Fa la la la la LA LA LA LA LA LA

luluxmus gingerlulu hululumas hothulu lulucracker spookylulu lulutrick tangboo 

I got this text from Mason. I think that sums up the last few days perfectly. My very talented writer, sister-in-law, Kate, here for Christmas and we are enjoying some quality, crazy family time together. Murphy still low-growls when he discovers Kate in the room, but the more pretzel treats she feeds him, the more he accepts her.

She has just taken them for a walk to the beach ;) and I am going to enjoy a few minutes of quiet while I do the dishes before we start this crazy day of shopping. We have promised to take them shopping today. It was Noah's birthday party yesterday and she came home with quite the haul of gifts (now piled high on the dining room table) and full of sugar. So much so that Matt had to drag her kicking and yodeling to bed last night. 

The girls have only had a few fist fights, Kate has only threatened to go home a few times ... which my response is: you can't get away! She has discovered the joy of letting dogs and cats in and out all day, watching Pixie throw up in the mornings while drinking coffee and finding dog pee in the bathroom. In other words, she is having quite the holiday Miller experience.

Okay, this is all in jest. We are having fun. Because it was a thunderstorm all day yesterday, Kate and I hardly took off our PJ's and watched a season of Shetlands which she had not seen. I have NOT been watching any of the new shows, saving them up for her visit. We watched a season of Black Dove, highly recommend! 

I had forgotten Christmas was just a few days away so I need to figure out what I need to get to round out my gifts. Bri has planned a big Christmas eve dinner and we need to try to start cleaning off the table for that event. 

Kate just saw a FB marketplace ad: A man selling a $2,000 engagement ring, never worn. We both moaned with sympathy and said, that was a good start to a story.

After the beach walk, we are shopping. Wish us luck!

I really wish I was illustrating again. I love Anne Graete light touch and humor!

We are about to enter 4 years of total chaos, I am trying to prepare myself! 

An upside down world

The world is upside down now. What is wrong and what is right, flipped. Trump, who tried to overthrow the government with his band of cult thugs and belongs in jail is threatening to prosecute Liz Cheney! Just imagine that! I am not a huge Liz fan but I will go to the streets for that fight and for the SSN cut battle. 

In case you missed GOP Rep Greg Lopez statement about cutting SSN and Medicare - Outside First DOGE Caucus Meeting, Republican Says 'There Will Be Some Cuts' to Social Security. "I think these should be on the table," GOP Rep. Greg Lopez said of Social Security and Medicare. And BTW, how are they having DOGE meetings right now before trump is even in office???

I got in the car to run to the deli for Half & Half and some great, rap 90's songs came on. Making me feel happy and light. The sun is shining after a hard flood ALL NIGHT, leading to our basement flooding. But in the sunshine and fun, happy music feeling it comes back to me now f'ed up we are right now. To the point where I am begging those aliens in the drones in New Jersey to invade and take over, or that asteroid to just put us out of our misery and HIT earth all ready! 

 The CDC has confirmed the first severe case of bird flu in a human in the U.S. Can't wait for some pandemic to really hit the world because it is going to be fun with worm brain in charge. 

Putin has put trump in charge, trump has put musk (who has met with putin many times) and tulsi, I swear, they are going to bring this country to its' knees. Putin should be so happy right now.  

Klaas Verplancke lightness, humor and illustrations make me sooooo happy. His Instagram.

In case you need a smile here is wordy bird. I love this bird! 

 

 

Gettin' pissy with it

Cleaning would probably be easier if I did it more often. We have been demon cleaning, trying to get a few rooms acceptable for human inhabitance. The thing that gets me is that when I do start cleaning, I get mad. I get mad at the shit in the boxes hanging out, I get angry at all the tools and muddy boots at the backdoor while Matt works on the deck (since July? June?), I get mad at the dust that is in the room that I just dusted a couple of days ago (the dogs running through and constantly shaking?), the muddy paw prints throughout the house, the clothes I didn't put away. Well, you get the drift. I just become a pissy person. 

My rule is, if I see tiny toys on the floor for more than a couple of days ... I figure the kids don't really want to play with it OR like it, so I throw it away. Seems reasonable to me. I must pick 100's of rubber bands, socks, toys, Q-tips (I have discovered the cats like to go on the counter, dig the Q-tips out of the cup and throw them on the floor --- for me to pick up?), dog toys all week long, over and over. I just might mention we have large dog toys that in the dark of the night I will trip over if I am not shuffling ... hence, I don't like the have a completely dark room. Pixie pees in the bathroom in the middle of the night, which is why I warn everyone to check the floor before bounding in there. Oh, the joys of it all. 

I talk to a few friends of mine that live alone and while living in the clean existence, I am thankful for the kids being here with me. Bri helps me all the time with the heavy lifting, carrying crap up and down the stairs, taking heavy bags of clothes to the car. I really can't complain. All in all, I have it very easy.

 William Langson Lathrop was an American Impressionist landscape painter and founder of the art colony in New Hope, Pennsylvania, where he was an influential founder of Pennsylvania Impressionism. 

Lathrop was a member of the National Academy of Design and served on numerous exhibition juries during his career. He received a gold medal at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition (1915) in San Francisco, which showcased works by many of the major American artists of the time. 

You can actually feel the peace of the years these paintings were created.

 

He is always with me, somewhere ...

I am going to start off with something interesting. Last night, talking with my bestie who lost her son years ago. It is coming up to a hard time of year for her. She has a friend who is a medium and through him she has been in contact with her son for some time. I love to hear the stories about their conversations. I mean, they don't sit down over coffee and talk ... but they communicate in all sorts of ways. She has her signs from him all the time. 

Anyway, I was talking about how hard it is to clean out David's stuff, how all of it is the essence of him. How I can feel him in everything little thing, I know most of the stories behind his knick-knacks or treasures stored in boxes on his chest of drawers. You know the things ... old rings, Matt's tooth fairy teeth collection (yes we have one), passports, collected business cards, notes he left himself about antique clocks or places to shop, antique cuff links, watches, little gifts I had given him. It is all there ... our lives, his life in a wooden box. (I have my own treasures in my wooden boxes ;) 

SO while we were talking about all of this, Ian and David, life and death ... the medium randomly calls Faith. She hangs up to call him back and then calls me back. She told me she was talking to him about me, about David and he said "I see some poop, something funny, like David is a real stinker." Well, I had been complaining earlier to her that the cat had been locked in the bedroom and pooped in there. But then it hit me! Mason and I "went shopping", as Mason put it "an over-spending spree". 

We went to Target, Cost Plus, Trader Joe's to look for Christmas stuff and boy did we find it, lots of it. We got lots of cookies and chocolate, cheese and cream cheese dip, crackers, wine and such at Trader Joe's. We got Cadbury Chocalote finger cookies, and chocolate digestive bisquits, lots of fun stuff that mom and I would buy there every year. We got ... honestly, I can't even remember the $150 worth of stuff we bought at Target ... oh, I got a sweater and we got Noah some presents. 

But the funny thing we picked up were chocolate poop candy. Mason grabbed one, and I said "get two" and we laughed. 

So these are sitting in the bedroom in my not-so-hidden-Christmas-stocking-treasures ... when I thought about the poop comment from the medium. Of course, that was it! David would have bought one for everyone's stocking, he would have loved it. I snapped a photo and sent it to Faith and we laughed. 

And so it is Christmas. Bri put up the tree, but only balls this year. We call them the "angry balls" because one of the first years we were all leaving together, the tree wasn't going up fast enough for them and they were moaning about it. I got mad, said "f*ck it", ran to the store, David and I bought a bunch of tacky ball ornaments,  decorated the boring tree with them ... and said THERE ... THE TREE is up.

Do the balls are always referred back to the angry trimming of the tree. I am desperately trying to clean up the bedroom for my sister-in-law, who will be here soon. I don't think it will ever be like Christmas when David was here. He was the master gift-giver, stocking-stuffer person. But I try, I focus on the stockings now without spending as much as he would every year. 

I love this house, chock-full of fun things, charm, and now Christmas decorations. I just had a text conversation with a fellow sand collector-friend, around my age, about what to do with of our treasures as we get old and no one else wants them. About how we love our stuff, how we can remember the moment we found it, or bought it and how close we feel to those things. So, I appreciate Richard E. Grant’s stories about his collection of treasures. I also loved what he said 'Try to find a pocketful of happiness in each day’.

 

 

A tree in every room. 

 

Foraging for a Christmas wreath 

I have been watching the new Wolf Hall and Seinfeld reruns (for my mental health). I laugh out loud, master of my doman, the puffy pirate shirt, yada yada episodes. I am not sure my kids get it. Bri and I had an interesting conversation the other night. She told me she thought Seinfeld cast was older, not in their 30's. I said, yes, I watched this in my 30's, I dressed like Elaine, I totally identified with these characters ... when I was 30. She said she thought a 30's sitcom characters would be more like Friends ... she thought they were more like 30. I didn't really watch Friends, it felt a little silly to me? I am not sure why but I loved Seinfeld. Anyway, we just thought it was interesting the way she saw the ages of the characters and didn't feel Seinfeld was of my age group (back then). 

 

  

 

Land-scraping

David Edwards current painting method makes use of frequent building-up and scraping-back of the wet paint layers. This technique allows for a good deal of accidental mark-making, and adds depth and movement to the images. Scraping back can also blur much of the detail, however, so he have found himself utilizing more and more frequently the ‘flashes’ that often appear in my work. These marks that float on the surface of the paintings serve to grab the viewer’s eye and pull the entire image into focus.” His Instagram.

Purely political post

I had a phone meeting with the Fidelity financial advisor today. I had requested a meeting to go over what possible financial shit show was about to happen to us. Of course, they were soothing me, saying all investments I had were very safe (bland ... which is what I prefer) and not to worry. But as I talked about the ruble falling, trump's idea of pulling gold out of the reserve to invest in bitcoin, the collapse of them f-ing up social security ... I laughed and told them I could see their eyes rolling back in their heads! 

It is not uncommon for me to email my "team" in the wee hours of the morning with some trump horror story with my concerns! Like when I read that Fidelity was a big invester in Twitter! As the subject line read WTF, Brad? 

Or when I read this alarming article about Peter Thiel and Musk cooking up the collapse of the U.S. economy. I thought it made some valid arguments.  

The biggest concern, however, is that Thiel is coordinating with his old “PayPal Mafia” colleagues including David Sacks, Elon Musk, and Joe Lonsdale. While Thiel runs Vance, Sacks is bundling contributions and running his own propaganda effort in support of the Republican campaign. Musk and Lonsdale have recently teamed up to create a “Super PAC” in support of the Trump/Vance ticket, which has been buffeted almost daily by revelations of Vance’s earlier denunciations of Trump, and his own bizarre views of women and human sexuality. 

The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk might support that PAC to the tune of around $45 million per month. Musk has denied that specific claim since, but the America PAC, which is run by Lonsdale, appears to be created to support the “PayPal Mafia” worldview — which includes (and indeed depends on) the bankruptcy of the United States (see below). 

Another secretive group called The Rockbridge Network, founded in 2019 by Vance, Thiel, and Chris Buskirk (publisher of the pro-Trump outlet American Greatness) may have helped provide Vance with the necessary momentum to become a favorite for VP. According to Puck News, the group’s network has included Republican donors Harlan Crow, Rebekah Mercer, David Sacks, and other familiar names. According to Chafkin, Thiel believes that the 2008 financial crisis should have led to a depression. Indeed, it was the investment thesis of his firm, Clarium Capital, that this would happen. But low interest rates and other bailout measures kept Thiel’s “bet against the United States” from working out. Now, he’s out for revenge.

But I say my peace, then back off.  I mean, I can't take all my rage out on them.

I told them that I guess the worst case was that trump pulled us and the world into a complete collapse. That little shithead and his shithead companion, marching over to the re-openinig of Notre Dame like he is f-ing president makes me sick to my stomach. And then he turned a Jill Biden photo op into a stupid ad for his cologne (Can she sue him?). Again, he makes me sick. Can you guess how many times a day I yell out Mother Effer, when the kid are at school?

I was thinking about how angry I am the other day. Not so much depressed as my friends ask me when they call. But befuddled and angry at our country. I was thinking how angry I am at a few of my friends that choose not to be outraged at what is going on. I thought, I should be documenting this for later. If not for me later, then for the kids when they are reading all of my life entries on this blog (ha ha ha, that is a joke). 

I am angry that David is not here to yell Mother Effer with me ;) I am angry that we have that little rapist, hegseth, even being considered for a cabinet position and mtg ranting about her inane shit. Today when Brad said, oh but you have the congress to step up and put the brakes on ... I laughed out loud and said, you mean the ass-kisser who let trump get away with anything? 

Yeah, I did not hold back today ... they just got the brunt of me holding back for the last couple of weeks. Kash Patel, Tulsi Gabbard. This entire clown show. 

I made one comment about how Republicans did not like facts on a maddow post on facebook and got a ton of nasty comments in return. So at 5am, I starting researching these little magats and blocking.  

I started blocking maga folks around 440a. I lots of stupid responses to a comment I left saying ‘republicans don’t like facts’ on maddow video. I looked up each responder’s profile, most from Florida, old motorcycle driving veterans with bandanas wrapped around their heads, most had beards, lots of photos of big dogs, or some animal they were wishing to shoot. Most of acted like they like to work out. Oh, one idiot one was from New Jersey. A couple of scammers from Lagos chimed in. One woman weighed in from Malawi (good morning Moscow). Of course they all have the Trump fight/shot photo, and at least a couple of angel or God references (because they are such Christians). None of them looked like they were financially hurting. Some of them were most likely Russian bots seeing as they had the same posted over and over or absolutely no content. 

Yeah, I like to investigate folks who are leaving me stupid 💩 before I block them. I really think it is time for me to leave this disgusting place but then I would deny myself so much fun looking at people who are complete idiots. Can’t wait for that next pandemic to hit, or when Trump sinks this economy…

 We pick up the kids from school at 2:30p. It starts getting dark at 4p. I start yawning around 530p. I am ready to go to bed at 6p. I am taking one of the kid's melatonin at 7p.

Have been watching a couple of YouTube guys who travel the world who are interesting. 

 

Kid Rice - is a Hindi-speaking Kiwi ex-pat who takes viewers behind the scenes of incredible India and its neighbours. In his videos, he shares tips for foreigners to help them travel confidently & safely in India and helps people better understand the country. He’s described by the Indian Express as "the modern-day Lonely Planet guide."  

 

Mike Okay likes adventures.

Gold, illustrated opulence

Irina Zaytceva exotic ceramics. Her art has the hint of Edmond Dulac children's illustrations, the color and subjects matter, or T. Blakeley Mackenzie in the ornate and details or my favorite, Kay Nielsen in the opulence and color palette.