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What’s going on in my life
The photos are from yesterday and today, Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. On Christmas Eve we had a house full of company. We wined them and dined them, and they helped us trim the tree. Polly’s friend Claire-Marie spent the night with us and shared Christmas morning with us. I just discovered Photobucket’s slide show […]
This is Sinterklaas, the Dutch Santa. Formerly the Archbishop of Turkey, Sint Nicolaas, Sinterklaas is shown with two of his Zwarte Pieten (there are six to eight Zwarte Pieten — “Black Petes” — originally Moorish slaves, but today more gently described as servants or even companions). Sinterklaas arrives in The Netherlands each November by steamboat […]
Every year about this time Donna goes crazy over gingerbread houses. Old school gingerbread houses — Donna makes the dough, rolls it out in sheets, cuts forms for walls, doors, window shutters, roofs, and chimneys, puts them together with frosting, then invites kids over to help decorate them. When our own daughter Polly gets involved, […]
Two days under the weather. Diarrhea, vomiting . . . yuck, who wants to hear about that? TMI! TMI! I only mention it because I’m so damn happy it’s over. At last, I can get back to stressing over more important things than the distance to the nearest bathroom. Things like Christmas. I sent out […]
Our friend Darrell makes the most wonderful cards. I’ll never forget the one he made for our daughter Polly on her birthday a couple of years ago — it was a small shoebox, and when Polly lifted the lid off there was suspended from it a mobile made of small objects and photos of Polly […]
On this day in 1965, Australia and New Zealand exchanged instruments of ratification for an agreement on a limited free trade area. In the USA, the top song on the popular music charts was The Supreme’s I Hear a Symphony. In Wiesbaden, Germany, two frightened 19-year-olds exchanged vows. Of the three events, the most momentous […]
My Nook e-reader came with a copy of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Although prudishly Edwardian, it’s still a great read, full of fascinating vampire lore. I thought I knew all that stuff from movies I’d watched as a kid, but after reading the original, I realize the movies got a lot of it wrong. Since reading […]
My previous post was about our roller coaster leadup to Thanksgiving. Things got better, as they so often do, and after the excitement of Thanksgiving eve, we enjoyed a peaceful and happy Thanksgiving day. We try to count our blessings every day, but some days we’re really struck by how fortunate we are. Here are […]