label holidays. Show all posts

25 December 2009

Merry Christmas!



This is what Jilly would do were she ever to be brought to Santa Claus. According to LOLcat parlance, I guess Jilly is a basement cat (i.e. she's black), but all of my kitties were born in the basement, so they're all basement cats in imo ... except maybe the new one, Tux. She's mostly being tolerated by the other cats now, so long as no one is surprised. Jilly, predictably, is still the least tolerant. Somewhat ironic given that she's named after Charles de Lint's easygoing, supertolerant character, Jilly Coppercorn.

Anyway, Happy Solstice Festival of Glittering Trees, Overeating, and Overspending.

The Christmas Eve service last night was actually enjoyable, as it was about 90% music, 9% story-telling, and only 1% nonsense. Also, I was pleased that I managed to find the bass part (an octave higher) on the chorus of "O Come All Ye Faithful." It seems they finally have a pastor who understands what the Christmas Eve service is supposed to be. It should be a fulfillment of Mircia Eliade's notion of "sacred time," where the past comes alive in the present. When taken as the last word, Eliade's idea has some problems, but here I think it works perfectly.

Also, with it 90% music, I can distract myself from the nonsense bits by trying to find non-melody parts in each song (and probably annoying my mom no end when I can't find them and start making them up).

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05 December 2009

Antiremembrance Hazards

I managed to forget that, in addition to checking on my mom's cats, I was also supposed to be checking on my dad's cat and dog. He wasn't gone, but he's a bit forgetful about these things. I made it over Tuesday, before the stomach issues hit, then completely spaced it until I talked to my mom tonight. They were both fine. Ji'e'toh still had food in her dish, though it was a bit low, and a bit of water. Buster gets more immediate attention, anyway, so he was at no real risk. So, no harm done. Thankfully.

My mom also said that her heating pad died en route to Las Vegas. Apparently it worked when she left home, but not after she got to the hotel. She's assuming the flight killed it. Not sure why the flight would have any effect. Presumably the heating pad would have been exposed to rather cold temperatures, but surely that wouldn't mess up the circuitry; it probably got shipped to Wal-Green's at similar temperatures. So...security scan, maybe? Could that have affected the electronics in the turn-on switch? If so, I'm not finding anything about it online. It was a few years old, so maybe something was just loose enough that rough handling or cold jogged it out. *shrugs*

Oh, and I finally got my Christmas tree up this afternoon. I'd meant to do it during Thanksgiving break, but other things took precedence. Other things still take precedence, but I wasn't actually up to doing them. Tomorrow I've got to get a philosophy of science paper written, and polish up a 99% done philosophy of language paper. As I was not up to writing philosophy today, I figured I might as well get the tree up and get some more D&D tokens printed out. It struck me while I was punching them out that you could use them as decorations on a very small Christmas tree. They would be rather odd decorations, saying "bloodied" and "dazed" and "petrified" and the like, but they would also be quite colorful!

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26 November 2009

Piecrust Adventures

A few interesting conundrums whilst making the pumpkin pies last night.

(1) I had only one pumpkin from my garden. It was fairly small, and, when I cut into it, I discovered one part of it was rotten. I had my mom get some canned pumpkin as backup. I got 2 cups from the good parts of the real pumpkin, and had to fill in the rest with the canned pumpkin. Annoying, but workable.

(2) I could not find my pie-crust-bag. It was not on the top shelf of the closet where it's supposed to be, nor in any of the other places I thought I might have decided to put it. If it doesn't turn up, I'm going to assume it got thrown away accidentally and order a new one. The problem is that gluten-free crust is extremely delicate. You need the plastic to hold it together long enough to get it into the pan, and even then there are almost always cracks and holes to patch. So I improvised. I had some jumbo-size ziplock bags. I rolled the first crust inside the bag and then cut two of the edges open so I could extract it, then rolled the other crusts with the bag slit open. It worked better than I expected. I think the crust didn't stick to the ziplock as badly as it generally did to the pie-crust bag. However, the pie-crust-bag is reusable many times over, whereas the ziplock would need to be replaced each time, and the jumbo ziplocks are rather pricey.

(3) I ran out of sweet rice flour on the first crust. It's what Bette Hagman recommends be used for sprinkling on the inside of the bag to help keep it from sticking. I sighed, thought a moment, and used corn meal instead. Actually, I think it worked better than the sweet rice flour. I think the idea with sweet rice flour is that it's supposed to stick together better than other GF flours, so it should help the crust stick together. The problem is that rice flour is dry, and so the more of it you use for rolling, the more you need to add more liquid to the dough. The corn meal seemed to be better at keeping the dough from sticking, and it didn't dry out the dough as much. We shall find out today whether it causes any general weirdness in the eating. If not, I may just switch over to cornmeal for piecrust dusting.

And now, I have cornbread, coffeecake, roasted pumpkin seeds, and piecrust cookies to make.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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21 November 2009

Random Holiday Rambling

(1) Pouncer had a cold for a few days this week. I can't remember ever seeing a cat with a cold before; it took me a day or so to realize that's what was going on. First I noticed he was drooling a bit, and seemed to be leaving his mouth open more than usual. He also wasn't his usual "First!" self. I noticed that he seemed to have a bit of a runny nose and he was wheezing a bit, and then made the connection to his keeping his mouth open: he was breathing through his mouth because his nose was stuffed up. It lasted 2-3 days, and I just kept an eye on him and made sure it wasn't getting worse. It may have just been good timing, but it started to go away shortly after I shared some roasted chicken with him and the other cats. Probably coincidence, though it would be nice to think I cured him.

(2) I was beginning to think I wouldn't get any turkey this Thanksgiving, but my mom found a free-range Norbest turkey, which specifically said "gluten free," and their web-site indicates that all of their whole, uncooked turkeys are also soy-free. Gluten-free we had covered, but soy free is tougher, since every turkey I looked at had unidentified "natural flavors" in it. Technically "natural flavors" can include stuff made from wheat, but I never had a gluten-reaction to anything labeled that way. I have had several soy reactions. As far as I'm concerned "natural flavors" is equivalent to a skull and crossbones symbol.

(3) Apparently three weeks away from push hands was good for me, as Don and Mark both commented on how much more relaxed I have been the past two Saturdays. It seems backwards until you've tried it/experienced it/felt it, but being relaxed makes your attacks and defenses much more effective. Hmmm... possibly I should experiment with my dice and see if relaxed tosses produce higher rolls than tense tosses. Somehow I suspect that won't be the case, but it doesn't hurt to try. ^!^

(4) We still haven't finished with the chest in D&D, and we won't finish this week since our thief will be out of town. So even though I may start writing a narrative version of it, there won't be much point in posting it until we actually finish with the chest and I can include a conclusion.

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22 September 2009

1000 Days

I thought I had two more days, but I just checked my calendar. I've had 1000 straight days of practice (taiji, yoga, chanting, meditation) as of today. I wasn't sure I'd make it 10 when I started, let alone 1000. I really think the practice saved my life. It was a minor but useful thing that I could do even in the depths of depression and feel a sense of accomplishment.

There have been times when I did the bare, bare minimum just to check it off as done, but lately I've been expanding the practice. I'm up to 22 minutes of standing meditation now. Cheng Man Ch'ing is supposed to have said that one shouldn't even learn the taiji form until one could make 30 minutes; it strengthens the quads and teaches proper skeletal alignment. I can probably jump up to 24 minutes in the next week or so.

Anyway, this song seems appropriate, though I doubt I'll be around long enough to make it to 1000 years. I suppose it's conceivable, but incredibly unlikely ... unless there really is something to the Taoist elixir of immortality nonsense and I've chosen the correct practice to find said elixir. ^!^

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19 September 2009

Yar.

I've just been reminded that it's Talk Like A Pirate Day. This seems an appropriate token of festivity:



I might be more enthused had I not been subjected to ginger tonight. I tried a new meal at Chang's (Szechuan Three Delight, or some such) and realized too late there was ginger in it. I wasn't tired or depressed to begin with, thankfully, so it's just made me mildly tired and a bit maudlin. Tasty dish...but one I should avoid in future.

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04 July 2009

Intuiting the Fourth



No deep commentary this time around. One thing that I found strange when this video first came out was the sheer number of people who didn't get it. People were treating it like it was a serious video, and accusing Jewel of selling out. The whole point of the video was to make fun of the idea of selling out, and ridiculous product placement, and arbitrarily switching between a folksy persona and a hollywood glitz persona. It cracked me up the first time I saw it, and it still cracks me up.

Not sure what brought this one to mind while I was trying to think of something to post for the Fourth. Maybe because politics has much the same flavor? The idea of branding oneself to the point that there isn't an actual person left any more? * shrugs *

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14 February 2009

Technically, a Holiday

Happy Crass Commercialization of Romantic Obsession Day!



Or, in the immortal words of Charles Emerson Winchester, III: "Valentine's Day? Delightful. They can all meet in a garage in Chicago." (M*A*S*H ~Season 7, Ep. 26)

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13 February 2009

Happy Belated Darwin Day

I had planned to post something yesterday ... but I was functioning on about three-quarters of a cylinder and needed to sleep more than I needed to blog. So I'll just point out some very good posts and steal one quote from Darwin:

But astronomers do not state that God directs the course of each comet & planet. -- The view that each variation has been providentially arranged seems to me to make natural selection entirely superfluous, & indeed takes [the] whole case of appearance of new species out of the range of science. ... I wonder whether Herschel would say that you ought always to give the higher providential Law, & declare that God had ordered all certain changes of level that certain mountains should arise. -- I must think that such views of Asa Gray & Herschel merely show that the subject in their minds is in Comte's theological stage of science [the first of three stages in the development of knowledge].

~Darwin, found at Thoughts in a Haystack



Also check out Exploring Our Matrix and Think Buddha.

Incidentally, I keep getting messages that I've flagged blogs as having objectionable content ... and I have not. Also, none of the options for unflagging the blogs is showing up. So apologies to anyone who gets a message their blog was flagged ... when I find a way to undo it, I will. My best guess is that the little monkey that lives in my computer got bored and started clicking on things.

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02 February 2009

Happy Rockchuck Day!

I was looking for things to post for Groundhog Day, and started looking at the pictures... and suddenly noticed that groundhogs look an awful lot like rockchucks. So I did a quick search, and, lo and behold, that's yet another name for rockchucks/woodchucks/marmots. Here is a quick reference.

And apparently Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, but another predicting groundhog in Georgia did not. I couldn't find any local references about whether any rockchucks 'round these parts saw their shadows, but I think we had our early spring in January (for about a week) then winter kicked back in. ^/^

So, Rise and Shine, Campers! Don't forget your booties 'cause it's cold out there today!

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03 January 2009

The Kitties' Christmas Present



My mom and dad both gave me a bit of money this Christmas, so I used most of it to get the cats a nice climbing tree. This is the top level. It's roughly five feet tall. Among other things, it gives the cats a safe way to get to the window that's above Pouncer. They had found rather interesting ways to get up there without the toy ... one of which involved climbing on top of a television set. I figured if they were going to get up there anyway, they might as well have a way that was less likely to damage them or the house.

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31 December 2008

A New Year

Happy 2009. I get to start the new year with the greens unhung. At the moment, blowing them up sounds appealing, but I'll settle for these explosions instead:



Pity about the music (and the commentators towards the end), but the fireworks are beautiful. Incidentally, this is Part II. Part I can be found here.

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29 December 2008

Belated Holiday Pics


Here's the wreath all covered in snow. Pity that it's now about 40 degrees and everything is starting to melt. On the plus side, that should generate plenty of business for Spencer.

Below are some of the boxes I made this Christmas.


This was my third attempt at covering an empty candy box with paper such that it would be potentially reusable. On the first two attempts, I used tape. Bad idea. The tape just gets in the way. On this one, I used a stick of glue. I also didn't try to wrap the paper around the edges of the box-top. Instead, I covered any bare spots with the green ribbon, also put on with a stick of glue.



This is an old box that I found in my dad's basement this year and figured it was in good enough shape to reuse. The problem with this style of box is that it does not hold together very well. So when I use it for gifts, I cheat a little: the ribbon wrapped around the body of the box is to keep the two halves from separating.




This was a box that I put together in an unconventional fashion. I wanted to emphasize the fancier paper, but de-emphasize the plainest paper. The nice thing was that the colors of the middling paper blended in nicely with the plain paper, so the asymmetry of the joining isn't as obvious. Below is the bottom of the same box, just because I like the way the two papers look together. I tend to save the not-quite-as-nice paper for the bottom of the box, but these would have worked well as a top, also:




And this one was made by joining the pieces of the lid pinwheel style. There are four pieces to each lid. To make the pinwheel, you put the "square" edge of each piece into the "angled" edge of each adjacent piece.

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26 December 2008

Record Snowfall

... Records fall at Pocatello and Challis airports
today... correction...

0.62 inches of water equivalent fell yesterday... Christmas
day... at the Pocatello Airport and exceeds the previous record of
0.59 set in 1988.

A record snowfall amount of 5.9 inches fell
yesterday... Christmas day... at the Pocatello Airport and beats the
previous record of 1.1 inches set in 1988.

The Challis Airport also reported a record water equivalency of
0.29 inches yesterday... Christmas day... and beats the previous
record 0.17 inches set in 1959.

~Wunderground



The airport is several miles outside of town, so there could have been more in town. Or it could just look like more due to being blown off of roofs and such. I suppose I'd better get shoveling, as we may be getting another wave this weekend.

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25 December 2008

Some Christmas Links

Shamelessly stolen from Exploring Our Matrix:


Merry Christmas!*

* This Christmas greeting is offered in accordance with the articles of Christmas previously posted. Some restrictions apply. If the merriness resulting from this greeting lasts for more than 8 hours, please consult your physician.


Make sure to visit his Articles of Christmas.

Also read Greta Christina's take on what Christmas means. Excerpt:
Let's remind ourselves that life is worth living, and that the cold and dark won't be here forever. Let's remind ourselves that we care about each other, and remind ourselves of why.


So who cares if someone wishes you a "Merry Christkwanzukah!"? The name is not the important part. Let's bypass names altogether, and just wish everyone a Fah-Who Foraze!

Backup Link

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Quite the Storm



From 511.idaho.gov, this is the current status of the roads in Idaho. Pretty much, if you weren't there by Christmas Eve, you weren't getting there. I can't remember seeing this much snow all at once since I was a kid. I can remember the snow being up to my waist at least once when I was old enough to attempt to help out using a shovel (probably 6 or 7). It's beautiful, so long as you're not planning on going anywhere soon. It's made more beautiful by my mom's generous neighbor, who took his snowblower to her walks and driveway. She tried to give him some Christmas goodies in return, but he refused.

I'd call it 10-12 inches on the ground at both her place and mine, though some of that could have blown off of rooftops. I haven't seen an official measure yet. Anyway, leaving town anywhere in Idaho is not recommended at the moment. Leaving the house may be problematic... So long as there's no traffic, I can get out of my driveway just fine, but if I have to stop right at the edge... Tomorrow will be plenty of time for shoveling out.

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23 December 2008

Status Report

It's amazing how much easier it is to get stuff done when you can actually breathe. I got the drifts shoveled out at my mom's place this afternoon, and thusfar they have not reappeared. I've also been finishing up Christmas presents. Not buying things so much as adding on things that I can make. Buying things is a bit scary at the moment, actually. I took one look at Fred Meyer's parking lot and decided not to go in...then it took me ten minutes to get out of Fred Meyer's parking lot. As we still need veggies and coconut milk for Christmas, I'm planning to go in early tomorrow. Hopefully most of the lunatics will be sleeping in.

I've got some pictures of the snow, but they're on my camera and I'm in need of sleep, so I guess they'll keep.

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15 December 2008

A Cappella Carol of the Bells



This is probably my favorite Christmas song/melody. Instrumental or sung, electric guitar or organ or even bells, I have rarely found a version that I didn't like. Admittedly, it's a touch ironic to have the Carol of the Bells done a capella. For the non-musically-literate, that means "voices only; no instruments." And this version is awesome.

(Found via this link from James McGrath)

AM UPDATE: Fixed broken link (somehow two links got interpolated, so blogger decided to just make it link back to my blog). Oh, and I thought of one version of Carol of the Bells that I didn't care for. Showed up in a holiday commercial, which may or may not still be used this season. I can't even remember what it was an ad for... possibly one of those navigation devices for the car. But it was just irritating.

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13 December 2008

Twelve Idiosyncracies of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas
the snow gods sent to me:
a book on philosophy

On the second day of Christmas,
the snow gods sent to me:
two wool ponchos
and a book on philosophy...

On the third day of Christmas,
the snow gods sent to me:
three taiji hours,
two wool ponchos
and a book on philosophy

On the fourth day of Christmas,
the snow gods sent to me:
four calling cats,
three taiji hours,
two wool ponchos
and a book on philosophy

On the fifth day of Christmas,
the snow gods sent to me:
...five jack-knifed semis,
four calling cats,
three taiji hours,
two wool ponchos
and a book on philosophy

On the sixth day of Christmas,
the snow gods sent to me:
six songs a playing,
...five jack-knifed semis,
four calling cats,
three taiji hours,
two wool ponchos
and a book on philosophy

On the seventh day of Christmas,
the snow gods sent to me:
seven drivers speeding,
six songs a playing,
...five jack-knifed semis,
four calling cats,
three taiji hours,
two wool ponchos
and a book on philosophy

On the eighth day of Christmas,
the snow gods sent to me:
eight icy red-lights,
seven drivers speeding,
six songs a playing,
...five jack-knifed semis,
four calling cats,
three taiji hours,
two wool ponchos
and a book on philosophy

On the ninth day of Christmas,
the snow gods sent to me:
nine slippery exits,
eight icy red-lights,
seven drivers speeding,
six songs a playing,
...five jack-knifed semis,
four calling cats,
three taiji hours,
two wool ponchos
and a book on philosophy

On the tenth day of Christmas,
the snow gods sent to me:
ten cars that slid off,
nine slippery exits,
eight icy red-lights,
seven drivers speeding,
six songs a playing,
...five jack-knifed semis,
four calling cats,
three taiji hours,
two wool ponchos
and a book on philosophy

On the eleventh day of Christmas,
the snow gods sent to me:
eleven lights a flashing,
ten cars that slid off,
nine slippery exits,
eight icy red-lights,
seven drivers speeding,
six songs a playing,
...five jack-knifed semis,
four calling cats,
three taiji hours,
two wool ponchos
and a book on philosophy

On the twelfth day of Christmas,
the snow gods sent to me:
twelve degree windchill,
eleven lights a flashing,
ten cars that slid off,
nine slippery exits,
eight icy red-lights,
seven drivers speeding,
six songs a playing,
...five jack-knifed semis,
four calling cats,
three taiji hours,
two wool ponchos
and a book on philosophy

And that was my day. Shorter version: first big snow storm of the season hit last night. The road to Idaho Falls was bad, but by the time we got to a place we could turn around, the road was getting better, and it seemed more sensible to go on rather than go back over the nastier bit. There were at least 10 slide-offs, possibly eleven if a car ensconced in the median with three police cars was a slide-off and not a pull-over. There was only one jack-knifed semi, thankfully, but it was the most severe angle I've ever seen between a semi and its trailer. Still, we made it there for taiji and back, and the roads were much better on the way back.

After I got home, I let the cats play outside for a bit, but they didn't seem to like the snow very well. At 2:00, I went with my mom to choir practice, as she needed a page-turner. Decent songs, good melodies, but the more I look at the actual lyrics of the more overtly religious carols, the more I find myself inordinately puzzled. But that's for another post.

EDIT: Forgot to explain the "book" or the ponchos. Melissa needed to stop at Barnes and Noble to take care of some books she'd ordered that had been damaged in transit, and I found a book describing various approaches to the "meaning of life". Then this afternoon I discovered a beautiful little shop in the mall, ensconced in the corner where a jeweler used to be, carrying a ton of alpaca coats and sweaters and ponchos. I bought one coat, and my mom decided to buy me a poncho as a Christmas present (as she has no idea what kind of clothing to buy for me without input). She bought it with me there because there were only two on the rack, and we both figured they'd be gone if she waited. So I know one of my Christmas presents.

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07 December 2008

Portraits

Mainly because not much happened today. First, one of me (sort of):


The dark shape holding the camera in the side mirror is me. This turned out surprisingly well for being taken at twilight and from my mom's car while it was going 75 mph. Next is of Princess, and her first experience with a regular size Christmas tree. Last year, all I had time or energy for was Grandma Fern's ceramic 2-footer, so it's nice to have a "real" one up this year. "Real" as in "large and decorable".

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