Rain Tree

Christmas was wet, very wet, not a single flake of the snow that I had ordered. Actually, Christmas is still wet. We are heading towards a record-breakingly dry December, so natch, the weather gods had to try to avoid that and unleashed water from the sky.

We've had a very Downton Christmas, it must be said, but we can't even watch the Christmas Special until we've watched Series Two.
Great Doctor Who Christmas Special though.

There was no Midnight Mass in church this year, just a Mediaeval Christmas service which includes lots of Latin. Unfortunately, having studied Latin for many years at Grammar School, I understand it. Back door sexism. `Really, I don't care about the lack of Mass anymore. Instead, I drove to the airport to collect Kev's brother, flying in from Toronto.

I have eaten much good food, Kevin did us proud. Now I need the feeding frenzy to settle down.
Back to work tomorrow.
Redemption the day after.

Solstice

Solstice at 5.30 this morning. I led a Solstice Walk at 15.00. I enjoyed it, and did some meditation exercises with the people who came. They all seemed to enjoy the experience.

Kevin sent me this article. Seems as though Atheists get a raw deal.  I sent this article to my friend Raymond. His response was 'It's the cross we bear,' which I thought was chortle-worthy:)

And women continue to get a raw deal. Feminist Hugo Schwyzer explains how women suffer 'gaslighting' and why he disagrees with people who use it as a strategy whilst claiming to support women.

Tuesday Jelly

I keep thinking it's Tuesday. You know those dreams where you are struggling against jelly and you try and try to move forward but you don't get anywhere. Yes, that. I haven't even bought any cards, so that's not happening. Fortunately, we only do pressies for the kids and grandkids, and we've gone with green, by default, but we have. They have money and tokens. They seem happy enough.

Happy Chanukkah for anyone who Chanukkahs.
I have a number of people signed up for my Solstice walk on Thursday - Solstice. I'm looking forward to that.

The weekend at the Static was relaxing. Well, just a day for me because I had to come back up Saturday morning for work, but I did manage to swim and sleep and clear up a bit, no appreciable internet still but, whatever. Monday I cleaned back here, or let the energy flow as I see it.

Weather's gone warm again, that's not so good, but then even that's relative. 

I suppose, in a manner of speaking, I'm ready.
Bring it.

Trudeau

One of the few Prime Minsters that Canadians actually seem to like, was Pierre Trudeau. His son, Justin, is now an MP and currently sporting some dashing and altogether rather embarrassingly awful facial hair. Post Movember I'm told.
But right now, he is a bit of a hero.

The greater embarrassment for Canada, far greater than Justin's beard, Celine Dion and Bryan Adams all rolled into one, is the fiasco of the Durban Climate Conference when Canada withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol. In truth, we had a commitment to reducing emissions by 6% by next year, whereas emissions in this country had actually risen by 30%. Epic failure on that one.

Canada's so-called Environment minister,criticised another minister who took up this awful state of affairs with him in the House of Commons, but he had personally prohibited the other ministers from going. Trudeau, in parliament, called him a piece of shit.

Like a true Canadian, he then apologised.
But he was damned right.

Eclipse

I was awake and outside extremely early this morning, in the hope of seeing the lunar eclipse. The world was sparkling from the hardest frost I'd ever seen, beautiful in the darkness. The sky however, was overcast and there was no sign of any moon, eclipsed or non-eclipsed.

On the way to work, a slew of annoying ads on the radio. It seems to be compulosry to trot out jewellry and perfume ads during the lead up to Christmas, but the jewellry ones are, of course outdated and sexist. As for perfume, do people still buy it? I mean, it's not as though I don't own any, but one is rarely able to wear it these days.

Another radio ad, for some seller of holidays offers same for 'adults or couples'. I mean... have I missed something?

We've been watching 'Once Upon a Time', a series filmed in the posh part of Richmond, Steveston, although confusingly for those who live there, the area now frequently has the sign up that says 'Storybrooke'. Most enjoyable series. We have also been watching 'Grimm'. This, astonishingly, isn't filmed up here. The characters are named in German. I get the wolves, they are called Blutbad, or bloodbath, fair enough, the pigs are Bauerschwein, ok, the three little pigs - farmer pigs, ok, ish, but the rat wranglers, 'Reinigen'? 'To clean'? No, you've lost me I'm afraid. Still, mostly enjoying the programme.

Cold Comfort

It's astonishing how people are willing to believe in a Mayan prophecy but not in climate change.

And on the subject of believing, from the Guardian...

"The UK government has been accused of being "extraordinarily naive" over tar sands information given to it by Canadian diplomats as part of a lobbying campaign, but which has since been contradicted.
Chris Davies, the MEP who is the Liberal Democrat environment spokesman in the European parliament, told me: "It is extraordinarily naive for ministers and officials to take the special pleading by Canada as though it were gospel truth, rather than what it is - an attempt to protect narrow financial interests."

Gaagh, how embarrassing. 

Happy 25th

Happy Birthday Laurence, 25 today. We've been to Ricky's, we had an ice-cream cake from DQ. All good.

Frat Party

At the weekend, Kevin's frat Christmas party was at our house. People take it in turns to host and this year, well, we offered. Sounds like madness, doesn't it?

In fact, it was incredibly well-organised. The young whippersnapper frats in their best bib and tucker, shirt neatly tucked into trews, ties, nicely polished shoes, came and set up. All the food and drink was provided. The youngsters ran the bar, no-one drank too much, and at the end, the 'pledges' cleared up. It was a sort of rent-a-party. Totes civilised. Who knew?

Hmm, Kevin did, I must admit, this is how he had told me it would be, and it was.

My own part mainly took the form of dog-wrangling. As soon as strangers started arriving, Whisky became insane dog, but I put him in the car and took him for a walk. Er...a drive and then a walk. We have a place we go down by the river, which is normally deserted, but yesterday evening, at twilight, there were more cars driving past than I'd ever seen there before. Followed by a police car.

An elderly Chinese lady wearing a coolie hat was clipping the grass verge with a pair of garden shears. There are no houses there, this was just a random piece of grass verge.
'Cars very fast,' she said.
'Yes,' I agreed, unable to think of anything less anodyne to say in the face of surreality.
But the dog came back calm.