We have a very scenic snowfall and a roast and a cake. Happy Christmas.
Went out for lunch at an Indian place* (outside) with two good friends then we went for a long walk on the boardwalk at the marina (the same one I used to go to with Pola). Followed by a video chat with my parents (Dad was drinking from a Trump mug, he also tried to push some Scott Adams on me though thankfully the talk was free of politics). Sad to see they took down all the oak trees from the yard (they had lost a few in storms, and some limbs had also come down and crashed into a neighbor's driveway). Followed by a falafel dinner and some postprandial bourbon.
*Because my favorite Italian place with great outside seating was fully booked.
1: Yes, the snow is nice. Especially after an ugly cold, rainy day yesterday. Christmas Bird Count tomorrow. Four of us here, very few gifts, family zoom the other night. Pot roast later today. Pratchett's Hogfather this year's holiday movie. None of us are believers but we reap the benefits anyway. Freeloaders on tradition.
Next year in Jerusalem Dayton. Maybe.
Hit my all-time high rating in online Boggle (a variant called Serpentine).
Next year in Jerusalem Dayton, if the tag lossage doesn't preclude it.
If you eat more than one bird, you probably are having too big of a gathering.
It is a pleasant, peaceful morning. I feel generally burned out (from work and everything else happening in 2020).
We aren't planning a gathering, and will get Chinese food later today. It should be a nice day, and feels more like just a much-needed day off than a particularly significant day (but Christmas isn't a big holiday for me even in normal years).
Ume's eldest son made an astonishing bouche de noël: I toasted a goose successfully; we drank some of her father's Burgundy but only one bottle. There are only four of us with my sister and it feels a very truncated family but still a family.
Note reached the stage of slivovitz and present opening in front of the fire. I will light a cigar.
Love to all you reprobates.
Merry Christmas everyone!
Just got off a zoom with mom, brothers, etc.
Just ordered Chinese takeout.
It's shocking how cheap giant TVs are now. I buy a new TV on average every seven years and 55" 4K was $350.
I'm not saying I gave my wife a present I picked up when someone left it on the curb a couple weeks ago but I'm not saying I didn't do it. She wondered why the card inside was from some random person to a random family wishing them happy Diwali.
With the money you saved, you can buy a KRConsole: https://apple.news/ATOC1egZOT3StKqllgO1SFA
Oh stupid autocorrect. KFConsole. It heats your chicken while you game. I am just reporting the news.
With the game Wingspan and The City We Became have some good distraction material.
7: My poor mother in law is all alone. Last Christmas, her husband was dying of cancer, and her kids came a few days later. This year she is in a big house with nobody. Her neighbors dropped some food off. Somehow she managed to get a cold. She thinks it's from when she was shopping and hungry and ate a granola bar without using hand sanitizer. She hasn't been tested for COVID though, so who knows.
Ah, I see that LB led off an early-pandemic reading thread on the latter. Thought I recalled it being mentioned here.
For some reason Cassandane got Atossa a microphone and an archery set. I have to ask if she's ever met Atossa.
Mr 8 is entertained, which is the really important thing. Telescope, fort-building kit (kind of giant Tinkertoys to throw a blanket over), new Switch game.
My wife realized, late last night, that she had totally forgotten to get me anything, oops. It's OK, I spent this morning doing a ridiculous amount of cooking for a household this size.
I called my parents down in Virginia, and they have not been isolating as much as I would hope. Crossing my fingers for them.
it really was exactly like this at the cove early today - https://twitter.com/weekendmobile/status/1342519923805843456?s=19
when i first saw the rainbow i rolled over on my back & laughed.
no pic from me as fingers not so functional post 30 min in 52f water 🤣🤣🤣.
Merry merry merry merry merry to all & stay safe!
it really was exactly like this at the cove early today - https://twitter.com/weekendmobile/status/1342519923805843456?s=19
when i first saw the rainbow i rolled over on my back & laughed.
no pic from me as fingers not so functional post 30 min in 52f water 🤣🤣🤣.
Merry merry merry merry merry to all & stay safe!
17:. Wow! That is something!
We (wife, stepdaughter and I) had our traditional Xmas Eve gift exchange. As always too many presents, and as usual, some grumbling from stepdaughter that we didn't get her exactly what she asked for. And we watched a couple of cycles of Christmas Story. It's a White Christmas for the first time in a while in the heart of the heart of it all, and today I shoveled the walk, and then I took a walk. And after I came in from the cold, I treated myself with a hot chocolate and biscotti while my wife was trying to figure out how to use her new loopdedoo
bracelet maker.
My new sweater is stupid warm. It's great.
My cranberries rotted in the bag and I'm very distraught. I spent a half hour trying to salvage some and made cranberry sauce with these remnants. I tasted it and I can't tell if I'm hallucinating the rotten smell, or if it's on my fingers, or just under my skin, or if I have to throw the whole thing out, but everything is a major bummer.
Merry Christmas all you unfoggedtarians. We had a tornado warning Christmas Eve, but a quiet (if windy) Christmas here - a family walk on a deserted island beach, an extended family zoom. Two Christmas bird counts last week, one more to go on the 30th. Even with no alcohol I am sleepy.
I also got a wonderfully warm sweater, but it's 70° out, unfortunately.
I am actually having a lovely day, despite these hardships.
As an unintended consequence of the big bug we got to spend Christmas together for the first time in 20 years. As a result I got to cook a Christmas dinner for three relatives who are self isolating, get it over to them, set up a self hosted video bridge for the big call-in, and then cook Christmas dinner all over again for us.
Now feeling a bit "ok, got through all that, now for Christmas. Huh, that was Christmas?"
everything is continuing as per normal here in sf : https://twitter.com/FitzTheReporter/status/1342596806140575744?s=19
My poor mother in law is all alone.
O bg, that's so sad. This goddamn pandemic... But thank God for the neighbours who dropped off some food. That kind of gesture really matters: it's saying, 'You are not quite utterly alone,' and 'you have not been forgotten.'
Merry Christmas to those who celebrate Christmas, and Happy Holidays to all!
Last night we got Chinese food and watched Fiddler on the Roof on the giant projector screen we hang from the bookshelves. So we did get the very Jewish Christmas experience. Today we went over to the friends we're bubbled with for Christmas dinner, after a frenzied spurt of cooking the stuff we agreed to bring. Now we're doing a late-night stakeout to try to catch whoever is vandalizing the signs of one of the candidates in the mayoral election. Merry Christmas!
Good luck. If it's an entitled moose, don't try to capture it.
Somewhat shit, it has to be said. I'm currently self-isolating, because the COVID app registered me as having been exposed to someone who tested positive. So, I'm stuck at home until the 31st, and have been for 4 days now. This isn't fun.
Also, my younger male relative, with the history of mental health problems, is currently in prison (again), on remand. He has been yo-yoing between hospital and jail for most of the past six weeks. The mental health establishment have dropped the ball, again,* so it has been picked up by the police (again). Another relative has been preparing to go into hiding, because his patterns of death threats and violence tend to be directed towards her, and she's not sure if she'll even be given any notice that he is being released if he gets discharged from either hospital or prison. The cops will probably give her a heads up, but the psychiatrist at the acute unit probably won't (because he's a fucking dick, basically). Last week they went from: he probably has a personality disorder, but no treatable symptoms, so we are going to discharge him with no notice, to "he's too dangerous to treat in the acute unit, we need to transfer him to a secure hospital"** in less than 48 hours. During which intervening time, he was released, and then re-arrested.*** Then transferred to hospital again, where he committed another crime. No places however, in the medium secure unit they wanted to send him, so he's in jail. Again. There's a possibility he'll be released from prison/remand before the place for him in the secure unit is available, so, that might mean he's out in public again.
I can't go there to be there for the relative who is his target, because i) tier 4, and ii) I'm self-isolating. Even if I could, that'd mean leaving my own immediate family in the lurch.
* this is a repeated pattern
** not an ordinary secure acute admissions unit. Somewhere for more dangerous patients.
** cops picked him up and locked him up for his own good. Also a repeated pattern.
Nicola, that's fucking awful. I'm so sorry.
29: US or UK? (I'm wondering UK because of someone's previous comments)
If US, see if the relevant state participates in Vine. Mostly used for DV victims, I used it to track offenders. Basically you can sign up for notifications on a particular offender and get a heads up on when they're being released.
https://www.vinelink.com/#state-selection
Yeah. It's somewhat par for the course. Similar patterns have happened in the past, although it is somewhat more messed up this time than previous times. I think it'll all work out in the end, just stressful for all involved. Especially those in Scotland (rather than me at 300 miles distance).
29 is awful. I'm sorry, NS.
(Also what does tier 4 mean?)
It's UK levels of Covid lockdown, right? And I am so sorry you've got this stress going on, Kcin.
It's the new highest-lockdown tier in the UK. There were three, then they had to add a 4th.
Yeah, Tier 4 was introduced because of the (supposedly) more virulent Covid strain circulating in London and the South East. Those of us in it, are not allowed to leave it. Also, even outdoor interaction with other people is mostly forbidden. One person from a household can meet one other person from another household, as long as its outside in a public park or similar place. That sucks when some of the people involved are 7 or 8 years old, so not actually able to go out on their own.
re: 31
UK. In this case, the local police have been very good. Both at treating the mentally ill family member humanely and with respect, and at supporting his relative (the person who is on the receiving end of some of his behaviour). However, if they aren't the custodians at the time, e.g. if he's in hospital or in prison, she might not get any kind of warning. Some of the social work professionals involved may choose to give her a courtesy call. But, in some cases in the past, he's been discharged from hospital before the social work coverage and community nursing care has been put in place.
Just out of curiosity, are there any more up and coming Scottish politicians named after fish? Joseph Pike, Leonora Herring, Anthony Carp? It seems to be a winning electoral strategy.
James MacKerel is the big fish in the small pond, I hear
John Coelacanth is going places too.
Tier One is when you can meet outdoors if sitting on wicker furniture.
I'll stop now and wish everyone a happy Boxing Day and better mental health care.
And I spelled your name wrong (argh).
Sorry, Nicola, all the best in dealing with it.
Also, isn't this exactly the kind of thing that those protesting Cameron's cuts warned about? Not to suggest that this couldn't have happened before, but perhaps more infrequently.
Ugh, what a mess. Sorry you're all going through this.
That got me wondering about technological upgrades to restraining orders, which seems like it shouldn't be too hard to implement. Looks like there are at least some places doing that: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/opinion/domestic-violence-ankle-bracelet.html
29: After my Dad died, my mother had a break where she was convinced she had died and no longer needed to groom herself. My sister took her to the hospital 2x. The second time she was taking her clothes off, but they refused to admit her. I told a psychiatrist here who was surprised. She did stay in the ER an extra 24 hours, because *she* didn't want to leave and felt she needed a hospital. Apparently, because at one point she got a dementia diagnosis - Alzheimer's then more likely mild vascular - they would not admit her to a regular psych unit. They said she was eligible for home services, but in the meantime my sister had to deal with it. They also said it would be inappropriate to admit her, because her symptoms were due to grief. Well, yeah, but it doesn't mean a hospital wouldn't help or my sister should have had to deal with it.
Merry Boxing Day(ish) to you all. We're in tier 4--which, when you have no close friends in three thousand miles, might as well be tier negative infinity--and tremendous wind and I'm thankful that it turns out that I really do deeply love the person that I decided I was quite alright with when I was stupidly young.
Since this is the time of year when everything goes to shit, and I have more oomph to give than it seems I must (estrangement is a great efficiency), I'm happy to help out however. My heart goes out to yinz where it isn't working well and particularly to my fishy neighbouurs.
Today we drove up to Malibu and got a mess of fried fish and squid and shrimps at a seafood stand and had a picnic on the nearly-deserted beach. Afterwards we took a long hike through the bluffs and watched the surfers, and inspected the crabby and tentacly things in their tidepools. It was an ideal day, cold and bright and not too windy. I'm very tired. It's been an exhausting year.
There'll be no frustrations, just friendly crustaceans....
The London covid stats look bad, especially for Havering, which I guess is a borough or something.
The vandal never showed up last night, so we're staking out the sign again tonight.
It is indeed a borough- until lately pretty much UKIP central. Previous to becoming a London borough it was Essex, as the late Ian Fury pointed out.
They should still say "Essex" because people have heard of that.
Did they switch because of the jokes?
49 I deal with this at work a lot and in particular had someone recently who kept getting sent home where he's doing things like filling his bathtub with rotting food because dementia is considered a medical diagnosis, not mental health. At some point in the conversation I asked the hospital social worker something about the rush to get him out of the hospital and she was like "there was no medical reason for him to be there" and while I try not to be shitty to other people in the field, dealing with the same lack of resources that I am, I had to say "wait so dementia was a medical problem a minute ago, I thought." Especially with an older adult, hospitals are just going to shove them out the door because their insurance won't fund their stay, call APS (who can do almost nothing, do not have resources such as, oh, a large building full of beds and doctors) and consider their asses covered.
a large building full of beds and doctors
But that's not important right now.
59: I get it, but she's also had a diagnosis of schizophrenia since she was 16 and has been in the Maine State hospital on 2 occasions for that. I'm not even sure I buy the dementia diagnosis. It's the only hospital near them, so unlike in MA, they send folks to the State hospital after a brief stay. And their bed shortage seems to be worse than ours here.
My sister said she thought they pushed my father out sooner the first time than they would have because of Covid, and I think that's a small part of it. If she had scared other people, and resisted the police, maybe she would have gotten hospitalized.
57. The number of people who have heard of Essex but not London is probably quite small.
In slightly mroe cheerful news, I have learned that goose fried rice is a wonderful way of using up leftover roast goose. The cat, apparently, gave us Fuschia Dunlop's big book on Szechuan cooking, so there will be a lot of that in the next couple of months. Soon there will be books in all the bookcases, and bookcases in all the rooms that can hold them.
It's worth remembering that parts of north Essex are about as different from Havering as anywhere in England could be (though by a sort of morphic resonance, the town of Haverhill is not)
I don't think I understand what morphic resonance is but I'm always struck by what might be its opposite: how like-named places can be so incredibly different. Chelsea in London is, as you all know, quite well-to-do. Chelsea, MA is primarily LatinX, has been poor for a long time (though a few condos have sneaked in) and has suffered terribly from COVID. Total opposites.
I've adopted my friend's habit of referring to London, Ontario as the 'second best London'.
Your friend is an asshole.
Speaking of islands off the coast of Europe, there is a guy with my same last name who keeps signing up for stuff using my email address. I'm getting hotel bills in Ireland, Uber Eats stuff from London, and a hurling team from Cork. Aside from the continual reminder that he has a more interesting life than I do, it's annoying to worry that Uber is just signing me up for stuff until I notice that the first name is different and that I don't order food in London. Also, if somebody in London wants food, I think I can get free food. There's no way to come clear to Pennsylvania to get the cost of a dinner from me.
I should say hotel receipts, not bills.
The reference to islands in 70 reminded me, again, of the complaint the Cherokee Nation filed against Georgia:
The bill states the grant, by a charter in 1732, of the country on this continent lying between the Savannah and Alatahama rivers, by George the Second, "monarch of several islands on the eastern coast of the Atlantic," the same country being then in the ownership of several distinct, sovereign, and independent nations of Indians, and amongst them the Cherokee Nation. The foundation of this charter, the bill states, is asserted to be the right of discovery to the territory granted; a ship manned by the subjects of the king having, "about two centuries and a half before, sailed along the coast of the western hemisphere, from the fifty-sixth to the thirty-eighth degree of north latitude, and looked upon the face of that coast without even landing on any part of it."
This right, as affecting the right of the Indian nation, the bill denies, and asserts that the whole length to which the right of discovery is claimed to extend among European nations is to give to the first discoverer the prior and exclusive right to purchase these lands from the Indian proprietors, against all other European sovereigns, to which principle the Indians have never assented, and which they deny to be a principle of the natural law of nations or obligatory on them.
30 US (5 Pet.) 1, 3-4
I'm assuming that's from the case that where the outcome was such that it lead Jackson to tell the Supreme Court to fuck itself.
No, this is an earlier one. The Cherokee Nation had filed an original action at the Supreme Court, so the court had to decide what, in our constitutional scheme, an Indigenous nation really is. Not, as Justices Thompson and Story wrote in dissent, a foreign nation. No, says CJ Marshall, they are 'domestic dependent nations' a category you won't find in the Constitution. Case dismissed.
The next year in Worcester v. Georgia, the Supreme Court ruled that the Cherokee Nation was sovereign nonetheless, but Jackson dgaf.
So so many people think they have my email address. The best thing so far was when I got an informal job offer from the department of homeland security.
Both cases were argued by William Wirt, who'd just recently stepped down as the longest serving US attorney general, and who, earlier in life, had led the Aaron Burr prosecution. I had known all that before, but only just now learned that give me liberty or give me death is thought to be an invention of Wirt in his biography of Patrick Henry.
