Friday Five

I'm stealing this Friday post from the webring RevGalBlogPals, because it gives me an opportunity to get all my venting about Christmas out of the way in one post, and then all I can talk about is happy holiday things from now on!

So the RevGals ask:

Please tell us your least favorite/most annoying seasonal....
1) dessert/cookie/family food
I don't like shortbread. THERE. I said it. THIS GIRL DOES NOT LIKE SHORTBREAD. I've never confessed that to anyone before... feels much better.

2) beverage (seasonal beer, eggnog w/ way too much egg and not enough nog, etc...)
I'm ok with egg-nog, but only in very small quantities.

3) tradition (church, family, other)
I'm going to have to agree with cheesehead on this one, and shake my fist at White Elephant gift exchanges. The last thing I need in my life (and my tiny house) right now, is another piece of ugly holiday crap. I like gift exchanges that involve nice things though... like wine.

4) decoration
Never been big on loose tinsel, but mostly because one always finds it in the litter box about a week later. Ew.

5) gift (received or given) One time, I got a starfish. A dead one. It smelled funny, but the girl who gave it to me thought it was really neat. It smelled bad.

BONUS: SONG/CD that makes you want to tell the elves where to stick it.
When I am Queen of the World, any person who wishes to write a choral re-arrangement of a classic Christmas carol, or a medley of Christmas carols, will have to have it approved first by moi. The implementation of this rule will be officially marked by the explosion of all recordings of "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth."

And another thing, WH and I were standing the supermarket the other day and noticed an advent calendar of sorts. Except it had Spiderman on it. And was counting down from December 1st until New Year's. Just sayin'.

Mugs!

As tagged by Crimson Rambler, here are my mugs!

1) At work, I have a mug that says UTAH on the side of it and has a three-dimensional prospector hugging the side of the cup. It's hideous, but a real conversation piece!

2) Also at work, I have a plain blue mug that says MUGS on the side of it. The MUGS mug was a promotional item for a first year experience program run at Colourful U.

3) At home, we have a set of four dark brown mugs with different simple patterns on them; all a very beautiful gift from an Italian friend of my brother.

4)One of my favourite mugs at home is a china mug covered in all of Da Vinci's sketches of cats, a gift from the Maternal Unit.

5)We have a variety of miscellaneous mugs - a couple with other cats on them, a couple with flower on them, a couple with flowers AND cats on them...

6)A wonderful pottery mug given to WH by Paternal Unit and his wife, with a very gumpy and sour face sculpted on to it.

7) And finally, two proper china teacups, both once belonging to my grandmother. One passed down via Maternal Unit, and the other, the very first gift my grandmother received as a teacher, a wedding gift to me from one of her friends.

Playing Blog Catch-Up

Seems like there is lots to blog about today...

WH and I hung our Christmas lights yesterday. The scene must have been absolutely hilarious to anyone watching from across the street. I would first like to announce with great pride that WH and I didn't exchange one cross word with each other the entire afternoon, which was especially impressive at the moment when I, being helpful, pulled on the end of the extension cord... which resulted in all the lights falling off the roof and into the front yard. WH had just come down from the ladder, where he was risking life and limb to get the lights strung across the highest eave. "That sucks," he said. I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe, a state in which he immediately joined me. Anyway, we did manage to get them hung, eventually, two strings of blue lights across the front of our house... very pretty. WH installed a new porch light as soon as we were done, and put in a blue light bulb. The whole effect is beautiful... very "Winter Wonderland." Lights are up just in time, with 10 cm of snow coming down last night. Our goal is to do something a tiny bit more extensive every year with the lights... last year we just did a window, this year the eaves... next year, one of those giant inflatable snow globes!

At church last night, we celebrated St. Arnold, Patron Saint of Brewers, with our annual beer-tasting festival. We've been holding this event for about 5 years and it's always great fun. My job is to do all the research and make a presentation on the beer that we're serving. Last night was beer from England and Scotland, and despite competing with the Grey Cup (Canada's Super Bowl), we had a good turnout. Beer = Good.

Some other Miscellaneousness from last week:
-WH's Convocation day was wonderful - beautiful ceremony, good and meaningful speeches, and a nice lunch with parents and supervisor before hand.
-Symphonic choir had their Fall concert that evening, which made for a VERY long day, but the concert went really really well. Always tough to get a choir up and motivated for a mid-week concert, but we seemed to be successful this time!
-We had a restful weekend. It was necessary, and lovely.

Sunshine

Every afternoon, the sun shines in through the windows of my office onto my back. It is lovely, but it makes me want to close my door and lie down on the floor like the cats, with my feet up in the air and the sun toasting my tummy. And my eyes closed... that part is important.

Weekend Wrap-Up

A busy but satisfying weekend is now behind us!

We held a party on Saturday evening to celebrate WH's graduation from the DMus program at Colourful U, and the event was highly successful! Just the right number of people, lots of nice food (including gourmet cupcakes... yum) and drink, a touching toast from WH's supervisor, and the presentation of his doctoral hood from his parents. They also brought with them from home two of WH's original compositions, written at approximately the age of 7: one a re-write of Oh Canada, and the other a charming ditty entitled "Shhh, my Dad is Sleeping: He is a Snorer." Much hilarity, I assure you!

Dress rehearsal tonight for Symphonic Choir's fall concert on Thursday evening, with about a third of the program conducted by WH. The concert is choir and brass and organ, and should be good fun, though I'm concerned that tonight's rehearsal will be a bit chaotic. We have a guest youth choir who come and go during the program, and there's considerable choreography that goes along with getting them in and out of the choir loft , and a semi-chorus (featuring both WH and me) in and out of the choir loft and the placement of the brass, etc. etc. And as always, I feel as though the choir could have used at least one more rehearsal before the dress, but it always seems to work out just fine!

Thursday is the big day of the week, with the actual convocation ceremony in the afternoon and the concert in the evening. This is a fortuitous opportunity for WH's parents to see him conduct, which they don't get to do very often.

Non-Lethal Force

A few thoughts on the use of tasers:

-There are no easy answers.

-The decision to use any kind of force against a person should be carefully made, whether that force is intended to be lethal or non-lethal. The decision to cause a person the kind of pain a blast from a taser brings should not be an easy one, nor should it be hastily made.

-Too many people are dying after receiving taser shocks to keep referring to use of the weapon as non-lethal force, whether or not there were other factors that contributed to the deaths of those people. And speaking of those other factors, police need to find another way to deal with people with who are in the state of delerium described in the article. Do police forces have doctors on call?

-The story that is making news this week about the man who died in the Vancouver airport is a tragedy of epic proportions. That nobody appears to have made an attempt to communicate with the man in a language he knew, that he died in pain, confused, distressed, tired, and alone is heart-breaking.

-The incident in Vancouver, and the incident in the airport in Arizona cause me to wonder if there isn't something wrong with the way that the air travel industry supports passengers in distress.

Shock of all Shocks

REALLY?!?! Alex Rodriguez is back negotiating with the Yankees!? I am SHOCKED, I tell you. ABSOLUTELY SHOCKED! This is just the most shocking thing!! Who could have seen this coming?? It's JUST SO SHOCKING.

Oh wait, no, no it isn't.