A very nice holiday with lots of good food, movies, reading, etc. Megan and I saw MARTY SUPREME, which was packed and I enjoyed it although it was not the best movie of the year for me. We went to Meadowbrook Theater with the whole family and saw A CHRISTMAS CAROL. They do it every year. Megan just beat the storm back to NY.
My arm is still hurting me so I might have to try and get a cortisone shot. Hope that works. I don't want to go to CA with a sore wing, as Phil always called it. And taking all this pain med (OTC)is making me nauseated.
Sorry to see PLURIBUS end for the year. But glad THE PITT is coming back.
Kevin did well his first semester at Madison. He is still hoping to design computer programs or games but so are all his classmates.
What about you?
FROM JEFF
I'm
not sure I should bother with a long post as I have not been able to
post anything here the last couple of weeks. But I suppose I could send
you a copy and have you post it for me. For whatever reason, your blog
seems to hate me.
Things are generally good, other than the weather, which is horrible. They predicted 4 to 8 inches of snow, with some forecasters going as high as 11 inches. But we got lucky again, as Central Park got just over 4 inches and we only got an inch or two down here, enough to coat the streets and cover the cars, but not much more. The plows came by repeatedly.
What with the weather, we've been staying in a lot. Jackie is plowing through SUITS. two episodes a day - she's near the end of season 6 - and I've been reading a lot of short stories. We leave for Florida on Saturday morning, so will spend a couple of days before that packing. We're not from the Diane Kelley "Pack Two Weeks in Advance" school.
We watched various favorite Christmas episodes of British shows we like, plus A Christmas Story, It's a Wonderful Life, Meet Me In St. Louis and Love Actually, and we have our usual New Year's Eve movies set - Two For The Road and When Harry Met Sally... .
We're basically trying to finish shows where we're in the middle of a series - watched the last two BLUE LIGHTS episodes last night, and it was excellent. Also have CHICAGO FIRE (season one), NCIS (season 21, I think), THE ASSASSIN, PLURIBUS, THE MORNING SHOW, LANDMAN (series 2), among others. If episodes are separate, we don't worry about it. We'll be able to watch Netflix and the Amazon-related channels in Florida, but not Peacock (Chicago Fire).
Things are generally good, other than the weather, which is horrible. They predicted 4 to 8 inches of snow, with some forecasters going as high as 11 inches. But we got lucky again, as Central Park got just over 4 inches and we only got an inch or two down here, enough to coat the streets and cover the cars, but not much more. The plows came by repeatedly.
What with the weather, we've been staying in a lot. Jackie is plowing through SUITS. two episodes a day - she's near the end of season 6 - and I've been reading a lot of short stories. We leave for Florida on Saturday morning, so will spend a couple of days before that packing. We're not from the Diane Kelley "Pack Two Weeks in Advance" school.
We watched various favorite Christmas episodes of British shows we like, plus A Christmas Story, It's a Wonderful Life, Meet Me In St. Louis and Love Actually, and we have our usual New Year's Eve movies set - Two For The Road and When Harry Met Sally... .
We're basically trying to finish shows where we're in the middle of a series - watched the last two BLUE LIGHTS episodes last night, and it was excellent. Also have CHICAGO FIRE (season one), NCIS (season 21, I think), THE ASSASSIN, PLURIBUS, THE MORNING SHOW, LANDMAN (series 2), among others. If episodes are separate, we don't worry about it. We'll be able to watch Netflix and the Amazon-related channels in Florida, but not Peacock (Chicago Fire).
18 comments:
Happy you had a good holiday with your family. Kudos to Kevin for getting through his first semester.
It's been a very good week here on the Panhandle and the weather has been cooperating. Tuesday was gingerbread house creation day asnd I fared just a bit better than last year. According to the reviews in ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST: "...his gingerbread house combined all of the distinct traits of a meth house on fire and a cardboard box under the bridge during a flood, adding distinctive touches which placed the creation light years ahead of any $400,000,000 ballroom." The houses made by Christina, Mark, and Jack's friend Robert were the best -- all three really knocked it out of the park.
Christmas Eve Walt served a brisket cooked to perfection. We had out family gift exchange and everyone made out like bandits. Jessie and Amy gave me a new, and much needed, computer. Christmas morning saw the presents Santa brought -- I received a case of beers from around the world. I do not drink either wine of liquor but I do like an occasional beer; my last case of "beers around the world" lasted over two years and it was time for another -- which should get me through to 2028. We had a Christmas dinner of turkey and all the fixings, then it was time for all very full tummies to take a nap. On Friday, Jessie and Amy set up my new computer; it took some time to ensure that all the bed cess with my old computer did not transfer over.
On Saturday, we went enmasse to the Gulfnarium in Fort Walton Beach, where Mark works. It's a small combination zoo-aquarium-research center -- much smaller than the Albuquerque zoo where Mark had worked before, but he is able to work with venomous reptiles here; after a couple of years of paid experience here, he will be able to move on to a much larger zoo working with venomous reptiles, which, for some reason, is his career goal. We watched Mark give a speech about American alligators in a visitor "encounter;" he was extremely professional and stayed to answer any questions from the audience. Later, he brought out his friend Kingsley the 4-foot king snake and introduced him (her?). This also brought a group of visitors around Mark and he encouraged the people to stroke the reptile, all the time keeping the snake's head away in case he (she?) got startles and bit; Kids were far more eager to touch Kingsley than adults were. We had a gat time there and saw some amazing animals. A bonus was that the park overlooked the Gulf and the view was magnificent.
More to come.
Finally got around to THE HUNTING PARTY (NBC)...entirely too much conveniently stupid behavior from its supposedly top-flight FBI agents and the like.
My sister and her partner are settling in, in Montevideo, Uruguay.
Sorry about your arm, Patti...gotta go get my kidneys checked...possibly bad reaction to my endocrinologist's suggestion I try Mounjaro...brought me down to about 200lbs (about a 20-pound drop) for the first time in years, and going cold turkey for a couple of weeks might or might not help with nephrology function. Less-padded abs a novelty.
Testing, one two.
I can't post on my laptop, so let's see if I can get it done here.
I'm glad you enjoyed the holiday and that you got to spend time with family. Megan's very lucky she got back to NY before the storm hit; I've been hearing it was terrible. And I'd love to get together while you're in CA if you'd like to.
Margot, the storm wasn't so bad in New York, but the northern suburbs got it much worse than we did.
My wife hates winter driving and was closely watching the weather report forecasts for both MN and WI and urging Boy #1 to return early to Minneapolis. When the forecast turned even worse he elected to drive back starting at 11.30PM on Saturday and got home to Minneapolis at 6AM
The holiday went well and my mother had a decent drive back to IL on Saturday.
Boy #2 also seems to have done well in his recent semester at Madison. I kept checking for the Dean's List announcement last semester to see if he would be on there. I'd refresh the webpage a few times a day until the list was published and he was on it. My wife and I were at the table with him when I congratulated him and said I had been impatiently waiting. He said, "Oh, I got an email about it two weeks ago."
Have been rewatching a lot of shows so I don't have to pay much attention. The exception is FEAR THE WALKING DEAD where I am in season 3 or 4. I had that running when I spent a few hours over the past week going through old documents. I spent a lot of time selecting what to keep and even more time subsequently shredding paper to fill about 4 trash bags of cross-cut confetti. Feels real good to get it done though. And, I also went through a couple bookcases and cleared the deadwood.
Ths is was to be brief ,since of course it was the right arm I have hurt. No one leads a more amazing life than Jerry. I hope Jeff solves his issues with posting here. Can you post on George's page. Yes, Margot, let's try for that. What works for you between the 20th and the 29th. Sorry about the health issues, Todd. Weight loss is good but not due to other illness. I don't seem to watch any network shows.
Katie’s flight to Boston got cancelled. She booked an AVIS rental car so she could drive home (all the flights were full). Diane and I drove Katie to the Airport to pick up the car. Katie went to the AVIS counter and was told, “We don’t have any cars available.” Terrible! How can AVIS take Katie’s money when they have no cars??? Diane solved the problem by offering Katie her car. So Katie drove Diane’s Altima to Boston (six hours). Patrick’s plane from Buffalo to Houston was delayed. Then, the plane was over-gassed so United offered incentives for people to change their travel plans to lighten the load. Patrick decided instead of flying to Chicago then to Houston for the annual New Year’s Eve Party his friend hosts each year, he’d fly to NYC, sleep in his own bed, and fly direct from NYC to Houston today. Plus, United gave Patrick $1000 flying credit!
I see my second brilliantly crafted comment vanished somewhere into the internet. Que sera. In brief: yadda yadda yadda more weekend stuff...yadda yadda yadda television...yadda yadda yadda books...yadda yadda yadda Happy New Year. Anyway, that was the main gist of my comments
I take it Jeff's computer is on the fritz, vs my current problem with Jerry's blog (and only Jerry's, AFAIK), which refuses to let me post under either of my Google/Blogger accounts...perhaps the missing comment is another example of Something Awry with Jerry's Blogspot settings. As frequently, the Fun Refuses to Stop.
Todd, a new move outside the country for your sister? Or, does she move around on the regular?
And news of the PRC blockade of Taiwan has finally reached me...Alice's parents were FOB from Taiwan some decades back, so some distant concern for extended family there. A few fewer dictators in the world could be another refreshing change of pace.
She and her partner were hoping to find a less obnoxious admin than Drumpf's; that they settled on Uruguay was a bit of a surprise to me, but it's (I gather) not going so badly so far. Her first domicile abroad, and I think for her partner as well.
Todd, whatever is happening, I'm not doing it on purpose. I swear!
It's not my computer, Todd. But the blog won't let me post from the laptop.
So sorry about your problems with your arm, Patti. I have off and on problems with one shoulder and it is very irritating and sometimes affects my sleep. I hope you can get it fixed with cortisone before you leave on your trip.
We had rain for Christmas and we are expecting rain for New Year's Day. We will be watching Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Glen will be making Hoppin' John (with black-eyed peas) on New Years Day (for good luck in the new year, and because I love black-eyed peas).
As a part of our Christmas movies, we watched the STAR TREK reboot movie, from 2009. We watched an episode of the current season of ELSBETH this week, since no new NCIS shows are airing for a while. Also, another COLUMBO episode, this time with Martin Landau playing twins. It also had Julie Newmar and Jeanette Nolan in it, which was fun. Last night we watched a MST3K episode with Joe Don Baker, FINAL JUSTICE, set on Malta.
Glen is now reading GHOSTS OF HONOLULU (A Japanese Spy, A Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor) by Mark Harmon and Leon Carroll, Jr. At the beginning he was finding the book dry, but at about halfway through it is picking up and getting more interesting.
The book I read in the last week was ANXIOUS PEOPLE by Fredrik Backman. I don't even remember why I bought this book but I am glad I did. It is very funny but it is also about very serious topics (suicide for one), so it is both humorous and sad at the same time. There were so many situations which resonated for me. The book is really more about relationships and how people who know each other well can still misunderstand each other. Not a Christmas book at all, but it felt like a good Christmassy read for me.
Now I am reading THE BIG FOUR by Agatha Christie, which I have read negative comments about but it is not that bad. No real characterization yet, and I certainly would not recommend this one as anyone's first Poirot book. (I am about halfway through it.) I am just enjoying the interplay between Hastings and Poirot and not taking it all that seriously. I read that it was a mashup of four short stories, but am not looking into that more until I finish the book.
I hope everyone has a nice New Year's Eve, etc.
I finished listening to THE LIST OF SUSPICIOUS THINGS by Jennie Godfrey. Set in Yorkshire in about 1981 when the Yorkshire Ripper had everyone terrorized. The novel is an unusual mix of NANCY DREW 12-year-olds, racism against South Asians, marital drama, mental health, British politics.
The novel was mostly okay but she was cramming a lot of early '80s British content into the story.
The novel mostly revolves around the Ripper murders. The coda about the victims felt tacked on. As if the publisher decided, "The survivors are still here. You better mollify them."
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