Have a Happy New Year!!!

One hundred years ago today.

December Words of Wisdom

Christmas gives us an opportunity to pause and reflect on the important things around us. --David Cameron

 

Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful. --Norman Vincent Peale

 

You are the only author of your story. Rewrite it the way you dream it and then edit daily. --Amy Lopez

 

Being positive isn't pretending that everything is good - it's seeing the good in everything. --Unknown

 

Life isn't about expecting, hoping and wishing, it's about doing, being and becoming. --Mike Dooley

 

When will you begin that long journey into yourself? --Rumi

 

Do not be passive in your personal growth. Passivity is the lock on the cage of mediocrity. You must break it. You must engage with full intent to grow again; you must make a plan to learn more; you must stretch to higher levels of being and service. You must be bold. --Brendon Burchard 

 

Embrace your uniqueness and share it proudly with the world. No one else has your unique blend of wisdom, talents, strengths, and creativity. You have something great to offer. Slow down, discover your passion, push past fear, and share your light with the world. --Creig Crippen 

 

Some people are instinctively not going to like me, for very understandable reasons. Others will like me for reasons that I don't particularly identify with or feel are necessarily representative of me. But that's OK. I just don't care. I don't feel any obligation to play a part - or not play a part, for that matter. --Anthony Bourdain

Realist shit I ever read: "People pray for the cake. Then the Universe gives them the batter, oil, icing, a pan, an oven, they get frustrated and leave the kitchen." Let that sink in. Sometimes you have everything right in front of you, but how bad do you want it? --Unknown

This, my dear, is the greatest challenge of being alive: To witness the injustice of this world, and not allow it to consume our light. --Unknown

 

The greatest challenge in life is discovering who you are. The second greatest is being happy with what you find. --Oscar Auliq-Ice 

You may not always see the results of your kindness, but every bit of positive energy you contribute to the worlds makes it a better place for us all. --Lisa Currie

The older I get, the more I appreciate being home doing absolutely nothing. --Unknown

Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out, but it ain't goin' away. --Elvis Presley

 

Food is love. Food is conviviality. Food is politics. Food is religion. Food is history. Food is consolation. Food is fuel. Food identifies us and who we are. --Crystal King

 

All I need is coffee, an oversized shirt, warm fuzzy socks, a stack of books, and a good song playing. --Unknown 

If you have been brutally broken, but still have the courage to be gentle to other living beings then you're a badass with the heart of an angel. --Keanu Reeves

 

Manners and politeness will never become old-fashioned. --Oscar Auliq-Ice

 

Traditions and values should be protected and guarded with out lives for our lives depend on the. --Unknown

 

Freedom is not a permission granted by any authority...liberty is inalienable. --Rose Wilder Lane

 

I happen to be a big fan of Western Civilization; I think it beats the hell out of tyranny and starvation. --Jordan Peterson 

 

Communism is a tool for the unproductive and the cruel to amass power, nothing more. --Alice Smith

People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take. --Emma Goldman

The power of evil men lives on the cowardice of the good. --St. John Bosco

Toxic masculinity is a made up term by the left to try to emasculate our great American men. It isn't real. Pass it on. --Katie Daviscourt

 

Historically, the most terrible things: war, genocide, and slavery, have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience. --Howard Zinn

 

If you reward the wasteful for their actions, then in the same act you are punishing the productive for theirs. --Alice Smith

That first step off your high horse is going to be a bitch honey. Tuck and roll. --Unknown

Christmas Interruptus

So The Brother and I celebrated Christmas on the 26th, rather than the 25th, and the reason for the delay of the season was Sophie.

 

Sophie had to see her vet a couple days before Christmas because I'd noticed she hadn't been urinating at her normal volume for a couple of days. Normally she pees like a racehorse, plus cats with kidney issues urinate even more, so when suddenly there were a couple days of a fraction of the normal amount, I decided to run her to the vet. The good news was that the vet didn't seem overly concerned, figuring we might be looking at a urinary track infection, plus during the examination she mentioned that Sophie's heart sounds really strong. They took a urine sample, gave her some fluids and an antibiotic shot, and off we went.

When I went to clean the cat box on Christmas morning I was pleasantly surprised to see that the volume of urine was back up to her normal levels. She had been acting perfectly normal, so I wasn't prepared for what happened next. Around 8-8:30ish she started assuming the "trying to poop or pee" pose at various points in the apartment, plus up on my bedspread. She would strain for a minute or two then walk away, and I noticed each time she was leaving this small blob of gooey black liquid where she'd been. They cleaned up easily enough, but it kept happening and I was basically following her around the apartment with the pet stain cleaner mopping up after her.

After a while I decided she needed to see the vet. I had no idea what was coming out of her, what was causing it, or how long it would go on. It was also clear that she was not feeling well at all. My vet is closed on holidays, but I found an emergency vet in West L.A. that was open. I called The Brother, who greeted me with, "Merry Christmas!" My response: "Maybe, maybe not."

I was really worried about her. She was so quiet and still on the way to the vet that at one point at a stoplight I opened the carrier to see if she was still alive. I honestly worried that she might expire in the carrier before I could get her to the vet. I had no idea what the crap was that she was expelling. I thought she was dying on the inside. One has a tendency to get dramatic when one's beloved, precious pet is both elderly and chronically ill.

The good news is that it turned out to be a false alarm. She's fine. According to a very nice veterinarian who got stuck working on Christmas, Sophie was suffering from a simple case of diarrhea. I think of diarrhea as being - ahem - a bit higher in volume than little black dots, but whatever. The important thing is that she's okay. They sent her home with some probiotics that I somehow have to trick her into consuming, but whatever. The important thing is that she's fine.

She was a lot more animated (and vocal) on the way home, and in fact pooped in her carrier, which didn't make her happy. But it was nice and solid, and she obviously felt better. When I got home, she slept for a few hours on my bed, then came out and took her usual place in front of the fireplace. So crisis averted.

Due to me spending a couple hours at the vet, plus the prospect of another rainstorm that The Brother would have to drive in (we'd been trying to figure out how to work his drive around it) we decided to just hold off until the next day, which had the added benefit of having clear weather and we ended up having a great Christmas Day yesterday, December 26.

 

By the way, if you've made it this far and want to know why the hell you're reading about diarrhea, you have no one to blame but yourself. Welcome to our Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all...

 

"Peace on earth will come to stay, when we live Christmas every day."

(Helen Steiner Rice)

All is calm, all is bright

Merry Christmas and to all a good night!

 

Merry Christmas from the beach!

Three more days!

H/T to Tropical Life, Food and Fun on FB.

Mantle of the Gods

I don't even know how you pull this off. It seems like a major feat of engineering keeping it up there.

H/T to English Country Shabby on FB. 

 

Merry Christmas, America. Here's your lump of coal.

Gotta love The Babylon Bee.

Except that, basically, that's the official statement:

 

Get vaxxed, still get sick. And I think I'll do everything I can to stay healthy through the winter just to spite him. Shouldn't be hard - I still haven't gotten as much as a cold in the past 2+ years.

Beams of light

Snicked from various places on the internets.

For the record, I take no joy in bringing this up

H/T to the Fame is a Bitch Podcast Obsessed Page on FB

I even checked the film's imdb entry for verification, and sure enough...

 

Here's hoping that Richard Fleisher (director), Stanley R. Greenberg (screenplay), and Harry Harrison (novel) weren't too prescient about 2022. 

Pretty creepy though...

Dude! Christmas kicks ass!

The original South Park cartoon shorts. Enjoy!

Peace on earth and peace of mind

Food for thought

True, but still this show is still one of my favorite parts of Christmas.

 

Bob Dole goes out like a badass

Looks like he'll be voting Democrat in the future.

You'll shoot your eye out, kid!

Or not.

 

Absolutely one of the best Christmas films ever.

 

Every time a bell rings, an angels gets his wings

 

Harry Bailey's toast never fails to reduce me to a blubbering mess. Merry Christmas!

Christmas in California

Pat Sajak nailed the sadly deteriorating condition of the once Golden State:

 

Time to drag this one out of mothballs, I guess:

This will never get old: The Digital Story of the Nativity

 

I've loved this ever since I first saw it years ago and finally decided to look into the story behind the video. It was created by a Lisbon, Portugal digital marketing company called Excentric, now ExcentricGrey as a result of a 2013 merger as per their LinkedIn page:

 

Released in 2010, the video promptly went viral. It currently has over 13 million views.

Life is good when you're doing the right thing

Yeah, I know there's a typo, but it doesn't change the fact that this is true. I know a person whose life is a lie and I've always thought it must be so exhausting to live like that. Keeping your stories straight. Looking people you (supposedly) care about in the eye and flat-out lying to them. And I've always wondered about late at night, when it's deathly quiet and there's nothing but you and your thoughts, and your awareness of just how fake it all is when you live like that.

But then again, that would require a person to have a conscience. Not everyone does. It's best to avoid them. As for the rest of us:

H/T to erin_bsn2 on IG.

 

Merry Freaking Christmas

Mad-TV presents Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Scorsese-style. 

 

Then they went and did a Godfather version:

 

"Directed by Francis E. Neuman". LOL

 

Back when we had real entertainers

It's a yum-yummy world...

I wouldn't have minded being born 40-50 years earlier

Merry Vintage Christmas!

 A big tip 'o the Santa hat to Vintage Christmas & Holidays on FB!

NaNoWriMo Final Progress Report - SUCCESS!!!

 

I finally made it over the 50k line Saturday night. Here's how it played out:

 

Day 22 (Monday)

Words written: 2,822 / Total words: 34,305

 

Day 23 (Tuesday)

Words written: 3,203 / Total words: 37,508

 

Day 24 (Wednesday)

Words written: 1,909 / Total words: 39,417

 

Day 25 (Thursday/Thanksgiving)

Words written: 764 / Total words: 40,181

Badge earned:

Day 26 (Friday)

Words written: 2,247 / Total words: 42,428

Day 27 (Saturday)

Words written: 2,835 / Total words: 45,263 (this put me back on track to finish 50k words by Nov. 30)

Day 28 (Sunday)

Words written: 2,587 / Total words: 47,850

Day 29 (Monday)

Words written: 2.284 / Total words: 50,133

Badge earned:

Day 30 (Tuesday)

Words written: 2,686 / Total words: 52,819

Sisters in Crime had write-ins two days a week Monday through Saturday, plus Twitter sprints that I didn't participate in because I dumped Twitter some time ago, so the amount of support they provided to their members was beyond generous and the reason I finally had my first NaNoWriMo success after several failures.

It was a great experience and I'm almost sorry it's over. The amount of writing I got done was phenomenal. There were only two days in the entire month that I didn't write at all and they were both Sundays, the only day there weren't any SinC write-ins. Not a coincidence.

See you next November, NaNo!

 

The holiday season is upon us, bitch!

Bonus: Every one of Jesse's "Bitches" from Breaking Bad:

 

 Happy Holidays, Bitches!