Hope You All Had A Wonderful Christmas

    We did, even COVID-style. I don't know what the restrictions on family gatherings are like in your area, but they're pretty strict here. 5 people max from the same household, and that's pretty much it. With one notable exception. If a family member lives alone, that person can visit others, so long as the 5 person maximum is not exceeded. For us, it really made no difference, as there's just my wife and I in our house, and our son, who lives by himself, who came up from Regina for the day.

   Like a lot of people, we scaled things back this year. Again, not a hardship since there's just the 3 of us living in the same province. No turkey (something in the meat causes me intestinal problems, plus we'd never use all the left-overs anyway), so we did a roast, with garlic mashed potatoes etc. To top it off, I whipped up a loaf of chocolate chunk bread, which was delicious with strawberries and whipped cream. Did I eat too much? Yes. Do I regret it? No.

   And if you're wondering why I'm in on Boxing Day, it's traditional. And due to the holiday season, I'll be away all next week, returning January 4th. So, I'd like to wish you all an early Happy New Year! May 2021 be a damn sight better than 2020.

TTFN

The Joy Of Having Cats

 

  That little fur-baby, Mini, got into a passel of trouble last night. My wife heard her playing with something, and when she checked, discovered Mini had found the hot chocolate bombs someone made for her. Basically, they're a chocolate shell filled with hot chocolate powder and miniature marshmallows, and they are delicious!

   But, I digress. Kitty knocked one off the counter, which broke it, and started playing with the marshmallows. And licking them. Nothing like picking up miniature cat-spit covered marshmallows off the kitchen floor. My wife says she did try and eat the chocolate (not good for cats), but apparently didn't like the taste and spit it out. A quick clean-up, and everything was good. My wife hid the remaining chocolate bombs in a cupboard.

   And since tomorrow is December 25th, a very Merry Christmas to you all!

TTFN

Winter Is Here

    And it arrived with a vengeance. After basking in relatively warm weather for most of the past 2 weeks, with some daytime highs in the plus range, reality came calling hard. The temperature this morning as of this writing (06:40) was a balmy -29 Celsius. At least there's not much wind. We knew it was coming, and I plugged the car in last night, but it's still a shock to the system to walk out the door first thing in the morning and literally having your breath taken away.

   This first, brutal cold snap won't last long, fortunately. We're supposed to start warming up as the week progresses, and we could see a high of -2 Friday. Hopefully.

TTFN 

A Bad Way To Start The Week

    Sleeping peacefully this morning, when my wife started shaking my arm, telling me my alarm was going off. I immediately shut it off, then went to the bathroom..and went straight back to bed. As I was lying down, I hit my wife's arm, startling her. She said "you have to get up". I said "it's Sunday". Her reply.."it's Monday".

   After a rather foul-mouthed response to that little gem, I got up again, did my morning ablutions, and headed to the office. Not the best way to start the week, and I just hope it's not a preview of what's to come for the remainder.

TTFN

A Rock God I'm Not

 

   Okay, a guitar hero I'm not, or ever will be. But, yes, that's me back in about 1977. I admit that even if I continue practicing and working on it, I'll never be 1 hundred-millionth as good as Clapton, Page or SRV, but I could play a bit back in the day. Then, about 6 years or so later, I quit. I don't know why, I just did. Until about 3 years or so ago, when I decided to start up again. How bad am I? Well, I can get the correct guitar sounds out of it, but that's about all.

   The reason is simple: My left hand. Old age is a big part of it, with arthritis among other issues, but several years ago, I unknowingly busted a bone in the wrist, and had a couple of recent tumbles which also damaged old leftie. The upshot is while I can play for a very limited amount of time, my hand starts to hurt only after 10 to 15 minutes, and I need to put it down. What I should look at is either physiotherapy or getting something to try and build up strength again.

   Meantime, I'll just keep rockin' in the free world!

TTFN

The Mystery Deepens

 

   You've probably heard about the metal monolith left in the Utah desert earlier this month. State wildlife officials stumbled across it whilst doing an airborne big horn sheep count. Officials believe it had been there for some time. And while they tried to keep the location secret, internet sleuths managed to find out where it was, and started flocking to the site, despite requests not to do so.

   Over the weekend, officials say, it was removed, leaving this:

   Just a stone cairn marking the spot where it stood. No one knows who removed it. State officials deny taking it down, so my guess is the people who first put it up also took it down.

   What purpose it served, how they managed to get it to the remote part of the desert, and why, are all questions that remain unanswered. Whoever was responsible may decide to come forward in the future. I kind of hope they don't. We all need an imponderable every now and then.

TTFN

I Did Not Need This

    Especially Monday morning. I woke up at what I thought was my usual time (about 03:15), rolled over, hit the alarm, went into the bathroom for my morning ablutions, and then to my office to get dressed (I do that so as not to disturb my wife by having to turn on the light). As I was getting dressed, I noticed the little clock I keep by my computer monitor. It read 02:20.

   Thinking it was wrong, I crept back into the bedroom to check my clock. 02:20. What to do? Leave for the office anyway and get a big jump on the day, or go back to bed and try and sleep for the extra hour. I opted to go back to bed. And while I did get to sleep, it wasn't for the hour I wanted. Normally, I don't take a nap in the afternoon, for fear of not sleeping at night. Today, though. I think I might just lay down for an hour.

TTFN