Dressing for winter here in Paradise is not difficult. Your wardrobe need contain only a single light jacket and a rain shell. There is no need for feather-stuffed clothing of any kind. Our stores don’t even sell long-sleeved garments because there is so little use for them. Pajama bottoms? Boxer-style will do the trick nicely the year around.
For example, here’s a photograph of the Montrose City Council at a meeting last January.
I was lounging in shorts and a t-shirt on a chaise in the back yard last February when I was turned in my neighbor for violating a Stoney Creek HOA rule against indecent exposure. When I appealed the decision, the board informed me that in my particular case, any exposure was considered indecent, no matter how minuscule. But, I sputtered, I was not even close to being nude.
A visible shudder rippled through the members of the HOA board as they put together the concepts of me and being nude in their minds. Chairperson Parsnip Lively (bless her heart) turned mint green and Secretary Abner Thrushfinger looked positively apoplectic.
But that is life here in Stoney Creek. A little give, a little take, some indigestion.
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From The New Yorker
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Christmas approacheth. We prepareth. The fake tree is up on the patio, and the colored overhead lights are strung out there as well. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph are in their places on a flat rock on the berm in front, having replaced Buddha, who spends the Yuletide in the garage.
We have a few items in the Christmas Village series that are on the sofa table. We used to have maybe twenty of those buildings but as our homes grew smaller and smaller we doled them out to family members.
Robin thinks we ought to put up stockings for the cats. I chimed in that those would really be for we humans, because the kitties care not a farthing for them. Cats not being impressed by surfaces, but only by what’s inside.
Nevertheless, it’s very possible that there are pet stockings in our future.
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Every once in a great while surprises pop up where you least expect them. For instance, earlier today there were four salted almonds left in a bag in the pantry. Now the foursome and the bag they were in is gone. Robin has eaten them all.
Ordinarily she would have downed only three of the nuts, because the Scandinavian Code is very clear on this – one never eats the last of anything. So I took her temperature, asked a few questions, and found that what seems to be the case is that she doesn’t give a rat’s *** about the Scandinavian Code anymore. She says she wanted four almonds and wasn’t going to accept less.
You know about the principle of choosing which battles to fight? In this case I chose to remain silent, even though I was down one almond that I was probably never going to get back.
Takes a big man to let stuff like this go, but …
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From The New Yorker
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Started a new book that looks like it might clarify some of today’s social and political puzzles for me. One of the main ones being: how could so many evangelical Christians be such firm supporters of former president Cluck?
The author is a professor of history at a small Christian college in Michigan. So far it’s been highly enlightening.
And … she has answered my question.
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Friday the House of Representatives was going to vote to expel a Big Liar. Panic set in when the Republicans discovered that they had forgotten which one of their number was going to get the boot. The problem being that there were so many potential candidates.
After hours of rending of garments and tearing of hair they had still come to no conclusion when George Santos walked through the door of their caucus room.
When asked where he had been he answered: “I’ve been doing the people’s work, meeting with the Democrats on climate change, immigration, and trying to find a way to reduce deaths from firearms.”
You could hear a sigh of relief pass thru the assembled GOP members. They had their man.
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Little Home In The Valley 