Just a quick note here. (Might this be better as a Tweet? Probably. Maybe a Facebook post? Nope, the Facebook boycott is still going strong)
The kids are here and Bellana gave the Tewksbury Tweets I made last night a thumbs up.
Dessert success! Culinary Win! My work here is done!
The kids are coming over today.
There’s a new Star Wars show premiering today, The Book of Boba Fett.
We are going to have the Christmas dinner we were supposed to have on Christmas but didn’t.
It’s not too cold out (forecast calls for mid to high 30s).
I got a pretty good night’s sleep last night.
I put down all of the midi tracks for two songs this morning before work.
That’s a lot of good stuff for a Wednesday, don’t you think?
I wonder what’s going to come along and blow the happy vibes?
Hang in there, kids. Only two more work days until New Years Eve.
I’m worried about my Tewksbury Tweets. They look okay, but you’re supposed to let them sit for a while and harden before putting them into the fridge. I let them sit for about 90 minutes, maybe a little longer. That should have been more than enough time, but when I took them off the wax paper they were still really gooey. I’m sure they will taste fine once they are cooled, but they won’t be perfect.
Weirdly, the bigger the tweet, the less gooey it was. I’m not sure how that worked out.
Who cares, the kids are coming tomorrow! WOOHOO!
No spoilers here, but I think the one thing Marvel’s Hawkeye has taught us is that the universe needs a Kate/Yelena buddy cop show. There is supposed to be an Echo show coming and that could be a sort of Hawkeye spin off and if we don’t get a Kate/Yelena team up then we’re going to absolutely need a show of their own. Come on, Marvel/Disney+, let’s make that happen.
While we’re on the Marvel TV subject, let’s get going on Daredevil season 4, m’kay? Bring the whole gang back. They’ll have to tone down the blood for Disney+ viewers, but they can totally do it. Get it done.
While we’re on the Disney+ subject, The Book of Boba Fett launches in two days. I need this show to be amazing. I need it. I am not one of those Star Wars fans who think Boba Fett is the balls or anything. In three movies (from the point of view of the special editions) he’s on screen for a grand total of, what? 10 minutes? How many lines did he have? Was it more than two? There’s the “he’s worth a lot to me” line and the “put captain Solo in the cargo hold” and that’s all I can think of off the top of my head. He gets more in Attack of the Clones and in the The Clone Wars TV show (and Rebels too? I can’t remember, was he in Rebels? I don’t think so), but that’s him as a kid and not the ass kicking bounty hunter he’s supposed to be. He had a good showing in season two of The Mandalorian, but I need the new show to live up to the character’s hype and I don’t know if that is actually possible without bending the laws of physics.
What else is going on?
NASA gave us a gigantic Christmas Present with the launch of the James Webb telescope. I haven’t read up on any of the details yet, but I hear everything went well. I remember the launch of the Hubble though, and I remember those blurry photos. I won’t relax about Webb until we start seeing results. Hubble was in Earth orbit and we could send folks up to fix it. Webb will not be reachable by humans. It has to work on the first try. I’ll read up on the news when I get a chance, but I’m hoping we’ll keep getting good news.
The kids are still at their dad’s. They will come back here on Wednesday and then be here through the weekend, including New Years Eve and New Years Day. I cannot understate how happy that makes me.
Right then, it’s 2:00pm and I have to get back to work. Have a good afternoon, my readers and only friends.
We got a little Christmas snow last night, though it may have actually been Boxing Day snow. I’m not sure. Not enough to worry about, but I started cleaning it off anyway. I’m halfway through and my back hurts so much that I can’t stand. So I will rest up a bit before taking another shot at it and while I do that I will write about what was going on over the last few days.
Last week the kids finished up their semester. Harry drove Bellana’s car home on Thursday. Bellana didn’t come with him. One of her roommates lives down south in the former confederacy (which should be pronounced the way Eric Cartman pronounces it, confederasaw). She and a third roommate helped her drive home. They made it to Virginia on Friday and the rest of the way on Saturday. She was booked to fly home late Wednesday night and get here just after midnight on Thursday.
While she was down south her roommate’s brother started showing symptoms. She saw him on Sunday and then he tested positive on Tuesday. Bellana decided she would do her quarantine at dad’s house while waiting for her PCR test results which probably wouldn’t come back until Sunday. And as such, Christmas at our house was postponed and Jen and I were crushed.
Originally we had talked about moving Christmas morning to New Years Eve as that would be the first day that Jen and I were both off from work and we could do the whole Christmas experience as if nothing had happened. Later it was decided that we would do Christmas morning on Wednesday evening as that would be the next time the kids were here (barring a positive test, of course) and really no one was going to want to wait an extra couple of days.
Yesterday they did their Christmas morning at dad’s house, which they were going to do this year regardless of Covid. In a normal year they would wake up at dad’s and come to our house in the late morning. Next year it will be the opposite. Yesterday though, as the clock ticked over to the afternoon and no kids arrived it was really just devastating. It’s such a silly thing. What difference does the calendar date make anyway. Christmas is a concept. Christmas is a feeling. Christmas is family. So what if we push it off a few days? Well… apparently the calendar date is a big deal because yesterday just felt awful.
And then…
Around 1:00pm, with our Chinese Food “traditional Jewish Christmas dinner” en route, Bellana sent a text. The PCR results were in early and she tested negative. Can they come over around 4:00pm? Yes! Yes you can! They got here and massive hugs were exchanged and Christmas commenced and all was right with the world. They were even able to join in on a quick zoom call with my brother and sister and their families. HoHoHo! Literally a Christmas miracle.
Covid can suck it, we had Christmas after all.
I can’t say it was the best Christmas ever, because the first half of the day was by far the worst, but as Christmas miracles go… I’ll take it!
And that, loyal readers, is the story of the 2021 Christmas that almost wasn’t. Covid Christmas II: The Year that Had a Santa Claus After All.
I’ll eventually write out all of the details, but for now let’s just say that we are both happy and relieved and we got a Christmas after all.
The to do list for tonight, with Bellana about 1000 miles away and all of us missing her:
It’s snowing today. We were expecting 4-8 inches and so far we have barely a dusting.
With the exception of Bellana being 1000 miles away, this is a pretty awesome plan.
Yesterday afternoon I kept the Find My app up on my iPhone so I could keep an eye on Harry’s progress as he drove home from school. Today it’s Bellana’s turn. She’s not coming home though. She’s driving a roommate home to the deep south. The app might be up all day today and tomorrow. I have no doubt that she and the group she’s with will be safe and healthy. In these uncertain and crazy Covid variant Omicron days though, I am also nervous. Be careful out there folks.
It’s Friday at 8:40am. I have to punch into work soon. I don’t want to. Harry has a remote final exam today. After he finishes that I am just going to want to hang out with him. I’m really happy he’s here. I don’t want to do anything else besides just enjoy the fact that he’s here.
Eight days until christmas. I have one gift to wrap and one more on route. I am going to be ready this year with oceans of time to spare. On the subject of christmas I feel that I should note that I have done a better job making sure the tree is watered than I ever have in any real-tree-year ever. Look at me, patting myself on the back. HoHoHo, babie.
Happy Friday.
ADDENDUM: Find My tells me that Bellana is currently driving though Saratoga Springs, NY. That brings two thoughts to my mind. First, I wonder if they took the ferry across Lake Champlain. Second, one of the best Rush concerts I ever saw was on July 5, 2008 when Jen and I road tripped all the way to Saratoga Springs to see them at SPAC. I was only in the town for a very short time, but I thought it seemed like a wonderful place. Someday we’ll go back.
Bellana is going into a study abroad program next month. Her Spring Semester will be in Europe. While she’s world traveling, some one is going to have to look after her plants. Our plant stash is going up from three plants to five (the Japanese Peace Lily is out of the shot).
Here’s hoping I don’t kill them.
Harry is on his way home, I think. I have it on good authority (iOS Find My app) that he’s on route 89 heading South. I think he’s coming straight here, but I don’t know that for sure. This makes me happy. Very happy.
One of our christmas presents was ordered online and set to deliver to the recipient’s address. It wasn’t supposed to ship until next week, but it was delivered today. It’s like the theme from Facts of Life. You take the good, you take the bad, yadda yadda yadda. HoHoHo. The gift giving bonanza is officially underway.
Want to know something that I hate? I hate when I go to Google News, find an article worth reading, open the article, and find it’s behind a paywall. Can’t Google filter that shit out? Do they already do it and I just haven’t turned it on yet? I don’t know. I hate it. Either way.
Pink Floyd just surprise released a shit load of live albums today. They are all from 1970-72. Almost all of them are from 1971. Back in my bootleg hunting days, I went through a major Pink Floyd bootleg obsession. I have heard most of the shows they released today. I was hoping they were going to magically have high quality, multi-track recordings of those shows but they didn’t. They basically just released the same bootlegs I listened to years ago. I tried listening during work, but the bad sound quality stopped me. Don’t get me wrong, I am going to listen to every note that came out today 100 times each. I am not complaining about the sound quality. My favorite bootlegs are all from 1970, but the 1971 shows were magic too. Echoes! They were still improvising then. Not as much as they did in the beginning, but it was still a big deal. I am going to listen to all of this stuff in headphones and get as much inside of it as I can. Oh, and there’s a partial show from ’72 that has most of a pre-release Dark Side of the Moon. The song titles match the studio versions, but does the music? Might there be a Preacher in there? Might there be a jamming version of On the Run? (please?please?please?)
Okay, enough of my yakkin’. Back to work. When Harry gets here and the work day is over, we’re doing Marvel and Burgers night, just like we did before he went off to college. Awwww.
Inside the Red Head's Head 