We’re doing the family Christmas today since it’s the best time for grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, and nephews to get together. Everyone can make it but my niece, but we’ll make it up to her.
I’ve been busy cleaning and wrapping, so I’ve had almost a news holiday for the first time since the election. I assume we haven’t moved over to Cyrillic type yet, so this keyboard is still good, right?
I’m going to watch “Umberto D.” this morning for the first time. Recorded it off of TCM a few days ago. Here’s the plot synopsis from the Criterion Collection restoration reissue:
“This neorealist masterpiece by Vittorio De Sica follows an elderly pensioner as he strives to make ends meet during Italy’s postwar economic recovery. Alone except for his dog, Flike, Umberto struggles to maintain his dignity in a city where human kindness seems to have been swallowed up by the forces of modernization. His simple quest to satisfy his basic needs–food, shelter, companionship–makes for one of the most heartbreaking stories ever filmed, and an essential classic of world cinema.”
Sounds timely.
I also have Springsteen’s biography and Foner’s “Reconstruction” that I want to plow through this holiday season.
wishing you better luck than I had with Reconstruction. It’s the classic book on that period but I did not find it easy reading.
Trying to decide if today is best to make cookies, cranberry bread, or date-nut bread.
I’m thinking all 3.
The cranberry bread is problematical — it is best 2-4 days after baking. Freezing is an option but then it can’t be refroze; so, will leave it for later in the week.
The butter sugar cookies are in the oven and they can be frosted on Friday or Saturday. Think I’ll go ahead with the date/nut later today. That will leave plenty of time to bake the other treats.
What kind of nuts in the date nut?
Walnuts. The recipe is from the 1949 Good Housekeeping Cookbook. Would you like it (along with my “secret” in how to avoid a mushy middle)?
That’d be awesome! I’m in the northeast and cranberries are abundant. And I need to work on my baking skillz.
Cranberry or date/nut? For the cranberry bread either walnuts or pecans work, but think it’s better with pecans. The secret for both to avoid the mushy middle is to use mini loaf pans. iirc the disposable aluminum ones are smaller than the non-disposable one. No reason to invest in the latter unless you’re frequently buying the disposable ones. That standard quick bread recipes make four disposable or three non-disposable loaves.
I have a recipe for cranberry orange nut bread I’ve baked for the last 30+ years that’s very well received. We use our old pans, but after greasing, we add a layer of parchment paper around the bottom and long sides for easier removal.
Is there a way on this site to communicate directly (i.e., privately) with other commenters?
The only way I know is if there is an e-mail address in one’s User Page information.
Lots of shopping to do still. Have some travel plans for the day after Christmas. Will enjoy the brief respite.
a friend is coming over for dinner and gift exchange tonight, so I have shopping and cleaning and wrapping to do.
I should try to do some yard work too; we’ve had enough rain to start the weeds sprouting, time to go spray roundup. but i could do that tomorrow; doesn’t look like I’m going to have much work this week.
This whole weekend has been an attempt at a political-free holiday for me. It has been a kitchen catharsis weekend, Roasted a turkey yesterday. Just took a batch of sweet potatoes out of the oven. Have some homemade granola in the oven now, browning up. Will be making some Thai food for supper.
And still, in the back of my mind is this article that I read on Friday. Are Americans Experiencing Collective Trauma.
Because yes, I think I am. As much as I try to say that I’m not.
Yes, this exactly.
*To which list I feel compelled to add as a very minimum:
Don’t incite and appeal to deplorable bigotry and violence.
Don’t suppress voting by legally eligible voters.
Don’t deny objective Reality.
Don’t deny even the possibility that objective Reality exists and can even often be discerned.
Don’t pretend your credulously-accepted dogma is objective Reality.
I’m sure there are more. Lots more.
My dad, who’s Jewish and an atheist, is having his first real Xmas without my mom this year. Last year, he was still a mess, so he bought a tree (which he normally LOATHED) . This year, he’s a LOT better (has a girlfriend, lots of traveling) so he bought a Festivus pole.
Hopefully we don’t have to wrestle.
How about the airing of grievances?
This whole year has been one big grievance. My dad and I don’t actually have any grievances with each other. So it’ll be more like “WHY DID BOWIE DIE? WHY IS STEVE BANNON ALIVE?”
…over and over again. I gotta lotta problems with you, 2016.
I think that’s pretty much how Festivus is going to be handled at our own household. Personal grievances? Forget about it. But 2016? Yeah, I got a few four letter words…as do we all.
Sorry, brendan. I hate to break the news, but it’s not Festivus with The Feats Of Strength. š
If YOU want to have fisticuffs with a 73 year old man with a pacemaker, be my guest.
Maybe we’ll arm wrestle.
Sounds like a good idea!
Watching Christmas movies. The list includes:
Beyond Tomorrow — 1940
Remember the Night — 1940
Holiday Affair — 1949
A Christmas Carol — 1951
Scrooged
Trading Places
Its a Wonderful Life
And a host of cheesy, heart-warming Hallmark movies to numerous to list.
For us it has been “Nightmare Before Christmas.”
Noticed that The Sound of Music was on this evening. We’ve been watching it, even if it is a school night. Seems a film with far more relevance now than at any point in my lifetime.
Needs moar Die Hard.
don’t forget the Star Wars Holiday Special, and my very favorite, Santa Clause vs. the Devil, easily the worst movie to come of out Mexico (or anywhere, really).
Caught a bit of my favorite Xmas movie the other night on TCM, The Shop Around the Corner. Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan. Delightful.
For added holiday cheer, I’ve been binge-watching the first season of The Man in the High Castle, which someone forgot to tell me was airing last year. Plenty of fun and mirth in this depiction of the Nazis and Japanese winning WW2 and taking over our beloved Homeland.
Substitute the Russians and Chinese for the Germans and Japanese, and we’re not too far off the mark of what could happen in the near future. Especially if Donald allows himself to be operated by the Deep State Boys and Girls, who seem heck bent on wanting a confrontation in the east and west.
I watched that too. (Shop Around the Corner). Such a great flick.
My family just returned from a weekend with my mom’s family out of state. We managed to avoid politics at first, but as time passed, a few anti-trump comments slipped out and then we all started voicing our outrage against him. Luckily, we are all trump-haters, so no hard feelings, just overwheming frustration.
Their home is in West Virginia, coal country, and my uncle is a retired miner. He feels devastated by the upending of the coal industry, but he would never vote for trump. As a granddaughter and niece, I understand the miners’ losses and frustrations of my family and miners, but the coal companies never looked forward, only backward. Mining will not come back because it shouldn’t.
After our lengthy rants against trump, we all decided to walk away and leave the anger. My cousin’s wife said she needed a shower after that.
We had our own airing of grievances about Trump when I visited my parents for Thanksgiving. It was, to say the least, cathartic. My parents were young when WWII was going on, but they learned the lessons of fascism’s destruction early on. Given my dad’s career, he has been very disappointed at Comrade Donny’s apparent (and likely) electoral college victory given that he was the first explicitly pro-Russian candidate since Gus Hall. I don’t know if much about our new Comrade in Chief will come up this Holiday season, but it might. Nice being on the same page. Makes for a peaceful gathering.
Deciding if it still makes sense to have a kid when the world is going the way it us.
We found out we we going to have our second child just weeks before the September 11 attacks. In the aftermath of what that group of terrorists did, and with the realization that we had a Presidential administration that was hell-bent on rushing us to war, we questioned whether that was such a great idea. We now have a very opinionated and precocious 14 year old who may well be one of those who contributes to fixing the mess that her generation is being handed. If I had to guess – she’ll do something on the environmental front as global warming has been something of a thing for her since she was a second grader. The third and last one was born the same year V of Vendetta came out. What a bleak year. And her early life was marked by the consequences of war and greed that led to the Great Recession. And through it all she see so much good in humanity. Don’t know where she got that from. Sure wasn’t me. All I can do is hope that they’ll figure out how to adapt and survive, just as prior generations of our species have done.
Adding shelves to our hall closet. Something I’ve been meaning to do for about 20 years.
We go up to Princeton to celebrate with the 90 year old matriarch of the family (or one half) and then it’s back home to celebrate with our two grownup kids. So proud they are actively voting liberal millennials. Too bad there are so few.
I am waiting for a friend to respond to my email. I am also hoping to have my hospitalized life partner to make it home for Xmas. http://www.boomantribune.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2016/12/18/224048/33
Some genuine investigative journalism here.
That’s an interesting article. I am sure you understand that no Oxycodon, no opioid of any kind, hits the street without a script.
There are 4-5 things going on:
I lost my brother to opoid related conditions. I may not have a neutral view on this but it seems to me the US health system has massively failed its consumers. For profit.
I am not sure it is for profit solely, but certainly there are some profit contingencies in it. The problem is that there are many incentives to prescribe lots of opioids (see my comments above) and few to restrict (again, some of my comments show the failure of disincentives). Without a prescription record which is state wide or nationwide, there is no way to stop physician shopping.
I am sorry to hear about your brother. It’s really sad to have a family tragedy like that. I have a family history of mental disease myself, and it is a thing that concerns me on a frequent basis. We don’t choose our relatives, and sometimes we have tragic situations. I hope that you remember him with a kind thought. At this Christmas time, we need kind thoughts for our sad stories.
Admittedly opioids are a powerful drug. I myself have taken them once or twice. Despite a penchant for recreational drugs (acid, pot, cocaine, mescaline), I never took opioids, and did not find them to be pleasant in a recent surgery recovery. I will check to see if there are research projects about “dependency genomes”. I would bet that such genetic predispositions exist. There certainly are ANECDOTAL stories of gambling dependency, alcohol dependency, etc. And the story I read about the discovery of heroin stated that the investigators who tried it did not develop dependency due to lack of a specific gene or predisposition.
Thanks for your reply, I remember my brother with great affection and I appreciate and reciprocate your kind thoughts. At this time of year it is worth reflecting on the true course of our own personal and family history as we gaze into the yule fire, hopefully for our own highest good once the hurt is disentangled and the shame discarded. They say the winter solstice marks the point in our annual journey to the underworld where we reach Hades door and turn back towards the light and the renewal of a new spring.
Happy Yuletide, Dataguy.