Caprica’s Neighborhood

Yes - if Kindle just doesn't do it for you, spray a little of  Smell of Books in a can! You can choose between that new book smell, "eau you have cats" or my personal favourite, the classic musty book smell. Ah the smell of a library in a can - surely life is complete now!

 

 

I want to start playing Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole Christmas songs and to dive into the cupboard under the stairs to find all the bits that make up our Christmas tree. I want to deck the halls with holly and tralalalalala. I want to make a list and check it twice.

This is probably the first Christmas that I will decorate the tree alone, now that both daughters no longer live at home. Daughter1 and The Boy have just bought their own tree and are on the way to setting their own traditions.

It is funny what traditions get carried on by our families. When Mr FD and I celebrated our first Christmas together, I bought a little Mr and Mrs Claus tree ornament and set it right in the middle of the tree. Every year since Mr and Mrs Claus have reclaimed their position. The other day Daughter1 told me that she had been driving The Boy crazy in her search for the perfect Mr and Mrs Claus for their tree. She must have a Mr and Mrs Claus too. It makes me smile to think of their future with their tree. They are so filled with hope and plans.

This is the first Christmas in years and years where I don't have to work like crazy up to the last moment. I have time to enjoy and indulge myself in all the Christmas joys I wish. All I am asking Santa for is a job...and I have been good...well mostly good...as good as a Flamingo Dancer can be. Maybe I had better bake extra cookies for him...

Now that Mr FD is working from home and I am mistress of my own time, he has taken to asking me to accompany him on short trips about town, such as if he is dropping seed off for testing and knows he won't be away from the car long. I take a drink bottle and a book and sit under the shade of a tree for a few minutes if the car is too hot.

However, I draw the line at his whistling and calling "here girl!" when he wants to leave.

 

Yep, this morning was my last chance training session. Because tomorrow is the day I go shopping for a pair of swimmers.

See, I've been trialling this new way of living where I take one day at a time. Just live that day. Don't worry about the future and forget about the past. The one flaw with this plan is that one day you happen to glance at your calender and realise you'll be leaving for Thailand in three weeks and don't have a thing organised.

So I'm off to the big(ish) smoke tomorrow on the dreaded swimming costume search. I will have an egg on toast and a glass of juice before I go so I feel fortified and strong. You don't want to risk any mid afternoon blood sugar level drops because that could lead to depression and feelings of self loathing.

One thing you must remember when trying on swimmers is that there will be none of those awful change room down lights that show up every dimple of cellulite, on the beach. Another thing to remember is that 99% of people are perfectly average just like you. So unless there happens to be some sort of super model convention happening where we are I should be fine. And if there is...... well best not to even contemplate that.

But I am shopping for swimmers at a great time. I've just lost 7 kilos so I'm feeling pretty damn fine and this morning I managed to fit into a pair of size 10 Cue pants which didn't hurt the self confidence either. Plus it means I have something to wear to my nephews wedding next weekend.

But the main thing going in my favour are the people I'm travelling with. There will be my daughter Kimba and her friend Nat, both 21, almost 6 feet tall and gorgeous, and there will be Lizzie, 17, beautiful, all dark and mysterious. So no ones even going to be looking at me.

Of course Jem will be there as well. She's 5 years younger than me at 40. She's at that difficult age where you still feel like you have to show you've still got it. Whereas once you hit (almost) 46, you're not as hard on yourself. I mean there comes a time where you just have to say, this is it. This is me. I eat healthily, (well, except for the wine, but its not going anywhere) and I exercise like a demon, and this is as good as it's going to get. And its not that bad.

However, having said all that, I still find shopping for swimmers to be the most horrendous job out there. Hopefully it all goes to plan.

Tonight was the Turner Primary School art exhibition....

Jude and his pottery

Sebastian and his hand.

Congratulations to the staff at Turner who do an excellent job of setting up the exhibition in way which makes it a real pleasure to visit.

Mr FD has started describing people as being "about our age". As Mr FD is eight years older than I am, I am not sure that I am happy about that at all! Thin edge of the wedge!

~

I love tourists ... really I do because they help my local economy but.. 

-  please stand to the right on the metro (train) escalators so that we locals, with things to do, can walk past on the left.  There is even a sign asking you.

-  and when you get to the top, or bottom, of the escalator please do not just stop there while you figure out where to go next.  There are 50 people about to trip up behind you.

-  Oh - and if a machine has a diagram of how a ticket should be inserted they really want you to insert your ticket that way!  

I think someone needs a drink ....... 

***

I wish all Americans a Happy & Safe Thanksgiving - even the tourists! 

"Dear Congressman: We're melting. Love, the Glaciers." - Al Gore

Okay, I just had to speak up on this mind-numbingly ignorant rumor about Hadley CRU. Background: Fox News is claiming that an email from a university shows once and for all that Global Warming Theory is a scam. Apparently, the University of East Anglia's computer was hacked and the following phrase (ooh, 3 words, that must disprove global warming!) was found: "Hide the decline".

Aside from the obvious question, where's the rest of the frigging sentence, there are several reasons why this proves nothing. Oh wait I stand corrected, this does prove one thing: that Fox News and global warming deniers will do anything to scam the American public.

First off, scientists hide data all the time. No, not to "deceive" anyone. They hide columns or rows just as you would minimize a window if you were working with several Word documents at once. In statistics programs like JMP, it allows a scientist to see data in a less jumbled fashion.

Second, for Fox news to suggest that this proves climate change is a hoax, they would have to prove that East Anglia scientists were the ONLY people who proved global warming theory. (And we know that sentence is redundant, right)? Let's suppose the Large Hadron Collider managed to wipe that university off the map - demolish all the data. We'd still have overwhelming evidence from a Godzillion other places.

Global warming theory has been tested over and over again, by many other scientists. To date, no one has disproven or even come close to disproving human caused global warming.

Global warming is not a political party. It's simply a sub-category of pollution. If you want to understand it, read the primary literature. Don't get your scientific data from television. Please read my Global Warming facts and myths to undersand better. And here's Al Gore. Science didn't work, so he's gonna try crazy.

 

 

My kid went to his dad's this morning. Flew from Seattle to SanFran at the asscrack of dawn 6am. Since this is one of the busiest travel days of the year, we signed him up for the Unaccompanied Minor service on Virgin America. (That's an additional $160, it ain't free.)  My whole reasoning is that I wanted them to be accountable for him if anything happened on this busy travel day and when he comes back -- reroutes due to weather, bad plane, whatever. They introduced him to the airline attendant, and even made me set up a password for me, the kid, and the exhusband. And hey! He gets free movies, free tv, free food... cool, right?

THEY LOST HIM.

My ex called me after everything was over, and told me what happened. He had spent over an hour with the Virgin America people trying to find out what the hell happened to him, Aside from the fact that THEY DIDN'T EVEN REALIZE HE WAS LOST - no one knew, no one had an answer, no one even instigated any kind of search until he started yelling (and my ex can YELL) and he just happened to see my kid walk by, looking for him as well. Lots more details to the story than that, but basically you get the gist. Their general take on the incident... they can't do anything, you're just SOL if they lose your kid.

FUCKERS. VIRGIN AMERICAN CAN GO FUCK THEMSELVES.*

*Bad pun strenuously intended.