Merry Christmas Eve, Y’all!
Actually, what is something like “y’all” but said only in this region of the country? I’d like to pick it up and add it to my vocabulary so I can piss off all the people at the general store in Bethany when I get back acting like I’m all cowboy and shit.
I had a weird interaction today. I was at the pharmacy picking something up for Joelle. I picked my stuff up, walked out, and as I was alking to the Honda saw some older guy- late 60’s early 70’s guy in an escalade pull into the spot on my passenger side, but like 6″ away. He sat there for a moment, and as I was starting to get into the driver’s seat, he started opening his door into mine. I yelled “Hey” and he kept doing it so I blurted out “Are you mental have you taken leave of your senses.” He yelled “FUCK YOU” and I said “You’re the fucking one smashing into my door.”
At that point his wife started screaming at him to stop being such an asshole and I just sat there. I couldn’t even do anything to get away because he would have raked the entire side of my car with his door if I tried to reverse, so I yelled “Just fucking stop so I could leave.” He did, I reversed, and he got out, and as I was driving away he yelled “Fuck you.”
So that is the kind of energy Arizonans were putting out today. I swear to god this shit only happens to me, I feel like fucking Larry David but without being an instigator.
There was also big cat energy today. I had to go to three different groceries to get the stuff I needed and the oddly specific list of things Joelle wanted, and the first place, Sprouts, I walked in and this big mexican man behind the deli counter yelled “HEY CAT DADDY” and his coworker started saying how awesome the shirt was. Then an older woman by the produce there. And this happened several times in Frye’s and then Trader Joe’s. It’s the weirdest god damned thing. I have worn this shirt dozens of times and only every now and then does someone comment.
I thought about it a while and then I think I decided that all the cat people finally are done procrastinating preparing for Christmas because they are out of time and are forced to be in grocery stores, so I was just shopping at peak cat person time. If you have any other ideas let me know.
Oh, another funny encounter- at Sprouts I was in the herb section and the guy in front of me was getting chives, rosemary, thyme, and sage, and had 2lbs of butter in his car, and I said “Standing rib” and he laughed and said yeah and then the guy behind me said “Me too.” I said “don’t forget the horseradish” and walked off. It was a very pleasant and extremely dude interaction.
I’m not gonna talk about politics because fuck it we are old, it’s the holidays, we don’t know how many we have left, so fuck it. Shit will still be standing on 2 January.
Trimmed up the bone in, put my butter rub on it, and have it wrapped in aluminum foil for overnight. I will take it out and let it get to room temp. We’re also going to have some smashed new potatoes, peas, and a nice salad. Joelle is feeling much better than yesterday, so that is good, and it made everything easier. She spent a good bit of time icing on the couch cackling at the inappropriate parts, which is to say all of them, of Bad Santa. Also gave the dogs and cats a real treat with some Evanger’s ground rabbit and I could down some of the fat from the back of the prime rib and gave it to them.
You all have a good night. We’re gonna go watch some more of the worst people on earth with the last couple episodes of Yellowstone.
DON’T FORGET YOUR PETS OF BALLOON JUICE CALENDARS!
War for Ukraine Day 1,035: The Third Ukrainian Christmas Eve of Russia’s Genocidal Reinvasion
Suzanne
Pendejos.
HeleninEire
Happy Christmas to all my Balloon Juice friends.
scav
Happy Rest of Eve as well as the Merry Actual Day itself!
Elizabelle
Merry Christmas Eve Cat Daddy. And Joelle. And jackals.
frosty
@Suzanne: That was perfect. I real life laughed out loud!
ETA Merry Christmas to all y’all, yinz, youse, and pendejos!
Miki
Glad to hear Joelle is twinkling her way into “Anything is better than yesterday” ville. It really is that incremental. Don’t forget the prunes.
And oh yeah, before I forget, if you really want to know what Joelle is going through (news flash – it’s not about pain tolerance levels), force yourself to watch a video of TKR surgery. It’s fucking brutal. She’s gonna hurt. Not forever but for sure for now.
And don’t forget the prunes.
Suzanne
@frosty: LOL and the same to you! All! Y’all!
Arizona has fewer regionalisms, since white people didn’t show up until fairly recently, and they didn’t really have ethnic enclaves.
Oh, BTW, Pittsburgh is apparently going to get Sprouts relatively soon. It’s already in Philly. And Trader Joe’s is apparently expanding to West Virginia.
piratedan
sighs…. I am without the much better half here on Christmas Eve. We are prepping to leave Arizona for the four seasons elsewhere on the East coast (to be determined). The MBH has been house hunting by herself (because I don’t have the time off to go) and has been caught by the holiday travel gremlins and will be spending overnight, somewhere in the DFW Area as plane delays and de-icing of aircraft have torn those well drafted schedules asunder.
hug your loved ones (or call them and verbally do so) and take a moment to appreciate them, as I now have to explain to the dogs and cats why Mom is not home tonight as promised (Blackberry and Bo are already giving me the side-eye).
She will get home safe tomorrow and all will be well, here’s to hoping that your day will be filled with smiles and laughter.
lashonharangue
Feliz Erev Navidad to all the BJ community.
Scout211
I love Sprouts. The one closest to us is small but the produce is always top notch. I also love their hot chicken sausages at the meat counter. Yum.
Isn’t “you guys” kind of the same as “y’all” but for the rest of the country?
Suzanne
@Scout211: IMHO, “you guys” is a little too casual, not quite as charming, and isn’t as inclusive as “y’all”.
But I am a Marinara-American, with just a couple of traces of the Long Island accent that still surface on occasion, and I don’t love that for myself. So I stay away from “you guys” as to avoid sounding like Snooki.
Scout211
We’ve had some wild coastal waves here in California. Besides the wharf breaking off in Santa Cruz, several people up and down the coast have been swept into the water. At least one person has died and one is still missing. But the pro surfers are riding up to 60 ft waves at Mavericks.
zhena gogolia
I’m having trouble understanding how the guy was hitting your door if he was 6 feet away — oh, I just realized as I typed that you wrote 6″ which means 6 inches. Okay.
Merry Christmas!
eclare
Bad Santa is a classic. I love it when the little boy opens the Advent calendar for the day and finds aspirin (IIRC), and Billy Bob Thornton responds “they can’t all be winners kid.”
Also has the great Bernie Mac and John Ritter.
I don’t know what is going on, whether I have a sinus infection, ear infection, or tooth infection. It started on Sunday, on the left side of my face. If I am not eating or drinking anything, the pain is ok with aspirin (I can’t take Advil, etc.) But wow, I had half of a smoothie today, using a straw to try to keep the liquid out of the left side of my mouth, which did not completely work, and I got throbbing pain.
So I’ll see how I feel tomorrow, and I may go to urgent care. If nothing else to get something stronger as my dentist isn’t back til Monday.
Sister Golden Bear
@Suzanne: I may or may not made the mistake of drinking something while ready your comment…. <wipes down keyboard>
It’s definitely a word that’s gonna be getting heavy usage in the coming year.
And Happy Eve my darling jackals!
Old Dan and Little Ann
What a jagoff.
eclare
@Scout211:
We have discussed it before, but as a woman from the south, I hate being referred to as a guy. Just say “you” or “you two”, etc., til you get enough people for “y’all.”
I realize the rest of the country accepts “you guys.”
Sister Golden Bear
@Scout211: More surfers on Maverick’s ginormous waves for your viewing pleasure.
eclare
@Sister Golden Bear:
Wow!
Suzanne
@Sister Golden Bear:
I remember, during the previous Reign of Terror, Mr. Suzanne and I commented that, every day without fail, we could read the splash page of a news site or paper, exclaim, “Oh for fuck’s sake”…. and it would be completely on point. I’m not doing it again. I’m not starting each day doomscrolling. Sticking with pendejos.
hitchhiker
Unanticipated grandparent joy is watching your grown kids lean into becoming santa for their little maniacal darlings. Especially from a whole different house and with the assurance that we will be sleeping in tomorrow. :)
As we like to phrase it, merry fucking xmas, fam.
Scout211
@eclare: I get that. I lived in NOLA for two years and I grew to love “y’all.” I had a hard time letting it go when I moved to California.
I grew up in the Midwest and “you guys” was what everyone said, and in that context, it was considered gender neutral.
Sister Golden Bear
@eclare: Mavericks definitely make you respect the power of the sea. It’s home to one of the world’s big wave contests, and the competitors fly in from around the globe on short notice when the conditions are right.
eclare
@Sister Golden Bear:
Those surfers must have core muscles of steel!
Scout211
@Sister Golden Bear: Oh wow!
Steve LaBonne
We had a wonderful Christmas Eve, a lovely candlelight service (at which we sang in the choir) at our UU church, then a gathering of my wife’s family. I hope all of you had / are having a great evening and I wish a very Merry Christmas to all who celebrate.
toine
What are you talking about? Cat people don’t procrastinate. They do things at the exact right time. Which is darn well exactly when they decide to do it! If it doesn’t work with your “schedule” or your “calendar”, well then, that is not their problem…
Merry Christmas! Health, happiness and a lot of chillin’ to all!
PsiFighter37
It’s middle of the day in Australia here. We are in Brisbane, mainly to visit the temporary Bluey amusement park / experience that has been set up in town (anyone who has young kids/grandkids is probably familiar with this show). Just finished Christmas Day lunch at a Spanish restaurant in town; the food was good but it was copious in amount. The kiddo is also jet lagged (regressed and woke up at 3:45am today), so we are now back at the hotel for a nap of indeterminate length. After that, probably some swimming in the pool and taking it easy for the rest of a summer Christmas Day here. The fact that it starts getting light around 4-4:15am here is disorienting and should be a cautionary tale for everyone who wants to make standard time permanent in the US (for some reason, Brisbane does not observe daylight savings time like Sydney and Melbourne do, despite being further easy than both – making for weird time zone dynamics).
Trivia Man
@Scout211: it amazes that Mavericks wasnt discovered until the 80s. And some guy just surfed it by himself for a couple years before inviting anyone else. The pros didn’t believe it bc was anything more than exaggeration until they actually went and looked.
Poe Larity.
Howdy.
Have never been able to shake it.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Always remember the unique place Xmas Eve has in ‘Murkin history:
https://flic.kr/p/Qshq8H
or this:
https://flic.kr/p/2qBCNhy
Okay, it’s not the whole “peace on earth, goodwill to man” schtick. However, the first one highlights just how somebody like Washington viewed the exigencies of the moment.
One of the best books you’ll ever read on this is Washington’s Crossing (it won the Pulitzer in 2005, deservedly so). You don’t hafta be a military history, or American history nut, to enjoy it and see just how important the Christian Revision of a Roman Holiday Celebrating the Winter Solstice time frame is in ‘Murkin history.
RevRick
Spending Christmas at our daughter’s and her family, but I needed my church fix, so I went to the candlelight service at Ardmore Presbyterian. Ardmore is on the Philadelphia Mainline so we are talking about way above the national average income. I tried to imagine myself in their pulpit, and whoo boy. But it was a lovely service.
After dinner, we all gathered to watch Frosty the Snowman and Here Comes Santa Claus, and I am today years old watching them in their entirety.
Also watched some Nate Bargatze specials.
Tomorrow our son will join us for the onslaught of gifts.
HinTN
Merry Merry, Jackals, whatever your time zone or celebration of choice.
Melancholy Jaques
In the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas”, more commonly known as “The Night Before Christmas,” St. Nicholas’s visit was set on Christmas Eve because Protestants still considered Christmas Day to be a Papist Catholic thing. New Year’s Day was still the respectable holiday.
mapanghimagsik
Merry Christmas, et. al. Jackals
Nukular Biskits
Merry Christmas, y’all.
And to all you love.
MCat
Merry Christmas to all jackals wherever you may be. And John I’m so happy to hear that Joelle is feeling better. Joint replacement is a great blessing but it is also a bumpy ride. Peace to everyone.
John S.
Those kind of people is a big part of the reason I left South Florida. Just way too many assholes to deal with.
I’m on a flight headed to Tennessee for the holidays, so I expect the same sort of asshole energy while I’m there.
Happy holidays jackals!
Barbara
@Sister Golden Bear: Those are stunning — the surfers who manage to do somersaults while riding the waves make me think of orcas or some other water creature that lives to play in water.
We had a nice Christmas Eve service — and then I came home to find that my sister and her family wouldn’t be joining us after all because her husband and her daughter had a screaming fight that she found so upsetting she didn’t feel safe to drive.
Then, the rack of lamb I bought turned out to have gone bad — fortunately I had a back up plan of flank steak that I had bought because I thought my sister was coming over, and I wasn’t sure we had enough.
My husband is wrapping ALL the presents this year.
Nukular Biskits
The chimes were ringing the Three quarters past Eleven at that moment.
“Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,” said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit’s robe, “but—I see it again—it’s a foot! Not a claw!” “It might be a claw for the flesh there is upon it,” was the Spirit’s sorrowful reply. “Look here.”
From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.
“Oh Man! look here. Look, look down here!” exclaimed the Ghost.
They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish but prostrate too in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched and twisted them and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.
Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shewn to him in this way, he tried to say, they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.
“Spirit! are they yours?” Scrooge could say no more.
“They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!” cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. “Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! And bide the end!”
“Have they no refuge or resource?” cried Scrooge.
“Are there no Prisons?” said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. “Are there no workhouses?”
The bell struck Twelve.
mrmoshpotato
@Sister Golden Bear: Holy wavy bones, Batman!
mrmoshpotato
@hitchhiker:
LOL!
CaseyL
Happy hols, y’all.
Isn’t there a difference between “y’all” and “all y’all”? IIRC, it has to do with how many people you’re addressing. Two versus many?
@Sister Golden Bear: Holy hell, that’s some impressive surfing. And they all look to be a loooong way out from shore, too!
I never board surfed, but as a youngster who summered every year in Atlantic City, I used to spend hours every day body-surfing the waves there. None as big as Mavericks, of course. But I remember what it was like to be out on the water, watching the waves and waiting for a good one, and seeing what seemed to me to be a wall of water coming my way. Very much terrifying/exhilarating.
Aimai
Merry Christmas to all the jackals and cat people! I don’t post much but I am always hereabouts somewhere. Thinking of all of you and wishing you well.
NotMax
Also too, Haopy Hannukah Eve.
Deck the plates with lots of latkes
Fa la la la la…
;)
NotMax
@Scout211
Or as they say in Noo Joisey, “youse guys.”
sab
@NotMax: Hannukah was my late lamented german shepherd’s favorite holiday, because latkes.
Don_K
@Suzanne: Pro tip: TJ’s marinara is fucking awesome and reasonably priced – less than half the price of Rao’s.
I have struck up a few conversations at the grocery from hearing someone asking for an ingredient and guessing what they are going to make, like the time a woman asked at the deli counter for guanciale and I said, “carbonara?”.
Kristine
Currently watching A Christmas Carol with Alastair Sim. Interesting background and commentary about how conditions and politics in 1951 England were reflected in the movie.
Best wishes to all!
Fair Economist
@Sister Golden Bear: That is impressive. So many out there! Surfers were having to bail so as not to plow into the boat armada.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Wow, you sound like you had a hell of a day, Cole lol.
Merry Christmas Eve everyone!
Has anyone seen the trailer sneak peak for the new DCU Superman movie? Looked pretty awesome! Krypto is actually going to be in this movie.
It’s funny seeing all of the weird SnyderBro takes on it, like this
These people are so weird
NotMax
@Kristine</a
Certainly much wartime rationing had not been lifted in 1951. IIRC (vague memory from reading)i it wasn't until '55 or '56 that butter was no longer rationed in Great Britain.
NotMax
Oopsie. It’s been that kin of day. In spades. Fix.
@Kristine
Certainly much wartime rationing had not been lifted in 1951. IIRC (vague memory from reading)i it wasn’t until ’55 or ’56 that butter was no longer rationed in Great Britain.
Urza
@NotMax: Ok I get that Europe was decimated, but it really took 10 years to get off rations? No wonder they needed a Marshall plan.
Jay
@Fair Economist:
The jetski armada sitting off the break are the rescue boats. Every surfer has one or two. They can race into the surf, a surfer can grab onto the sled towed behind, (or the second on the jet ski can jump off an pull them out and onto the sled), before the current and waves push the surfer into the reef.
Ruckus
I swear to god this shit only happens to me.
John.
Please.
It happens to everyone, men, women, kids. In many places we live a lot closer to each other than we used to in my 3/4 of a century. It can be worse in big cities, although when I take the electric transit train here in SoCal, most everyone is at least civil because the Metro police carry weapons, are always in pairs (at least pairs) and really, really do not put up with crap. And the stations often have armed officers watching as people come on the platforms. The transit system works well and I use it all the time as it’s a lot cheaper than buying gas, even with a decent economy car. And it often takes less time than driving across LA County. Certainly has less stress. And I’ve met a few pretty decent humans. All in all a pretty good system. And yes I’ve ridden city transit trains in many places, like say downtown Chicago.
Kristine
@NotMax: Rationing was mentioned. The economic situation at the time. So was the overall tone of the sets, music, and lighting for the movie. Not as bright and bouncy as earlier versions of the story. Dark and foreboding in spots. Even the happy ending is comparatively subdued.
I still love it. My favorite scene is Scrooge’s visit to his nephew’s house and their reconciliation. Though watching all those couples dancing a polka in that small room — I wonder how they avoided crashing into one another.
PsiFighter37
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I’m not a big comic book guy to begin with, but I’m not really sure that DC Studios, or even current Marvel Studios, is going to ever match the buildup to Avengers: Infinity War / Endgame. And if you think about it / watch the old movies, it’s not like the movies were superb to begin with: Iron Man 2 and 3 were pretty bad; the first two Thor movies took themselves way too seriously; and a number of the others were just middling. Feige caught lightning in a bottle with the Russo Brothers, who understood what they were working with and delivered a real masterpiece, when it comes to popular culture zeitgeist, of closing that out. There is some good post-Avengers stuff out there – the early MCU TV shows, like WandaVision and Loki, are really good IMO, and the last Spider-Man movie was a really good way of tying in the previous iterations – but some have been pretty dreadful (e.g. the last Thor movie, which went way overboard on the humor that was perfectly in-balance for Ragnarok).
DC Studios, IMO, saw that Marvel had created something really cool and tried to emulate it, but not in a way that was really accessible. I don’t mind Snyder’s Justice League from a pure entertainment standpoint, but the comic book purists really latched onto DC and turned it into a tail-wagging-dog situation, IMO. That’s how you go from Aquaman 1 (really entertaining and well put-together) to Aquaman 2 (a total mess, and undoubtedly driven by the manosphere being out to cancel Amber Heard), or for these endless Superman reboots that are serving to accomplish…what, exactly? The fact they rebooted Suicide Squad nearly instantaneously suggests that the studio has been shooting in the dark aimlessly, trying to figure out how things will work. I am not convinced that James Gunn is the answer either – Guardians of the Galaxy 1 was great; the second serving was a bit much; and the third suffered (IMO) from the overhang of ‘Infinity War’, because killing Gamora and replacing her with an alternate universe version never felt like a good fit. I suspect that he is going to run into the same difficulties of being tasked with making money, while satisfying voracious fans, and having a grand master plan for how everything plays out. I suspect that, as much as Kevin Feige will say otherwise, how Infinity War / Endgame played out was beyond his wildest dreams.
Jay
@Urza:
Britain, not Europe.
Britain had relied on imported foods for over a century, but between WWI and WWII war costs, loans and bonds, could not pay many foreign suppliers for food shipments. It took until 1951 for the economy to recover enough that Britain could afford to “buy” food in sufficient quantities.
Many other European countries had enough agriculture to feed themselves and even export shortly after the war had ended.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
Pendejos.
Gee, I’ve never heard that word before…… (I don’t lie well do I?)
And yes that is a good word for some parts of the country. HOWEVER. Not everyone is going to like being called that, even if they 1000% deserve it. I suggest a careful look around before using that.
eclare
@Kristine:
This was also going on around that time
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London
Ruckus
@piratedan:
I used to travel all but a couple weekends for 8 months a year when I worked in professional sports, because sports events are on weekends so that many more fans can attend. Once was told that I was in the top 5% of Hertz renters. Fly on Wednesday, work Thursday till Sunday at the event, fly home on Monday, often mow the lawn on Tuesday after working in the office, rinse/repeat for 8 months a year. It was fun – to a point. I’m rather glad I left the job. Did that for a decade.
kalakal
@Jay: My mother told me that she didn’t see a banana for 15 years. She also recalled how their house had been destroyed by a Luftwaffe bombing raid which missed it’s target ( Barrow-in-Furness shipyards) by 10 miles
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@PsiFighter37:
I’m not really sure what you mean here. The problem with Snyder is that he fundamentally just didn’t understand the characters. I mean, for fuck’s sake, you don’t have Jonathan Kent tell a young Clark “maybe”, when he asks if he should’ve let a bus full of children die!
Then there’s his infamous rant from like 6 or 7 years ago that’s like something Manchester Black would say:
The relevant comic page with Manchester Black. I can’t believe Hack Snyder literally channeled Manchester Black. You can’t make this shit up lol
I’m not sure who these “comic book purists” are or why they’re bad. A lot of the loudest chuds don’t even read comics.
…what endless Superman reboots? I don’t see how the 2005 movie is relevant. MOS was a character assassination from a guy who has the mind of an edgy 14 year old boy and a shallow understanding of characters.
The thing is, James Gunn has already had big successes right out of the gate in the DCU, with Peacemaker and now Creature Commandos. Obviously, time will tell. It’s entirely possible DC will stumble and the new Superman movie could flop. From what I’ve seen so far, the sneak peak of the trailer looks pretty solid. Superman is the optimistic guy who saves people that he’s supposed to be. Given his track record, I think James Gunn has a shot, and has a better grasp on the characters/setting than Snyder ever did
eclare
@kalakal:
Wow. We’re so used to everything being available pretty much year round.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
The parking lot event is something I have seen for decades now. I first encountered it in Florida with retiree tourists.
It happened this way. I was driving down a quiet highway (speed limit 55), when the car in front of me stopped – on the highway, in a travel lane – and proceeded to back up in that lane about 500′ to get into their hotel parking lot. The worst part of this is that their reversing lights were not working, so the only warning I had was the change in perspective.
I zigged and missed them, but I thought they should know about the lights so they could get them fixed. So I turned back, pulled in near them and told them. They were a 50s/60s-ish couple, and they seemed OK – until I mentioned their narrow escape from getting rear-ended (did i mention that this was on a US highway, with no traffic signals for a couple miles and a 55 mph limit? And in the middle of a bright sunny day too. Not the sort of place to just back up when yiu miss a turn.) The guy in the couple got all huffy: “Well, you should watch where you’re going.” And with that they stomped off to check in.
Excuse me? You’re driving illegally, in a vehicle not safe on the roads, and I should “watch where I am going”? SMH.
————-
There has been an “I will do as I damn well please, and to hell with the law and public decency, and if you don’t like that it’s your problem” attitude brewing for a long time. Bad driving, road rage, and Karens in shops and restaurants, are all facets of the same self-centeredness.
Ruckus
@Sister Golden Bear:
I’ve been to Half Moon Bay a number of times and I’ve never seen anything like that. Thems some big waves.
I was also in the USN and have crossed the Atlantic a number of times and only once saw waves that big. Stationed in Charleston, SC and once crossing east to west we had to head north up to the Saint Lawrence River so we could take the 50 foot waves head on and not capsize. This is on an almost 400ft long US Navy vessel. A five day crossing took 10 days because of course when we got to the Saint Lawrence we had to turn south along the coast to Charleston. It was fun to go up to the bridge and watch the waves. And yes everyone thought I was nuts. Because at the top of each wave we’d be out of the water almost the entire front half of the ship. And then as we went down to the base of the wave the bow would go about 10-20 feet under the water. Rinse/repeat for 24 hours a day for nearly 6 days. Good times.
beckya57
Our BJ calendar showed up today!
Jay
@kalakal:
When my Grandparents sent Xmas gifts to family in the UK, it was always food. Preserves, canned fish, canned meats, crackers, coffee, tea, sugar, canned milk.
This carried on long after rationing ended.
eclare
@Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq):
Yep. People here routinely get shot in road rage and parking lot incidents, which is why I will never say anything. But hey, freedumb!
Freedumb for people to be total assholes because we’re afraid we’ll get shot if we call them out.
eclare
@beckya57:
Mine was supposed to get here last Saturday. According to UPS it’s still in transit to the USPS.
Hopefully soon.
NotMax
@Kristine
Dark, you say? The early 1930s version starring Seymour Hicks* is the only cinematic one I’m aware of that doesn’t shy away from showing Tiny Tm’s corpse.
If you decide to watch it some time, go with the full-length b&w original. Avoid the edited down colorized version,
*Not to be in any way confuse with the slightly late 1930s Hollywood version with Reginald Owen. Hicks had a successful decades long theatrical career playing Scrooge before starring in the movie.
NotMax
@kalakal
There was a documentary shot in the U.K. after the war in which one scene is of a little girl (maybe 8 or 9) being handed a banana who has no idea what it is and has to be shown how to peel and eat it.
Sister Golden Bear
@Ruckus: Not surprised you’ve never seen it. Mavericks itself can’t be seen from Half Moon Bay, since it’s on the far side of Pillar Point, and the big waves only happen a few days a year when the conditions are just right.
TS
@PsiFighter37:
All of the state of Queensland does not have daylight saving & many of us who live here are delighted. There was a statewide vote some years ago & the majority voted no. We are closer to the equator than the southern states you mention, so do not have the long twilights that benefit from daylight saving.
We also have a farming/country population & the jokes often were that the cows do not like having to be milked earlier than usual and daylight saving fades the curtains.
The Southern states usually refer to us as 1 hour behind in time and 100 years behind in lifestyle. Personally I detest daylight saving, so am happy without it, the time differences with other Eastern states is not an issue to most.
After some weeks of rain the past few days have been cooler than usual for our summer & delightful holiday weather. I hope you are enjoying your visit.
NotMax
@Kritine
Sim was a delight no matter the part.
Was fortunate enough to see him on stage in London in a revival of a Victorian piece of theater fluff, Dandy Dick.
redoubtagain
@NotMax:
Rudyard Kipling and Edward Elgar, “Big Steamers” 1911. . .
Captain C
@Ruckus:
Lest something like this happen?
PsiFighter37
@TS: I appreciate the background on this! I had not done the research yet, but the geographic oddity of it made me wonder.
If this is ‘cooler’ weather (it is in the mid-upper 80s in Fahrenheit so far each day), then I probably don’t want to know what ‘warm’ weather qualifies as. When we landed in Melbourne for our connection, I was very surprised to see it was only supposed to be in the mid-60s that day. However, it was going up to 100 degrees tomorrow, which is more like what I recall the temperatures being when we visited that part of Australia in 2018. The weather does seem to warm up a bit later on this week, with some rain due right for when we depart (Monday).
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@eclare: And this incident predated COVID, and MAGA, and the Teahad. 2004ish. The US was well on its way to becoming a nation of arseholes way before the big trigger events of the last quarter century.
NotMax
@redoubtagain
Thanks for that.
A few years later, G. K. Chesterton more or less introducing Kipling in Canada. (One unfortunate use of the n-word.)
Ruckus
@Sister Golden Bear:
Oh I know. Was born in Los Angeles in the first half of the last century and have traveled a lot, did it for a living at one point. Only state I’ve not been to is Alaska. Also been to the southern tip of New Zealand, to the northern most city of Norway, crossed the Atlantic a few times, been to Guantanamo Bay 3 times, when Castro was still in charge, seen the Saint Lawrence river running into the Atlantic, visited Portsmouth UK, and several ports in the Mediterranean, and have ridden and driven the PCH from one end to the other a few times. It has been an interesting life so far, a few more decades will be nice.
Ruckus
@Captain C:
Along those lines……
Plus I don’t look anything like Cheech, maybe a bit like Chong, but not enough that we’d ever be mistaken for each other. EVER.
TBone
Cindy Lou Who is making with the roast beest today.
Determined not to have a day anything like yesterday, willing the positive in and the bad juju OUTTA here!
Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukah all ya feckin’ animals!
MagdaInBlack
Was just out on the porch (balcony) enjoying the night. Rare for it to be so quiet in the suburbs. No planes, no traffic sounds, nuthin’. It was lovely.
Merry Christmas =-)
eclare
@TBone:
Back atcha!
TBone
Joseph and Mary:
“Wow, can’t believe we just had a baby out here and finally got him to sleep. We’re exhausted!”
Little drummer boy:
“Are you mfers ready to rock?”
Good morning all, hahaha glad for a quiet one
TBone
@eclare: muah!
MagdaInBlack
@TBone: Just sent my friends a Christmas earworm:
“I have no f*cks to give. Pa-rump pa pa pum”
You’re welcome ;-)
eclare
@MagdaInBlack:
Noooo!
TBone
@MagdaInBlack: hahahaha!
JoyceH
Here at Chez Joyce we had our traditional Christmas Eve pizza delivery and watched Red One followed by Baryshnikov’s Nutcracker. Red One had lousy reviews but we really enjoyed it at my house. And a young Baryshnikov? Yum.
TBone
Chrissie
https://youtu.be/ZoRtX3Pgs-g
MagdaInBlack
@TBone: Since we’re going there: Dee Snyder and Lita Ford. One of my favorites.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcoWs6e_rhA
David_C
@RevRick: When I lived on the Main Line I attended Bryan Mayr Presbyterian, just to experience awe for my 3 post-doc years. My last name is notable in that part of the world, even though I come from the dirt farmer branch of the Cassatt family.
My wife is a daughter of Polonia (Betty would understand) so I prepared a modified Wigilia while she was at mass. I spent the Christmas Eve service in the choir loft, relieved that our music director brought his seminarian wife to sing the psalm.
Today we will hang with my daughter, who is due to be induced on the 26th. Mostly informal, but we can put four parts together to sing Christmas carols in harmony. We do a rocking Gaudete.
On interesting encounters, I ran into a women with whom I taught Sunday School a couple of times, and her daughter. She had left the church 20 years ago and run for office as a total wing nut, so of course we just exchanged pleasantries and I greeted her daughter, who was just little way back then. Life is short and I can’t spend it being angry all the time. Our church is a community and when we say all are welcome, we don’t restrict our offer to just those who are like us.
Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays, all.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Trivia Man: just visited my cousin who surfed in the 60s and 70s (he is now 76), and he recalls surfing in the general area at that time, and everyone then considered Mavericks to be unsurfable. Although never surfers, ourselves, my husband and I enjoyed watching the HBO series “Hundred Foot Wave” about surfing in Nazare, Portugal with Garrett McNamara. Fabulous footage. Supposedly the biggest waves in the world. Definitely scary rocks that the waves break on. Summer Olympics also had surfing, down in French Polynesia, which was pretty cool.
eclare
@David_C:
Congratulations on the new grandbaby!
Chris T.
@PsiFighter37: Australia is toasty. I was in Sydney one time and the air temperature was in the low 60s F and all the natives were wearing parkas!
I like it warm but Oz (and Hawaii) are too warm. NZ, or Pacific Northwest, weather is more to my taste…
David_C
@eclare: Thanks. This hasn’t been one of her easier ones.
TBone
@MagdaInBlack: ha! My grandpappy’s favorite song of the season, modern version
TBone
@David_C: hello fellow Main Line kid, merry happy from a Bryn Mawr knower (Rosemont College)
TBone
A creature is stirring, much bigger than a mouse…
I said Merry Christmas! to hubby, who said “Hare Krishna to you too.” More stirring of coffee needed!
TBone
I forgot to ask the butcher to tie up the boneless (gah!) rib roast into a round shape so it cooks evenly. Wrestle mania was not my bingo card for today. Oh well, when it comes closer to room temp, maybe that lasso job will get easier. I’ma get hubby involved, much to his displeasure. I’ll tell him I need a finger (hahahaha) for the knots, like I do when ribboning an unwieldy gift.
Jay
@TBone:
Try a bowl or deep dish pie plate for a second set of hands.
TBone
@Jay: thanks, great idea!
TS
@PsiFighter37:
Melbourne reportedly has the worst weather of all the Australian cities, although I think Adelaide is equally bad. They can change from 90F to 50F in a few days in summer. Winter does not freeze but always cold, often wet. Sydney would have the best climate of the three & many think Brisbane is too hot but mostly I like it. Anything under 90F is a good summer day – although the humidity can make it seem much hotter. I do not cope well with the winter, despite the range is 50-70
We often get storms after the heat, which cools everything down again. hence getting warmer this week – ending in rain after the weekend.
NotMax
@TBone
Under NO circumstances use rubber bands.
:)
Jay
@NotMax:
Or duct tape.
eclare
@Jay:
Hahaha…
prostratedragon
“Twelve Days of Christmas,” classical music edition, with Canadian Brass Ensemble.
Larry (number10cat) edition.
Merry Christmas, all who feels it.
David_C
@TBone: Greetings! Around 1990 we spent three years in Narberth, which I characterized as the land that time forgot. Serious old money on the Main Line. BMPC had a chapel the size of some churches, donated by the Pew family.
Princess
@kalakal: my mother would get one orange, at Christmastime.
Betty
@Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq): It seems to me an issue with older white men often is that they feel insulted that you are criticising them and their fragile egos can’t take it. Or they are in early stages of dementia.
TBone
@Jay:
@NotMax:
Although very tempting, those are specifically reserved for use on hubby! Haha!
Jay’s idea of a big bowl was genius – the roast is now rounding itself up as it warms up on the counter with the thick, heavy side pushing down. I’ll tie it up later!
TBone
@Princess: do you know the story of the Christmas orange?
piratedan
JC, colloqually i’ve heard Hermanos used, which translated means “brothers”…. which might upset a few of them thinking that they might be related to a closet pendejo like you :-)
brantl
@Ruckus: Yep, this happens everywhere. There are dicks, everywhere. But there are tons of good people, too. My wife gets people, nearly every day around Christmas, who bring her gifts where she works, or hug her, or know her by name and tell her how glad they are to see her, she’s one of those good people who makes everyone’s day a little better. I’m lucky to have married her.
SFAW
@Suzanne:
You win the Intertubez for both yesterday and today, jovencita.
PS: Yes, I realize it’s a dead thread.I’ve been going almost non-stop since yesterday AM.
Enzymer
@Suzanne: 👍
Gloria DryGarden
@scav:
Happy Rest of Eve
someone could write a song starting with this line. A lot of directions it could go in…
Enzymer
@Princess: My Parents, who would be 103, if they were still around used to talk about how excited they were to get an orange in their Xmas stocking. Farm kids in rural Nebraska. My mom’s parents were dirt poor so other than the orange they got homemade gifts. Grandma was an excellent candy maker.
Enzymer
@piratedan: nice passive aggressive response!
way2blue
I explained to my son as he headed out for Christmas present shopping yesterday—most of the year the shopping center is 80% women—the day before Christmas it shifts to 80% men. Frantic men… Cookies baked; Julie Child’s potato gratin in the oven. My SIL is handling the rest. Yum..
The Lodger
@David_C: Being born in Bryn Mawr Hospital was about my last exposure to anything Bryn Mawr. I missed all the genteel Upper Main Line stuff.
rivers
@Kristine: This is my favorite Christmas Carol because Alistair Sim is such a believable Scrooge – both in showing how his early emotional loss embittered him and in his transformation into a joyful compassionate man after he encounters his past and a sense of mortality. It is Alistair Sim’s portrayal of joy that is particularly striking. As a child I grew up in postwar UK and so I’m really interested in what the commentary was about the political background. I’m assuming it’s a reference to the push to provide a safety net in the years after the war ended, but I’d be interested in knowing more. Thanks for mentioning it and Happy Christmas.