Picking out our Xmas Tree 2008

After Breakfast with Santa (which included only cookies and milk, not an actual meal. Don't ask) we headed to a bookstore and then out to lunch at Solid Gold McDonald's. It features a lot of rock n' roll memorabilia, sort of like a Hard Rock Cafe only with Mcnuggets on the menu.







That blurry top pic is of a Buddy Holly case in the restaurant. It features, among other things, an actual shirt worn by my favorite rocker.

After, a new tradition: post-Breakfast with Santa we go and pick out our tree. This was only the second time in my life I've had a real tree, and so we wanted a good one.

Yeah, two 'my bads' on this score: 1. everyone had been dressed for the Breakfast, not for galloping around outside in December 2. It was cold. Damn cold. 1 Degree (F) cold with a fierce wind. Yikes.

We still tried to put a brave face on things



But after the second unsuccessful stop LuLu and Lump were left in the car with my niece; Smiley could not be dissuaded from joining us.

The third stop was the charm, the same roadside stand where we'd purchased last years tree.







Surprisingly, it went into the tree stand plumb on the first try (to be then knocked this way and that by the Terrible Four, never again to stand perfect)









The decorating shots you see took place a day later, but YaYa wasn't home to do it. When she returned she was furious, bringing up alleged slights in each of the last two holiday seasons.



Finally I had enough of the moaning and groaning (she blogged about it for pete's sake!) and removed some items from the tree so that she could then return them to glory.







I am never happy with how Christmas trees turn out in photos, as I think they lean to garish or cluttered when reduced into a 4x6 and stripped of their context. But I think ours turned out pretty darn sweet.

Time Patrol by Poul Anderson

When I wrote about the short story collection Futures Past, I mentioned it was my first exposure to Poul Anderson. After I wrapped up that work I was quick to pick up a collection of his stories about the Time Patrol, a time-hopping police force established to keep the flow of history 'correct', be it good or bad.

What I enjoy about these stories is Anderson's refusal to conform to the predictable locales of the genre. You will not read of agents aboard the Titanic, or defending the Alamo or helping William conquer England. Instead Anderson picks a vital but less popular area of history - the life of Cyrus, founder of the Persian Empire, or the everyday exploits of Goths that inspired Wagner's operas - and explores them in detail.

Sometimes in too much detail, as in The Sorrow of Odin the Goth, where I needed flowchart to track lineages. Most of the time (no pun intended) history is very neatly detailed but kept in the background, as in the rollicking The Year of the Ransom, set in Pizzaro's Peru.

But this is fiction, not history, and so the important question is whether or not the stories keep your attention and leave you coming back for more.

Yes and yes.

He was a heck of a storyteller - a tad old fashioned in the stammering, emotional responses of women and the pipe smoking hero - but the stories are entertaining, well constructed, and (a minor miracle given the subject) believable.

3.4 out of 4

Breakfast with Santa 2008

Every year since, well, since I've been born, I've attended the annual Breakfast with Santa at the life insurance company my paternal Great-Grandfather helped found. I've documented those wonderful mornings in both of the last two years.

This year we took our four and two of my nieces to the much-slimmed down affair, which again featured cookie decorating for the kids.













This was followed by a craft project where the kids made their own paper ornament, with some help from Mom.













For me the best part of these gigs was always the sausage, but a close second was the great gifts that were given to the kids. YaYa took home an art project to create a Tinkerbell mosiac window, right up her alley in theme and practice:



LuLu picked up a arts and crafts kit to make beaded necklaces and bracelets



Smiley walked away with a Shark dunking booth game for the tub. You attach a shelf to the bathroom tile with a suction cup and place the shark on top. You then take aim for the bullseye with a rubber fish toy they provide and if you hit it dead on the shark takes the plunge. He had a blast with it later that night. As a matter of fact, he used it again mere minutes ago.



Lump got a pink gloworm. For years I wanted to get our babies a gloworm but never did, and now we have not one but two!



Then they went to say 'thank you' to Santa.









This last shot was a second too late, as YaYa gave Santa a great hug and a thank you. It was bittersweet to me because she no longer believes in Santa. She asked Lisa flat out if he was real and she, as is our practice, told her the truth. So the Easter Bunny, St. Nick, Santa, and the Tooth Fairy are now unmasked. I wished I could have got the shot, because by this time next year I doubt she'll even be willing to play-act.



A very fun activity, and one I hope continues to the time of my Grandkids.

Sledding - I LOVE this first pic

The weekend before last was action packed, and included a sledding trip to a park near my parent's old home. Lisa took our oldest three while her friend Chris brought her own trio. I stayed home with Lump, who was suffering from a runny nose and was deemed unfit for duty.









It has become a tradition, albeit a reluctant one, for me to take the slopes myself. ("You have to do it, at least until the kids are old enough to remember you doing it," says Lisa) I felt a bit wimpish for staying home with Lump. Happy, but wimpy.

This year tho' Lisa returned full of regret for giving the go-ahead to the expedition. It was C-O-L-D and the adults involved were miserable.



The kids, naturally, had a blast.

Some shots from dance class

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving the kids had dance class as normal, but in a rare treat the blinds over the classroom windows were left up, enabling me to sneak a few camera phone shots :)



LuLu's in the black leotard, third from the camera.





I wasn't able to grab any pics from Smiley's class. I was treated though, to a complete walk-through of the number YaYa will be doing for her recital in May. Lu is more of a 'natural' and YaYa a 'grinder', to use baseball terms, but I was very impressed by how ably and smoothly YaYa went through the routine.

Well done, one and all. :)

Rough Weather by Robert B Parker

It's always a crap shoot with me and a Robert B Parker novel. I love the guy, I love his writing, I love his characters, and yet as often as not I wind up whining about his novels.

Here's more of the same. I enjoyed the book. I enjoyed the book a lot. And yet I think the instigating tragedy was ridiculous, the enemy a shallow Terminator-esque cliche, and the ending a morally suspect copout.

On the other hand Susan wasn't annoying at all, which was a minor miracle.

In the book the Gray Man appears to ruin the wedding of the daughter of socialite Heidi Bradshaw. How does he accomplish this? Why, by having a strike force hold the congregation hostage while he shoots the groom and minister dead and kidnaps the bride, all during a raging hurricane and all while Spenser is himself a captive in the audience. The rest of the novel is Spenser's attempt to retrieve the missing bride and bring the Gray Man and his sponsors to justice.

C'mon - it sounds as goofy as it reads to me, doesn't it?

But Parker manages a nice little feat himself by making the remaining 4/5ths of the novel an interesting read. There's nothing new here, just the standard interplay between Spenser, Susan, Hawk, etc, and the very quick and shallow explorations of their characters. But it's a comforting familiarity, as well it should be after 35 other Spenser adventures.

Not recommended for 1st time Parker readers, but for fans 2.75 out of 4.

Books I Read Before 1994

In 1994, when I was twenty, I began to record every book I'd read during the course of a year, a habit I've kept to the present day. This was largely due to seeing lists like that in Louis Lamour's autobiography. There were catches - it had to be a cover to cover read, intro, footnotes, and all, and it had to be started and completed in the same calendar year. OCD, I know.

This is a list of books I read prior to the start of those lists; obviously the vast majority of titles are now lost to time.

I hope to update it as titles pop into my head.

1. Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein
2. Dune by Frank Herbert [the longest book I'd read to that time; proudly finished it during a Cub Scout Pack meeting]
3. A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K LeGuin
4. Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
5. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
6. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
7. Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
8. Running Man by Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King)
9. The Long Walk by Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King)
10. Looking Forward by George HW Bush
11. Remember the Alamo by Robert Penn Warren
12. Day of Infamy by Walter Lord
13. Education of a Wandering Man by Louis Lamour
14. The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial by Herman Wouk
15. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
16. Catcher in the Wry by Bob Uecker
17. Say Hey by Willie Mays
18. Gracie by George Burns
19.Sackett’s Land - by Louis Lamour
20.To the Far Blue Mountains - by Louis Lamour
21. The Warrior’s Path - by Louis Lamour
22.Jubal Sackett - by Louis Lamour
23. Ride the River - by Louis Lamour
24. The Daybreakers - by Louis Lamour
25. Lando - by Louis Lamour
26. Sackett - by Louis Lamour
27. Mojave Crossing - by Louis Lamour
28. The Sackett Brand - by Louis Lamour
29. The Skyliners - by Louis Lamour
30. The Lonely Men - by Louis Lamour
31. Mustang Man - by Louis Lamour
32. Galloway - by Louis Lamour
33. Treasure Mountain - by Louis Lamour
34. Ride the Dark Trail - by Louis Lamour
35. Lonely on the Mountain - by Louis Lamour
36. Fair Blows the Wind by Louis Lamour
37. Hondo by Louis Lamour
38. Heller with a Gun by Louis Lamour
39. Last Stand at Papago Wells by Louis Lamour
40. The First Fast Draw by Louis Lamour
41. Fallon by Louis Lamour
42. Kid Rodelo by Louis Lamour
43. Borden Chantry by Louis Lamour
44. The Haunted Mesa by Louis Lamour
45. The Shadow Riders by Louis Lamour
46. Yondering by Louis Lamour
47 Night Over the Solomons by Louis Lamour
48. Bowdrie's Law by Louis Lamour
49. Bowdrie by Louis Lamour
50 The Hills of Homicide by Louis Lamour
51. Smoke From This Altar by Louis Lamour
52. The Cat who Walks Through Walls by Robert Heinlein
53. Space Cadet by Robert Heinlein
54. The Untouchables by Elliot Ness
55. Witness movie adaptation
56. Rocky III movie adaptation
57. Raiders of the Lost Ark movie adaptation
58. A very good, very dark sci-fi novel about a human war vs. deer-like creatures in which the main character was taken as POW. in the end deer planet is blasted back into the stone age
59. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
60. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
61. Star Wars by George Lucas
62. The Empire Strikes Back adaptation
63. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
64. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
65. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
66. The Sun also Rises (?) by Ernest Hemingway
67. Dracula by Bram Stroker
68. Flowers for Algernon
69. Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare
70. The Crucible by Arthur Miller
71. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
72. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson Mullers
73. Shane by Jack Schaefer
74. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
75. The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
76. The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
77. Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
78. Babe Ruth's Autobiography
79. The Science of Hitting by Ted Williams
80. The Natural by Bernard Malmud
81. The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
82. Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
83 The Journals of Thomas Boswell vol. 1
84. About a gazillon Three Investigators and Encyclopedia Brown books
85. The first six or so Hardy Boys Casefiles
86. Robotech: The End of the Circle by Jack McKinney
87. Henry and Ribsy by Beverly Cleary
88. Henry Huggins by Beverly Cleary
89. Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing by Judy Blume
90. Henry and the Paper Route by Beverly Cleary
91. Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary
92. Ramona and Her Mother by Beverly Cleary
93. Ramona and Her Father by Beverly Cleary
94. Fingers
95. The Godfather by Mario Puzo
96. Runaway Ralph by Beverly Cleary
97. The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary
98. Henry and the Clubhouse by Beverly Cleary
99. honestly, near every Children's Illustrated Classics ever made
100. Jurasic Park by Michael Crichton
101. Many non-fiction books, children's and adult. A majority were clustered around WWII, American History, and the Presidents. While the info seems to have stuck, the titles have not.
102. The Firm by John Grisham
103. The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy
104. Don Baylor's autobiography
105. Two Blake's 7 novels (NOT 'Afterlife')
106. a YA book about a wrong # who turns out to be Mr. Right, although of course he is secretly a dork not the jock he claims to be. written in diaglouge only. For a brief moment - remembered only now, as I wrote this - I was big into YA romances and purchased a few from Toys R Us
107. Doctor Who: The Chase
108. Doctor Who: An Unearthly Child
109. A few dozen other Doctor Who books, 1st-4th doctors, and 1 seventh
110 Many choose-your-own adventure books
111. A trilogy of Battletech novels centered around the Grey Wolf Squadron
112. Ba Ba Black Sheep by Gregory 'Pappy' Boyington
113. Pork Chop Hill by SL Marshall
114. A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
115.The Sign of the Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
116,The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
117. The Valley of Fear by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
118. The Complete Short Stories of Sherlock Holmes
119. Sphere by Michael Crichton
120. Robotech: Genesis by Jack McKinney
121. Robotech: Battle Cry by Jack McKinney
122. Robotech:Homecoming by Jack McKinney
123. Robotech:Battle Hymn by Jack McKinney
124. Robotech: Force of Arms by Jack McKinney
125. Robotech:Doomsday by Jack McKinney
126. A James Bond novel by John Gardner (sp?). I don't remember any of it, other than James memorizes the layout of a (friendly) vessel he's on, saying it's of vital importance in an emergency.
127. The White Mountains by John Christopher (oh Man I loved this book!)
128. One Albert Campion mystery, with Peter Davidson on the cover
129. The Art of Hitting .300 by Charlie Lau
130. A sci-fi paperback. It featured a time traveler sent to snatch Abe Lincoln at the moment of his death and replace him with a double, so ol' Abe could lead the future world government. The time traveler had the ability to automatically skip backwards in time a few minutes each time he was killed, thereby allowing him three or four chances to get it right.
131. The incredible journey by sheila burnford
132. A mid-elementary level book (fiction) about the life cycle of a red-tail hawk. I loved it.
133. The Stars are Ours! Andre Norton
134. Star Trek: The Entropy Effect
135. Paul Darrow's Avon novel
136. The Chosen by Chaim Potok
137. Ben and Me
138. The 21 Balloons
139. Is Elvis Alive?
140. Fools Crow by James Welch (very good!)
141. A Cricket in Times Square
142. The Red President by Martin Gross
143. Jeffrey Cooper's novelization The Nightmares on Elm Street Parts 1,2, 3: The Continuing Story (1987)

144 - 149:

Photon

Peter David, writing as David Peters:

• For the Glory (1987)
• High Stakes (1987)
• In Search of Mom (1987)
• This Is Your Life, Bhodi Li (1987)
• Exile (1987)
• Skin Deep (1988)

An Inglorious End

This past winterI had the chance to upgrade from my 1994 Ford Aspire to a . . gasp! 1994 Ford Escort. The Escort was/is a heck of an upgrade, all kidding aside. The back seat is big enough to hold three of the kids, it's automatic rather than stick, and it had a lot fewer miles.



Many people expressed interest in buying the Aspire, but no one came forward with any dough.

Then last week the Escort went down. Remember that pothole that caused some trouble on the day I picked up my last check? Well the damage was more extensive than I'd thought, totaling more than $500 in suspension work. Without a steady income stream I cut a deal; a mechanic would fix my Escort in return for the Aspire. Fine with me.

Me bedroom at 5:45 this morning: the phone rings and it's the mechanic saying that the car isn't where he parked it last night. I called the city, assuming it had been towed. The police were confident it hadn't been and suggested I report it stolen. Fighting off panic I tossed on some clothes and headed to his house, only to discover he didn't mean the Escort, he meant the Aspire.

He'd parked it on the street, sans plates, in one of the most tow/ticket happy cities in the Midwest. I'm not a fan of our parking laws, but c'mon. He'd also, as luck would have it, not transfered ownership of the car yet.

So Lisa and I wasted a morning at the city tow lot. [A news crew was there, presumably filming people's reactions to the winter parking regulations, and I ruined a shot by walking past the interview with a screaming Smiley in my hands]

I went back to the mechanic, who'd given me the $90 tow fee, and told him the news.

"Junk it," he said. "It isn't worth it to me. Just get rid of it."

It turns out he can't register the car because of outstanding tickets. In a way the whole mess might have worked in our favor. God forbid he'd crash the car in the future; we'd might have been left with the legal responsibility for his actions.

So . . . Lisa and I could go back, pay the $50 citation, apply the $90 in tow fees, spend just under a bill to get the plates, and after all that be stuck with a 14 year old car with a leaky gas tank, a bad alternator, a bad exhaust and no parking spot in which to put it. Or we could, like he said, junk it.

With a twinge of bitterness and a lot of regret we paid the citation and the tow fee, $145 in all, for the privilege of then signing our title over to the city and condemning the car to the junkyard. If I'd still been working I might have paid for the plates and kept the car in reserve for my nephew, but no-can-do.

Oh, and at the tow lot Lisa accidentally smashed my left hand in the car door, cutting my pinkie and causing the hand to swell. No biggie, just a dull ache after a time, until I fell forward down the stairs today at home, arresting my fall with the bruised hand. The pain has easily tripled and typing's a wee bit hard.

Ah, yes, I forgot the best part: no Aspire meant no payment, and so the Escort is back, unfixed.

What a day.

* * *

I'm doing much better in my quest to distance my emotions from mere objects, but this one hurt. Lisa was very melancholy. She'd bought the car February 1st of 1995 when it had but 36 miles on the odometer, and it went to its last resting spot with one owner and 120,000 miles.



Vi (short for Violet) was a great car. It was blue - Laguana Blue according to the paperwork - but there was a constant debate about whether it was blue or purple. Despite its small size the driver's area was spacious.



The gas mileage was great, right up to the end, and no matter how hard a Wisconsin winter attacked she'd start right up.



Lisa and I went on our first date in that car. We were in an accident with it only a few days later, as we were too busy paying attention to one another than the road ahead of us.



We both learned to drive stick with that car. We took it to Louisville once, Georgia twice and once reached 100 mph on the way to Madison. We took it through fog drenched mountains and snow covered roads. We once literally outran a hurricane with it. We'd slept in that car, made love in that car, took our first child home from the hospital in that car.



It was a great car, and it deserved a better end than I provided for it.



Salud Vi. We'll miss you.