Happy Opening Day

(Easter Bunny ran into trouble this year. Thanks, Fearguth.)
'Tis my second favorite holiday - Opening Day of baseball season. Go Giants!
Oh, and Happy Easter to those who celebrate.

As The Solstice Arrives

If you're reading this, that most likely proves that another apocalypse has failed to occur. I've lost count of how many apocalypses, raptures, and ends of the world I've survived in my lifetime, but after this many I gave up on worrying about them long ago. Heck, climate change is the thing that's most likely to destroy civilization, but that is a slow process without a dramatic end date. So our society will continue to ignore it.
Any way, it's another Winter Solstice (6:12am, EST), which is always something to celebrate. Days will now start getting longer, and that's a good thing.

Happy Thanksgiving, Everybody!

I hope you are all well fed, around those who matter most, and enjoying your holiday in the way you choose. I'm about to start cooking a feast, which makes me very happy. Best wishes to you all!

Happy Ramadan

(photo by George Breed)
Well, Happy Ramadan if you're Sunni. If you're Shia, you have to wait until tomorrow. If you're Michelle Bachman, you're full blown batshit psychotic either day.

Merry Christmas, And Such

Hope you all are having wonderful holidays, Christmas or otherwise. Mine has been quite nice. Anyway, wishing the best to all of you, and thanks for stopping by.

A Day For Joy

Happy Winter Solstice (depending on where you are), and I hope you'll also celebrate Global Orgasm for Peace Day today.

Happy Thanksgiving, Y'all!

Hope y'all have plenty of football in the oven and food on the TV. Enjoy the celebration, and thanks for stopping by!

Presidents Day

Back in my youth, Lincolns Birthday and Washingtons Birthday were seperate holidays. Now we have one holiday to honor all former presidents. So today I'm honoring Millard Fillmore. Millard is best known for having the oddest name ever to be elected president until some guy named "Barack" came along. Which president are you honoring today?

Happy New Year

Welcome to 2011, everybody.

And for the 52nd consecutive year, the calendar begins with my birthday. So happy birthday to me.

Merry Christmas. Here's Some Thoughts.

That's for all of us oldsters who remember Walt Kelly's "Pogo", a truly wonderful comic strip. My Father loved to sing "Deck Us All" on Christmas, and it's still a bit of a family tradition for my sisters and I. My nieces think we're rather weird.

Growing up in San Francisco, we never got a "white" Christmas. But my father was very much a traditionalist with all the wintery decorations. Snow seemed so beautiful back then. Now that I live in a place where it actually snows during winter, snow is not so romantic. This year we have a little snow on the ground from a midweek storm, but it's melting into slush. And I'm perfectly content with that.

One thing I truly do not 'get' is the whole idea of a "war on Christmas". Apparently diversity is some how a "threat" to Christianity. When I was growing up in San Francisco, I knew that many groups around me didn't celebrate Christmas. Heck, my Grandmother was Jewish (although not strictly devout) so we also had Chanakkuh. That our neighborhood was diverse was why we often said "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas" because virtually every culture has some sort of winter/solstice celebration (and it was a lot of fun to go to different types of parties). Now that I'm a grown up secular atheist, I still enjoy Christmas/solstice/winter celebrations. Doesn't seem like a cause for conflict.

Another thing I really don't get are Christmas car commercials. I do understand that there are some people who are rich enough to buy someone a new car as a Christmas gift, although it's sickeningly decadent. What I don't get is the commercials where the car is in the living room by the Christmas tree. Who has a drive-in living room?

I'll be spending the day hanging out with a few friends, sharing a bit of "cheer". My family is small, and spread around the country, so getting family together isn't practical. But I'm very happy that I have good friends to share the day with.

Hope you have a wonderful day sharing warmth with family, friends, loved ones, or even a kind stranger.

Here's an absolutely worthless gift (which you're free to exchange at any major retail outlet) for you: Sarah Palin!

(special thanks to Lockwood of Outside the Interzone for "Deck Us All")

Happy Thanksgiving, Y'all!

Hope everybody has the best of food and loved ones. Friends, football, and beer for me.

In the spirit of the holiday season, I give you How To Wrap A Cat For Christmas.

Happy Independence Day

Celebrating 234 years this Fourth of July. Throw some animal parts on a grill, consume large quantities of beer, and once you've got a proper buzz, blow up some shit.
Well, not me. No fireworks here on our mountain (scroll down to prior posts if you have any doubts as to why) as the fire danger is way too high. Which is a bit sad, as I love to blow things up. I made my own fireworks when I lived in Washington and California, mortars that rivaled professional stadium pyrotechnics. But only an idiot would unleash even a minor spark around here.
I do intend to grill some animal parts with my neighbor/friend, but we try to do that most every Sunday, so it's not a truly celebratory grilling. And there will be beer.
Have fun, y'all!


And here's the Declaration of Independence read aloud on NPR's "Morning Edition."

A Truly Religious Holiday

For Christians, today is the holy day of Easter. I wish you all a happy one. And I failed the Jewish side of my ancestry by failing to mark Passover again this year. Ooops.
But for some of us, today marks a truly religious holiday: the first day of the baseball season. While tomorrow is opening day for most teams, the season starts tonight with the Yankees (Boo!) playing the Red Sox.
I am a believer in the words of Susan Sarandon from the movie Bull Durham that "The only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball." So today is a holiday for me, and I'll be celebrating with the traditional sacrament: beer. Cheers!




And please don't harangue me about the scandals in my church. At least we're not Catholic priests.
Added: Slightly off topic, here's a pictorial

histories of baseball and politics.

Boobies for Christmas

Because there's no better way to celebrate than with a pair of bouncing Boobies. May I be the first to wish you a Merry "Boobie-mas"?

Happy Thanksgiving

(not a Turkey)

Happy Thanksgiving to all. I'll be spending the day with a gathering of friends at the home of the Flagsquatch*, as I did last year. I'm about to start cooking several side dishes to contribute to the potluck, which is a good thing. Griselda (my bird in the pic above) finds my cooking extremely entertaining and exciting, and she's already voicing her opinion on my kitchen activities. Thanksgiving is always a wonderful excuse to indulge my culinary creativity. Let's see if I can surprise some folks.
Thanksgiving used to be traditionally spent with family, but over the years the family has dwindled to the point that we're too few to gather. My sisters live in different states, and we really don't enjoy each others company enough to travel on a holiday. Exchanging polite phone calls is much easier.
It's always fun to join in a group of friends for a feast and some football (too bad this years games are such turkeys), and there will be beer. Hope you all have plenty of food, fun, and loved ones to share today!
Added: for my Native American friends, Happy "watch your immigration policy" day!

* the Flagsquatch is a rare local curiosity. He's larger than the traditional Yeti, but not quite as hairy.

On Veteran's Day

Full honor and thanks to our veterans.
Now I dream of a day when we can stop generating so many new veterans, or damaging and disabling so many of those who are serving our nation.

Obligatory Halloween "BOO"

Happy Halloween, I guess. It's one of those holidays that has become less fun as I get older. Originally a Pagan fest of the harvest meant to ward off the darkness of winter, it's now a celebration of silliness. As a child, it was fun to dress up and eat copious amounts of candy. For the twenty-somethings (and, increasingly older), it's a reason to dress up and get drunk (as are Mardi Gras, St. Pat's, Cinco De Mayo, etc.). At my age, I'd rather skip the whole thing.

Luckily, I can. I don't have to worry about children coming to my door, because I live in the "bad" part of downtown (this being very relative; what they call "bad" here is nothing compared to places I've lived in real urban cities). And, because this is a college town, the local bars will be overwhelmed with drunken college students. I have no urge to participate in "amateur night", thank you.

The Rev. Pat Robertson and other christian wackos are issuing warnings against 'sex with demons', and while I'm inclined to laugh at them, I remember my younger days. One Halloween when I was in my twenties, I ended up spending the night sexually engaged with what I thought was an attractive young woman. In the morning, she certainly showed demonic tendencies, and an ability to wreck an entire apartment in whirlwind fashion. Or maybe she was just full blown batshit crazy. I didn't get into the religious side of the episode.

If I really wanted to wear a scary costume, I'd put on a Cheney mask and a red hunting jacket. That would be about as scary as anything I could imagine.

(cartoon from Kiko's House)

Instead, I plan to spend a quiet evening watching the World Series. The Yankees are all the horror I need.

Happy Rosh Hashanah

Shana Tovah to all my Jewish readers.
Growing up, the day meant getting the day off from school and going to my Jewish Grandmother's for apples dipped in honey. Fond memories.

Happy "Labor Less" Day

The Holiday to honor unions and worker's rights, established in 1884, at a time when the 'American Worker' is in really bad shape. Unemployment near 10%, union membership falling, and real wages in a continuing decline, at least most get the day off. I suppose that's something to celebrate.
The Labor Day weekend also marks the end of "summer" in many ways. Congress returns tomorrow, and we all know how much fun that is. Potential political snark opportunities upcoming.
So enjoy the day. Throw some flesh on the grill, crack a beer, and share a few laughs. Real life shall resume tomorrow.