Still Strangely Balmy

Went walking at Seven Lakes. Here's what it was like this time last year. A bit different this year:

Dreaming of a wet Christmas

Unlike last year's Christmas, today we have electricity and the temps outside are in the upper 40s and, instead of being treated to 2' of ice and snowfall, we only got a slight drizzle of rain mid-day. Simon got an itching for mince pies and here is his first attempt ever: half gf and half for "normal" people. [in the interest of full disclosure: the mince pies were from Monday - I made them to take into the office because we - the department - were meeting to make a shortlist of people to fly out for interviews and I thought we needed fortifying.  To my amazement, they all got eaten.]  Take a look now as it won't last, not only because all the presents will soon be harvested but because the tree is already seriously painful to touch and will find itself curbside very soon.Sylvester's point of view:Frederick climbed onto Grandma's lap and we heard the creak of bones bending under the weight. Sylvester is happy every day.This is the best part of winter--and now we have so many good, new, books to read!As Sylvester snuggled onto our bed covers this morning Simon said, "Sylvester sure loves people!" Immediately after Sylvester jumped up and threw himself onto Simon's calf and worried it with his pin-sharp teeth. Yes, he does LOVE people. Thomas dragged himself out of bed at 1 this afternoon to join us for present opening. An hour later, still bleary-eyed from lack of sleep his managed to stay upright long enough to eat Christmas dinner. I'm completely exhausted and ready for bed, from the shrieks of laughter and loud raucous music I hear coming from his room, Thomas is just gearing up for a long night. We should have just given the cats big stacks of empty boxes.Simon wanted everyone to see both his snazzy sweater vest and his fancy hat.Frederick worked all week on a Christmas surprise present for Simon and me. Here it is:We opened the box to find a snuggle blanket made up of two layers of fleece that he not only picked out, but cut to size and hand-tied all the edges himself.  He squealed with excitement when Simon showed it to everyone. It's now on our couch where both humans and cats can take full advantage of it.Simon is pleased that he received something that no one else cares about  [Jami doesn't realize that I'm holding Grandma's present to all of us, and she's actually being tactless].

Last (and First) Concert of the Year

This was a week ago but still worth posting. This is from Thomas's first wind ensemble concerts. They performed several slow songs and a few Christmas numbers but I like this one the best. You can see some fancy finger footling done by Thomas.

It's not just beeping like it was in my day

Thomas had his first concert with the FYSO last night. As usual, it was at a high school that I have never been to before, so we had to do the usual wandering around vast hallways, looking for the auditorium. Fortunately there was not a basketball game going on last night as there always seems to be when we have to do this as my usual rule of "follow everyone else" only gets me to the gym, then. Now that Simon is a whiz (nobody beats him) at uploading humongous files onto YouTube, we can show complete songs without having to ask OEL to get us access to UM-Flint's server space. We'll spare you the Holiday Pop medley (which was designed to induce singing) and show Thomas's favorite, which is a Nintendo Video Game medley (hence the post title). I didn't recognize any of the so-called tunes (Thomas's current ambition is to become a video game composer, and apparently that's a Real Thing), but it is a snappy number nonetheless:
Tonight is the Wind Ensemble concert and then, finally, we are FREE to start thinking about holiday breaks (after, of course, we get through next week, the last week of the semester).
[Weird note: better watch that video soon because it's been flagged by YouTube because one of the tunes (according to them, from a game called "Kingdom Hearts") is owned by Disney! So: they have a program that scans through all of the billions of hours of videos uploaded to YouTube and can recognize music - even when it's played by children! Either that, or they have an army of magic lawyer elves.]

It's Always Something

Sunday evening Simon and I were watching tv when we heard a POP and a loud WHOOSHING noise come from the half-bath just off the living room. We ran over to the bathroom to find water spraying up from the floor all over the room, which was already more than an inch under water. Simon faced the intense spray and found the problem, the in-line going to the toilet tank had sprung a leak right at the gasket attaching the line to toilet. So, we shut off the water, swabbed up the gallons and gallons of water (repeatedly shoving a curious kitty out of the way who was seriously worried about his litter box floating away) and then put a sign on the toilet "Out of Order." Given that it was a Sunday and just before one of the busiest weeks of the year, we decided to put off dealing with plumbers for a while. "Good thing it didn't happen while we were asleep!" I said. Whew! Just imagine what a disaster THAT would have been. Well, we didn't have to strain our imagination capacities for long, as this morning, about 6 am when it is pitch black out, Simon got out of bed to find the upstairs bathroom had flooded (because the toilet up there had sprung a leak), the water had seeped through the floor into the kitchen, which was completely flooded and water had both run down the stairs into the basement as well as seeped through the floor into the washer/dryer room and flooded that room. So, we shut off the water to yet another bathroom (and how long before the basement toilet would explode, spraying water all over the place?) and began sopping up the worst of it. Amazingly, a plumber was able to get out this morning and fixed the half-bath toilet in a jiff but was completely at a loss as to what caused the problem upstairs: no broken pipes, no cracked gaskets, no rotten seals...nothing whatsoever was wrong with the toilet. Their advice? Shut off the water line after every use--CERTAINLY whenever we leave the house for even the shortest trip. Great. Just great. This is not a picture of a baggy backside but of our ceiling, saggy from water damage and still creaking and groaning under the weight of water retention. So add "hire someone to plaster new kitchen ceiling" on our list of Things To Do.

Fiend in Feline Form

Ahh - isn't he cute!

Look at that - adorable!

But wait, what's this? You don't belong there!

Get out of there!

And that's not counting all the times he savages our ankles, or indeed any other exposed flesh. Every once in a while we'll hear Frederick say "Ooh!" and it means we have to rescue him from a savage kitten-attack.

Tree Update

Day 3 of Decorate the Tree: This is the latest situation. The upper half has lights, tinsel and ornaments and the bottom half is stripped bare. Sylvester's favorite hobbies: battling the tree and attacking whatever I am currently attempting to knit. And, of course, there is stealing food off one's plate, running across the keyboard as one works...

Decorating the tree, pt. 2

I find decorating a tree exhausting, and so stretch out the process from November, through December and into early January. It doesn't help that, no matter how carefully I store away Christmas decorations every year, all the light strings die (not a single one made it through the summer this year---all into the garbage) and the ornament hooks knot themselves into a massive wad of thin wire. Who does this during the summer months?

Since Sylvester has already taken to climbing the tree, unplugging the lights and scooting the tree skirt across the room, no breakable ornaments will go onto the tree this year--with one exception. Up at the VERY TOP, out of the reach of all paws, Frederick placed one of the ornaments he made in his clay class this past month. The rest, an army of gingerbread men (some decorated with stone texture and glazed dark green look very much like a 60's Dr. Who Alien) are required to stay on our dining room table right next to his drawing supplies so he can admire them as he works.

The bottom half of the tree is a mess (thanks Sylvester!) but the top 4' looks quite nice.

The Train, again

About a month ago I bought tickets for the Christmas Express train ride for Simon, Frederick and I. I asked Thomas if he wanted to go but I suspect he is still anxious from the time he and I rode this train about 12 years ago as he was most insistent about not coming. His loss, I say.This is part of a collection of parks, most of which have featured regularly on this blog: Bluebell Beach, Genesee Belle steam boat, the spray park at Bluebell beach and now, Huckleberry Railroad and Town.Just as we arrived, it starting snowing huge heavy flakes--very festive and very cold.We arrived just as a steam train was setting off. Frederick gave a squeal of excitement with the whistle blow--sounding quite a bit like a steam train.Since we had about 30 minutes to kill before we were required to get in line to board our train, we wandered around the "village". It is a restored mid-19th century town with a working smithy and various other quaint Shoppes.Everything that wasn't moving was covered in lights.There is a restored early 20th century Merry-Go-Round. We decided to give it try--anything to get out of the cold artic air.Still not fully recovered from the Ski Slopes ride I had to endure this past August at the City of Flags Carnival, I decided to let Simon enjoy some time with Frederick. We were promised that this ride would only last 3 minutes, as we were worried about missing our boarding time. Everyone was then told to hold on tight as, since it was an unreliable antique, it had a tendency to spin "very fast."Simon said those were the longest three minutes of his life.

As much as we like Ferris Wheels--and who doesn't want to spin around and around high above the ground with the arctic blasts blowing through?--we decided to give it a miss and headed back toward the train.There were an amazing number of little streets and Olde Worlde buildings scattered about.

Finally we are on the train. It was so cold outside and so stuffy inside (from the everyone stuffed tight into tiny seats) that the windows quickly steamed up. The train ride lasted about 40 minutes. We started out just at dusk but it quickly became pitch black out--which was the point as the whole ride is littered with giant light displays. At the point where the train turns around (some loop which the conductor told us the name for but I can't remember) they played 12 Days of Christmas over the speakers and there were 12 giant displays, each themed to the number in the song with a giant, flashing number--it was as if they had Frederick in mind when they set them up! Frederick was very happy and excited to be on the train, just not very happy about having dozens of flash photos taken, all but this one too blurry to use. Once we got off the train, we were all suddenly starving. Frederick composed and sang a french fry song as we walked to the car in the parking lot. Now that we have all eaten and are home for the night, we can call it a day.

Let the festive season begin!

Today, Black Friday, seemed as good as any to usher in the new season.

Here's the first present under the tree:

We have not finished decorating it yet, so stay tuned for further reports.

Happy Tofurky Day!

[Simon:]
Frederick and I went for our usual For-Mar turkey trot this morning, and saw a whole flock of very thankful turkeys.  They're not the only turkeys safe from us, however, because:
[Jami:]
After seeing a brief video about Tofurkey farms that laid out the reasons for buying Tofurkey for Thanksgiving, Simon insisted we eat this thing.

Everyone is clearly very excited. When trying to convince Thomas (who decided to eat soy-based Chick'N Nuggets instead) to give it a go, Simon said, "It's like slightly soft rubber--only brown." Yeah, I think that sums it up.

Simon models a new Fair Isle sweater knitted by Granny. The color work is PERFECT. (Fear not, Knitters! That sweater will never get thrown in the washing machine no matter how much gravy and cheese sauce Simon spills on it.)

I had made a pumpkin pie (with gf pastry) this morning and set it out on the wood pile to cool since fridge space is at a premium (we must be ever stocked up with food in case another ice storm --> power outage occurs) and while we were eating we saw a very fat squirrel climb onto the wood and go for the pie.

And so another holiday gone by. Tomorrow we buy the Christmas Tree!

Wood! Glorious WOOD!!!

 Finally got around to getting wood delivered.  Here's how much wood $250 will get you (delivered and stacked - well, the stuff in the garage was stacked by the three youths who showed up in a truck that j u s t   squeezed down our driveway, the stuff above was stacked by me).  All ash - thank you Emerald Ash Borer.

Sylvester is in da house

As mentioned in a previous post, Thomas has been whining that Martha "needs" a kitten. Today when I went to clay class all the old ladies there talked of nothing but all the cats they have adopted from the Humane Society. So, I decided to surprise Thomas after he finished working at the FIM this morning with a trip to the shelter to pick out a kitten. He was half excited and half anxious as we went in the door. (He forbade me from making what he called "OOOH!!!" noises but there was no stopping me.) There were two rooms of cats/kittens. Most were older (old people who take in cats then have the gall to die and leave their pets orphans--very rude) but several looked about a year old. There was a set of ginger tabby triplets that I was sorely tempted by. I had the sudden thought that if I could get rid of my "triplet" human housemates I could take all three home with me. We finally found the kittens and this one, named Sylvester (2 months old and already neutered), was entranced with Thomas. Although they have both hissed at each other (briefly) most of the contact between then has involved tail bopping and leaping in the air. We have already lost him three times (each time upstairs in a bedroom). He is unbelievably fast--one second he is under the couch in the living room and the next he is stuck under our bed upstairs.He seems very content to be home here.