That’s my 90 year old mom, doing a hell of a lot better than I am.

Merry Christmas, anyway.

It’s two for one Tuesday, since i missed last week. What follows are some news tidbits that you might not have heard about. Aw, c’mon, you know that your inquiring mind wants to know. You can check out the validity of these items by linking to their sources from last week’s review or this week’s.
&#9733 A Christmas party in Dublin was canceled after Gus, a camel starring in Santa’s Magical Animal Kingdom Show, got drunk on Guinness and ate all the mince pies. A 43-foot-tall Swedish straw Christmas goat was doused with flame-retardant chemicals so that only its hooves could be burned, and a mother in South Carolina had her son arrested for playing with his Christmas present early.
&#9733 The invention of rap was traced back to Muhammad Ali.
&#9733 Several U.S. cities were complaining that they had too many churches, and a man in Tampa was selling his soul on the Internet.
&#9733 A plane bound for Texas made an emergency landing after a female passenger lit matches to mask the odor of her fart.
&#9733 NASA announced that by 2024 it would open a space camp for astronauts at the south pole of the moon, and astronomers watched a giant black hole eat an entire star.
&#9733 A study found that standard-sized condoms were too large for the men of India. The National Institutes of Health said that circumcision is an effective method to limit heterosexual transmission of HIV, but Kevin De Cock, HIV/AIDS director of the World Health Organization, warned that circumcision was “not a magic bullet.”
&#9733 A hunter in Wisconsin shot a seven-legged deer, and a Texas lawmaker introduced legislation that would allow the blind to participate in “the fun of hunting.”
&#9733 British geneticists investigating the case of a 10-year-old Pakistani boy who could walk on burning coals announced that they had discovered a gene that influences the perception of pain. They could not examine the boy directly because he had died after leaping off a roof to impress his friends.
&#9733 The baiji, a species of blind white dolphin extant for 20 million years, was declared extinct, and two dolphins who had swallowed toxic plastic were saved by the world’s tallest man, who used his long arms to retrieve shards from their stomachs.
&#9733 Former dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, who is said to have strangled Emperor Haile Selassie with his bare hands and buried him under a toilet, was convicted of genocide by an Ethiopian court.
&#9733 Seattle-Tacoma International Airport removed fourteen Christmas trees after a local rabbi threatened a lawsuit if officials did not add an eight-foot menorah to the arrangement,
&#9733 An international war crimes court sentenced a Rwandan Roman Catholic priest to 15 years in prison for ordering his church crushed by bulldozers while 2,000 ethnic Tutsi remained inside.
The last three tidbits are so symptomatic of why organized religion is the scourge of humanity.
Now, as far as this next bit is concerned, I hope Iran watched 60 Minutes on Sunday as the long-secreted archives of the Nazi concentration camps were revealed. The Nazi’s extermination camps took the lives of 17 million individuals. 6 million of those were Jews ; that leaves 11 million “others” — gypsies, homosexuals, the “politically incorrect” intellectuals, and all those who might cause trouble. Nevertheless,
&#9733 Iran held a conference to examine whether the Holocaust happened.
Finally, it seems appropriate to end with this little bit, which Harper’s aptly combined into one sentence.
&#9733 Police and firefighters on Long Island rescued a veteran who had walled himself in with a seven-foot-high pile of fecal matter and other debris, and Representative Charles Rangel (D., N.Y.) said President Bush was in “deep shit.”

a gang of blackbirds by the side of the road, huddling around some
glimpse of camel colored fur, patches of white
too big to be a dog
another deer
roadkill

It was 57 degrees here yesterday. Today it was a few degrees cooler. And it was cloudy. But it sure doesn’t feel like winter — you know, that kind of winter when the sun shines so bright off new snow that you have to go back in the house and put on those old-lady wrap-around sunglasses.
As we drove into Poughkeepsie today to look for shoes for my mother — of course we couldn’t find any that fit her and she’s totally pissed at me for getting rid of the shoes that have gotten too tight for her bunion and hammertoe — I wished I had my camera with me to catch the stretch of haystrewn acreage that included what looked like a “goose farm” and a “pumpkin graveyard.” I don’t know if these geese stay here all winter or if they just haven’t bothered to leave yet because it’s been so warm. But, in any event, they were lined up and down what had been a summer cornfield, heads bobbing for whatever was caught in the hay.
A while back, my local newspaper had an article about how smart the birds are around here. They no longer bother flying south because everyone out this way has birdfeeders. We have several. And those canny creatures clean us out every other day.
If you’re female and over 60 and are looking for a good movie to rent, go and get Mrs. Palfrey at the Clermont. Joan Plowright is her usual exquisite older female character. And Rupert Friend is delicious.
For Christmas, I sent sonb!X the only tangible permanent result of this past year of my life: a bedspread-sized “crochet on the double” item that started out as an afghan but somehow got away from me. I was making the pattern up as I went along, which I often tend to do, not always with usable results. Oh well, I figure that he can use it as his futon cover/blanket. It’s cotton yarn, it stretches, and it’s washable. It was so heavy that the cost of sending it was almost as much as the cost of the yarn. (No, not really; that’s an exaggeration.)
Here’s a photo of it spread over an extra-long couch.

This is my first post in several days. I have been annoyed at myself for being annoyed at my mother for never wanting to leave my side. It makes it impossible for me to take care of my own living space. It’s so dusty that I wake up with a headache every morning.
And the other day I went over to By Bea’s Bedside blog, and discovered that Bea had died. The blog was written by her daughter, who eloquently and lovingly chronicled her mother’s last months of life.
And I’ve been checking in at Jeneane’s, who, I’m sure, will come through into the Christmas season with the same strength and humor that seem to be her hallmarks. Her daughter, Jenna, I have found out by emailing her, has come through her surgery and is doing fine. Here’s to a healthier year, Jeneane.
We spent last Christmas in the hospital’s ICU watching as the staff totally mishandled my mother’s condition.
This Christmas HAS to be better than last, although around here, that’s not saying much.

I’ve written about the Firefly/Serenity fan phenomeon before. Never having been an official fan of anyone or anything (I was married with a child when the Beatles hit town — although I do still play their music), I’ve never been caught up in the shared excitement of fandom. But I can understand the attraction, the compulsion. I have, after all, been a part of large-scale political protests. The comaraderie, I imagine, is pretty similar.
It can be pretty amazing to be a part of a world-wide bunch of individuals all of whom share an uplifting passion for the same combination of creativity, individualism, anti-establishmentariansm (if that’s even a word), and vicarious adventure (not necessarily in that order).
So, it’s been so very satisfying to watch as a fan convention, organized by supposedly professional organizers, falls through 24 hours before it’s scheduled to begin, and the fans themselves pool their various resources to put together a “backup bash” that has become even better because many of the performers and other creative staff involved in that Firefly/Serenity film phenomenon showed up without being paid for doing so.
The super artists who portrayed the brilliant super characters that did so much to make the tv show and movie so spectaculary original, and who showed up for their fans (although I’m sure they’d have liked some honorarium as well) deserve all the credit they can possibly get. As actors, they are charismatic; as human beings, they are, indeed, super.
And just imagine if those “fan”atic Browncoats, who rescued an event that brought in fellow fans from as far away as Australia and Great Britain, could be motivated to feel that passionately about rescuing an America in dire need of the kinds of passionate yet pragmatic visionaries who are the focus of what the fans call the ‘verse — the universe that gave birth to the crew of the Serenity.
We surely do need some big damned super heroes in this universe as well.
Meanwhile, those who can, at that Serenity fan festival in Burbank, are blogging and posting photos like crazy. Seems to me that this phenomenon is a hell of a lot more interesting “Entertainment” news than the other sappy stuff Keith Olbermann highlights on his Countdown show. What about it, Keith?
ADDENDUM: AND THE BASH GOES ON
Cnet reports: ‘Firefly’ fans resurrect canceled convention
And on Whedonesque.com, where there are 71 comments already:

On the back of the canceled Flanvention, the Browncoats headed to Claire Kramer’s restraunt La Cantina in West Hollywood last night, and were joined by Nathan Fillion, Ron Glass, Morena Baccarin, Michael Fairman (Niska), Mark Sheppard (Badger), Jonathan Woodward (Tracey), Yan Feldman (Mingo and/or Fanty [Mingo -ed.]), Christina Hendricks (YoSafBridge), Claire (Glory), James Leary (Buffy – Clem), Camden Toy (Buffy – all sorts), Michael Muhney (VM) and Greg Edmonson (Firefly score). This has an awesome scale of 11 out of 10.

A phone report from b!X, who is right there in the middle of things, said:

Now, there’s this actress (Claire Kramer) who played in Buffy who owns a restaurant in Hollywood that wasn’t scheduled to open for another 2 weeks, still under construction work. A “Firefly” actor goes to her and says they have to do something for the flans’ dinner. She goes to the contractor building the deck out back and tells him he’s got to finish it cuz they’re opening that night for a special party. So here’s this brand new restaurant in Hollywood opening, and people wondering what’s going on and not able to get in cuz the only ones who can are the flans with their special id bracelets. For FREE food. Only had to buy drinks.

One of the commenters on the Whedonesque post explains the fans’ passion for the Joss Whedon-created ‘verse very aptly with:

And another commenter quotes another Joss Whedon character:

By now, most of us recognize those “Nigerian” emails offering a quick way to make a buck, as scams. Well, obviously not as many as one would think, since tonight’s 20/20 did a nice job of outing some of those scammers and interviewing some of the scammees, including one congressman and one heart specialist.
So, tonight, when I got the following scam email, I decided to try to figure out from whence it really came. Here’s the email text:

Even with the civil (or not civil) war still going on in the Irag, the dispute among pundits about that issue, and the other inanities and insanities spinning this planet toward even more political disasters, Harper’s Weekly Review managed to ferret out the bits you might have missed.

• a federal judge ruled that American paper currency discriminates against blind people
• Barry Diller, at one time the highest paid CEO in the world, said corporate compensation consultants should be “flushed into the East River”
• a yearlong rash of nut robberies” ended when police recovered 136,000 pounds of stolen nuts with a street value of $400,000 from a warehouse in Sacramento
• the Department of Health and Human Services refused to ensure that its reports on abstinence for young people were factually and scientifically accurate
• the Center for the Digital Future announced that the average Internet user will make 4.6 “virtual pals” this year
• experts warned people with pacemakers that refrigerator magnets “can be a killer”
• a herd of domesticated pigs attacked and ate a three-year-old boy in Delhi, India
• scientists said that humpback whales may be every bit as intelligent as humans, dolphins, and great apes, and that women speak three times as much as men
• Danny Devito called the president a “numbnuts.”

You can read it all, with links, at http://www.harpers.org/WeeklyReview2006-12-05.html

I broke it off. Twice. And I paid for it. Twice. After all, it was my fault. I didn’t pay close enough attention. I caused the damage. I couldn’t blame Netgear. I was insensitively careless.
But those damned wireless cards stick out too far. Yup. I managed to break off the ends of two of them. The upgraded one I bought the second time around got stuck in the slot. My brother had to open the back of my laptop to get it out.
I’m on my third try now. I bought a Netgear wireless USB device that also came with an attachment wire so that I don’t have to have the thing sticking out the other end of the laptop. Only I got it from e-bay and, too late, found out it didn’t come with the installation disk. Four hours later, after finally dowloading the driver software into a Flash Drive, I managed to get the thing to connect.
I’m looking forward to a long happy wifi relationship this time. I’m going to be really careful. Pamper the little guy. I need him.
My next challenging relationship is going to be with getting a Bluetooth wireless headset to work on the Skype I have loaded into the laptop. I’ve already tried three different ways to connect it all on my desktop. Alas! I’m out of my depth on that one. But I will keep trying. Heh. If I every succeed, it will be another affair to remember.

When I drive up the driveway on my way home from grocery shopping, it’s already dark. An almost-full moon beams through the strips of bare tree trunks. I don’t sleep well when the moon is in its full phase.
So I tool around TheGoodBlogs — the ones that come up in the list in my sidebar. See that box if you scroll down, the one called “The Good Blogs”? That list changes every time you come to Kalilily Time. And, if you click on that little curved arrow, you’ll get even more blog post titles. Even mine come up every once in a while.
Tonight I saw one that said “Earth Mother.” So I linked over.
And from there I linked to here and found out that I am the Moon.

You are The Moon

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Moon is a card of magic and mystery – when prominent you know that nothing is as it seems, particularly when it concerns relationships. All logic is thrown out the window.

The Moon is all about visions and illusions, madness, genius and poetry. This is a card that has to do with sleep, and so with both dreams and nightmares. It is a scary card in that it warns that there might be hidden enemies, tricks and falsehoods. But it should also be remembered that this is a card of great creativity, of powerful magic, primal feelings and intuition. You may be going through a time of emotional and mental trial; if you have any past mental problems, you must be vigilant in taking your medication but avoid drugs or alcohol, as abuse of either will cause them irreparable damage. This time however, can also result in great creativity, psychic powers, visions and insight. You can and should trust your intuition.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.