My firstborn spent last Sunday evening at my place wrapping Christmas presents. My dining area no longer looks like an explosion in a department store. And I even finished wrapping my own final presents on Christmas Eve — hard to do it sooner since they were late arrivals and for my daughter.
As you can see by Itzl's concerned look, this group is for us to check in at to let people know we are alive, doing OK, and not affected by such things as heat, blizzards, floods, wild fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, power outages, or other such things that could keep us off DKos. It's also so we can find other Kossacks nearby for in-person checks when other methods of communication fail - a buddy system. Members come here to check in. If you're not here, or anywhere else on DKos, and there are adverse conditions in your area (floods, heatwaves, hurricanes, etc.), we and your buddy are going to check up on you. If you are going to be away from your computer for a day or a week, let us know here. We care!
IAN is a great group to join, and a good place to learn to write diaries. Drop one of us a PM to be added to the Itzl Alert Network anytime! We all share the publishing duties, and we welcome everyone who reads IAN to write diaries for the group! Every member is an editor, so anyone can take a turn when they have something to say, photos and music to share, a cause to promote or news!
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A Christmas Eve eruption for Mount Etna. Merry Christmas, Sicily!
A mining massacre in Pennsylvania in 1897. These people’s descendents have forgotten their history.
I recall seeing this one before, about the horses found in Pompeii. I think I even posted the link. This has more detail.
Denmark has a law now where newly naturalized citizens have to shake hands with the officiant of the ceremony. It’s nastier than it sounds.
An ancient civilization in Peru used reptile urine for some of their paints.
Surfer’s ear has been diagnosed in a skeleton from ancient Panama.
There’s been a study published on how Uranus ended up lopsided.
There’s been a pretty much untouched 5th Dynasty tomb discovered in Egypt. Apparently it is a high priest (during the reign of the third pharoah of the dynasty) and his family.
“No-kill” eggs in Germany. I believe they’re being sold to make animal feed.
An incantation in ancient Aramaic appears to be a spell to treat someone suffering from the fire of the devourer. Archaeologists think the “devourer” might be a local scorpion.
And the couple arrested over the Gatwick drones have been released for lack of any evidence they were connected to the incident.
Fakes and mistakes. Misinterpretations in archaeology.
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My mother got all the cards in the mail, but not all the checks she includes for assorted family members. Among the ones she got distracted from sending were those for me and my offspring. We think this is pretty funny, actually.
I talked to Mom on Christmas Eve and she had figured this out and got things in the mail that day. Which makes it even funnier, for what little that may be worth.
The gifts from friends and family are the really numerous ones for us. My first husband enjoys making serious efforts to buy out toy stores. And several of my daughter’s friends have declared her and her kids honorary relatives for the purpose. The kids really cleaned up — my granddaughter kept crossing things off the lists in the letters to Santa that were up on the tree.
My daughter says she can’t use the coffee I bought her at home because my granddaughter has started drinking coffee and if the brand is as strong as it claims, the kid would be wired for a week from half a cup. I will ignore any criticism of a kid her age drinking coffee. I started at the same age and it hasn’t hurt me. Of course, even other Americans think I like my coffee weak.
The presents for me numbered two: a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle that I almost bought for myself a few months back, and a Barnes & Noble gift card.
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Texts on Christmas morning from assorted relatives wishing their entire list of same a Merry Christmas. Since I don’t have many phone numbers and don’t necessarily recognize the initials being used, don’t ask me who they all are.
My stocking had chocolate. Lots of chocolate. Also a penguin Christmas tree ornament.
Dinner was the duck with cornbread sage dressing, roasted asparagus, brussels sprouts and brocolli, mashed potatoes and gravy, grocery store croissants and assorted drinks — mimosas for the adults, being as there are occasional large advantages to living across the parking lot from each other. Since I miscalculated on the timing for the duck and didn’t realize it till an hour in, dinner was at 2:30 instead of 3:30 as had been originally planned.
I got to see quite a few videos of a very silly electronic gift to my grandson. He kept forgetting that I had been there to see it unwrapped.
Wednesday through Saturday, visit to Seattle. The weather had eased some, and it’s what my daughter could afford to give her grandmother for Christmas. I thought surely some of the questions I had asked when I called my mother over the previous week had given the game away, but no — it was as big a surprise as the kids were hoping for.
We helped my mother undecorate her house — which she says saved her at least a week’s worth of work, and sat around and read and talked and ate. Typical visit, actually. Especially my daughter and mother trying a couple of new recipes out of recent magazines my mother had.
I got home to a couple of bills I had already paid, some begging letters from organizations I’m pretty sure I’ve told they’re never going to get money from me, several other pieces of junk mail, two packages and the check from my mother which she’d stuck in the note to my daughter. I also got home to 211 non-spam emails — many of them begging for donations that they won’t get from me and others trying to sell me stuff just because I once bought a thing from them; but definitely 211.
It’s been a wearing week and school starts again on Wednesday.