Friends

On this gloomy, foggy, damp, cold (but not raining) Christmas Day, we undertook to try and get the fallen tree off of That Darn Roof. As you may recall, a tree fell on that roof last month. See this picture or this one or this one to see the problem.

So once again we got the big John Deere mower and the lawn tractor out of the garage, moved them over to the old house, and used them as anchors for the safety rope. We moved ladders into place. Lisa got into her safety harness and climbed up onto that roof carrying her trusty hand saw. She spent the next three-plus hours in near-freezing temperatures trimming foliage from the main trunk of the fallen tree to try and lower the total weight. Then she started cutting sections from the tree about a meter or so at a time, allowing the tree to fall only a short distance each time. That tree is tough! It was a hard slog cutting it, even undercutting properly and with the tree's own weight pulling it apart.

I mainly stood around and stamped my feet and rubbed my hands attempting to stay warm. I wished we had the burn barrel going.

Having "walked" the tree about two-thirds of the way down the roof, Lisa (not surprisingly) ran out of oomph. Moreover, the freezing fog, which had never gone very high, was descending again and had reached the tops of the trees. I insisted that she come down from there before she ran out of enough energy to do so.

That last piece of the tree is very challenging. There's no room to work with it where it sits on the roof. Lisa says we may have to give in and call on a professional tree-removal service to come out and cut and remove the rest of it.

I'm putting together a resume today, to apply for some more writing gigs. I haven't had one current in a few years, so I'm having to start it from scratch. And I realized that I couldn't remember how long I'd worked where. I could tell you the order in which I had the jobs, and roughly how long I'd worked here (grossly off in one case), but not exactly when.

I worked at the Urbana Free Library for nearly two years, of which I remember only one. I've been told that depression ruins your memory, and I've experienced it in the short term, but this is the first time it's ever happened to my long term memory. Half of 2004 and all of 2005 are a blur, and most of them is missing.

But the LJ entries don't lie. They're crazy nutso ramblings, but they don't lie. (I'm tempted to delete my loony backlog, but it's turned out useful today)

Damn. Just, damn.

Mother of the Child gave me a restored 1907 Remington Model 10 typewriter for Christmas.



I feel some old, old school steampunk coming on with that baby.



This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Because we had to be in Portland and deal with doctors and hospitals on Christmas Eve, then fight our way through malls, grocery stores, and Fry's, we weren't feeling particularly festive; however, Lisa got the little Christmas tree decorated. travelswithkuma has most of the Christmas coverage including photos of him with his presents.

( Complimentary presents )

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, there's not rain or snow forecast for today and the weekend, just cold and fog, so that means we get to spend these three days rigging up ropes and ladders so that Lisa can get up on the roof and get that fallen tree cut down. Wish us luck.

Your Friday moment of zen.



Christmas, 1975, in Taipei, Taiwan, photographed by my dad. © 1975, 2009 Joseph E. Lake



This work by Joseph E. Lake is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Don't forget the latest caption contest voting poll

Yesterday's post on atheism, cancer and me produced a deep and interesting comment thread — Lots to read there.

alumiere continues to speak frankly about her health, in ways which resonate with my own discussions — Tough times, tough topics. Though on the good side, I was reminded (again) this morning that some of my best pain control can come from exercise, at least for lower grade pain. (Ie, not immediate post op surgical pain)

Bob Spears on writing style

Avatar: Vision or Mere Entertainment? — A review of the new James Cameron movie from a space science perspective.

Is there a Santa Claus? — One of my favorite Straight Dope columns, ever.

Today's Bible reading — Bad Science cites the first clinical trial, the book of Daniel.

A novel blimp design — (Thanks to garyomaha.)

A graceful arc — APOD with a multiple exposure image of the Milky Way over the Cascade range. A rainbow of stars, promising distance and mystery.

?otD: Did you get a gift of the heart this year, whatever your holiday observance?

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12/25/2009
Body movement: 30 minutes on stationary bike
Hours slept: 7.5
This morning's weigh-in: 225.6
Currently reading: (between books)

The drive down was one of our smoother ones. We weren’t dealing with weather or a lot of road construction. It is a long trip but we are here and enjoying it.

I am writing this while we wait for the rest of the gang to show up. Caroline opened a present this morning (a unicorn) and has been playing with it since. Once the others arrive, Caroline gets to open her presents. We will have breakfast and then the adults will open their gifts while drinking our coffee. Breakfast consists of our traditional Eggs Benedict with mimosas. My mom makes a great Hollandaise sauce.

Later the older Davids are off to see Sherlock Holmes. I really wanted to see the Imaginarium of Dr. Parnasus but it is only playing in LA and NY. I might go in to see it once we get back to NY. I really want to see that film. We don’t really have a Caroline film because she has seen Alvin and the Chipmunks the Squeekquel and The Princess and the Frog. But she is happy to spend the time with her grandparents and play with her new toys.

This evening we have a beef tenderloin roast and more cookies.

So we will be well fed today and surrounded by our loving family.

Traditions are important. I sometimes forget how much. There are things I can count on at Christmas Eve and Christmas and these give me comfort. There are things I know I can count on my family to do and those give me comfort and joy.

So Merry Christmas everyone. I hope this season is a good one for you. And Happy Holidays to those who celebrate other holidays at this time of year. May your time with your loved ones be fun and unstressed.

I am grateful for traditions that give me comfort (and joy).

After slightly less than half a day at work, where the big fun was hooking up my new monitor (a nice 19" Dell flatscreen, to replace the ancient CRT that died on Tuesday), I fueled my car, did some last-minute shopping and came home so we could get ready to go to Lawrence to see my mom and her husband, Marlin, as is our tradition. I had checked the weather repeatedly before we left, and promised Rohanna we would make it back tonight no matter what it took, so she could go to her family gathering Xmas morning. The trip up was not an issue, with a small amount of snow on the highway, and somewhat more in Lawrence. After a stop to fill a couple of growlers at the Free State, we went on to Dragonet's sister's shop, Brits, and stocked up on various foodstuffs. I also caused Rohanna great pain when I showed her the dvd set (#2 of 2) of the old Robin of Sherwood BBC series on the rack there. After a quick run through Au Marché next door (where I picked up a Mo's Dark Chocolate Bacon Bar, report to come), we went back out into the rising wind and headed across town to my mom's house. The roads were snowy, but not slick at all, so I wasn't concerned about the weather.

Ww had a fine time at mom's, with snacks and hot buttered rum while waiting for Dragonet's sister Sally to close the shop and join us. She got there about six, and we had a fine time chatting about life and such, all the while with the Weather Channel muted on the tv. As the scenes of blizzardy goodness kept coming across the screen, alternating with the radar pics on the 8s, Rohanna got more and more concerned about the trip back. I kept telling her it would be fine.

After a lovely meal of beef bourguignon*, wild rice, rolls and Waldorf salad**, we had a brief exchange of gifts and then, at 9p, I went out and fired up the van and let it run for several minutes to warm up. It was brutally cold out (ok, not -23˚, but in the low teens with a 0˚ or so wind chill), and while several inches of snow had fallen, the brisk northern breeze had whipped the dry flakes into dunes and drifts much deeper. We pulled out onto the steep street and began the journey home. I had brought along a mix cd I call "Play Fucking Loud," and I put it in to provide accompaniment. We headed back through downtown and across the bridge over the River Kaw to the turnpike entrance. I had to stop and clean the ice buildup off the windshield wipers, which had gotten thick enough the blades were no longer touching the glass. We made it to the highway, which was in pretty decent shape. It had been treated early on with salt spray, and then plowed at least once. But the ice was building up again, and I stopped at the service area not far from Lawrence and got a scraper. Once I cleared the windshield and blades and we turned up the defroster to earbleed, I was able to see fairly well the rest of the way back, albeit occasionally by hunching down to look through a lower spot when a brief buildup would occur. It took almost an hour and a half, as opposed to the usual 40 minutes, but I got us home safe and sound. Yay me, I is a bearcat.

I am now sipping some of Free State's Santa's Helper winter ale, and waiting for the vicodin to kick in to deal with the kinks in my neck and shoulders. Depending on how much snow we get overnight, Dragonet and I will be heading back to Lawrence to her mom's around noon tomorrow. Hush, you muskies!


*At one point, Rohanna looked at me and said, "You ate mushrooms!" in the bourguignon, and I told her no, I worked around them, which was easy, since they were large and obvious. My mother was amazed that I didn't eat mushrooms, and Marlin professed shock that she knew so little about her oldest child. She noted that when fresh mushrooms first became readily available at the grocery store, and she and my sister would regularly chow down on them, I had already moved out of the house.

**I really like my mom's Waldorf salad, and hadn't had it in years and years. I served myself up a portion, and noticed some tiny red things in the mix. "Did you put cranberries in this?" I asked, before quickly correcting myself and noting they were pomegranates. Mom expressed surprised I liked them (it was a dinner full of learning experiences), and noted that when I was living at home, pomegranates weren't any more available in the store than fresh mushrooms were thirty-plus years ago.