23 December 2006, a sunny and balmy and maybe even to-be-hot Saturday
Carol had another enjoyable day as she visited with Celin's mother and sister when we all joined them for a family lunch during the holidays. Tony and I more like endured it until time to go home and give him a nap, which he didn't much like but definitely needs. I got to leave with Tony when the father and the sister who lives at home both got calls to do some work at their tour business, leaving Carol to chat with the mother. Carol said her afternoon of casual Spanish conversation made her feel truly at home here now, but my Spanish isn't anywhere near that good plus I'm afraid an afternoon of inconsequential conversation with these very nice people isn't really my preferred way to spend an afternoon, we really don't have that much to talk about even if we understood each other better. Yeah, I know...I'm an old grump. More important is the fact that Carol had a good time.
And Tony had the opportunity to go to lunch with adults and was a very well-behaved little boy! That much was certainly a success.
Tomorrow night will be better, a family fiesta gathering with a lot more people, including some of my friends. I guess we just have to leave the house unattended by none but the dogs and hope there aren't any Christmas Eve burglars making the rounds, but I'm not really happy about the idea.
It was Christmas season in the upscale Oakland Hills when our home was forcibly burglarized (they took a pipe wrench to the front door knob, it looked like) and my prized military .45 auto stolen, among other things, and I've never really gotten over it. We were away for the weekend, skiing, when it happened.
I'm actually looking forward much more to dinner next Friday night with our newest friends, Louis and Robert, when Lis will stay here to baby-sit into the evening. Thus far I'd judge both are intelligent, interesting, witty conversationalists, and I'm looking forward to a special turkey dinner. Robert is preparing it and although we only spoke on the phone while he interviewed us about our dinner and drink preferences, I think dinner is going to turn out to be quite a performance.
He'll make me feel guilty for when we invite them here, in return...whatever will I do? Especially with a stove that doesn't work? And I don't have a working broiler or BBQ grill for steaks, even.
They're also going to make me get off of the dime about fixing some of these things around the house...I just stopped, pretty much, when Dad died. His room is mostly untouched since then, all the other projects stopped in mid-stride...there seem to be a zillion loose ends all dangling. Our back veranda, which should be the party spot, is cluttered and unfinished...
You talk about a mixed bag of a year. We regained Tony, we lost Dad, which is I guess the direction that life is supposed to go, but that doesn't make it any easier. Enough of this, I'm starting to get maudlin.
As well as an old fart. The kids just let off two giant firecrackers out front, sounded more like bombs, made me jump and terrorized the dogs. I find myself wanting to go out on the veranda and scream at them to get the hell out of my neighborhood if they're going to do that...
...just like I remember some ornery old codger doing to me in Santa Monica around 60 years ago...grumpy old SOB, who needed him around?
Not much in the papers today...this item from Patterico:
If the reports are accurate, and the findings are upheld, it’s hard to reach any conclusion other than that Judge Real should be impeached — at the very least, for giving deliberately misleading testimony. How can we allow a judge to continue in office if he has deliberately lied under oath?
Oh, we've allowed higher officers of the court than that to continue in office afterwards...
Patterico is a prosecutor by profession, and I'm glad to see he is even more upset with the Chapel Hill idiot prosecutor than I am.
I picked this up from Flopping Aces:
Al Qaeda has sent a message to leaders of the Democratic party that credit for the defeat of congressional Republicans belongs to the terrorists.
In a portion of the tape from al Qaeda No. 2 man, Ayman al Zawahri, made available only today, Zawahri says he has two messages for American Democrats.
"The first is that you aren't the ones who won the midterm elections, nor are the Republicans the ones who lost. Rather, the Mujahideen -- the Muslim Ummah's vanguard in Afghanistan and Iraq -- are the ones who won, and the American forces and their Crusader allies are the ones who lost," Zawahri said, according to a full transcript obtained by ABC News.
"And if you don't refrain from the foolish American policy of backing Israel, occupying the lands of Islam and stealing the treasures of the Muslims, then await the same fate," he said.
The Democrats think he is only kidding.
Also from the same source is the following. I've written before about how shallow a time-line our civilization follows versus that of the Muslims, therefore how hard it is for us to understand the things about which they are angry, or hate us, always assuming it must have been something we did recently and therefore we can fix if only we wish.
On June 15, 1957, a new gold and white 1957 Plymouth
Belvedere Sport Coupe was buried in a time capsule in downtown Tulsa, OK.
The time capsule was part of Golden Jubilee Week: Tulsa's celebration of
Oklahoma's semi-centennial.
The car was seen as a method of acquainting twenty-first century citizens
with a suitable representation of 1957 civilization.
We think 50 years is such a long period of time that we have to remind people what it was like way back then. Our Muslim enemies still remember things that happened a thousand years ago, without digging up a time capsule to remind them.
Partly this is because they have a history which goes back that far. We (at least in America) don't.
We Americans cannot fix the things they are complaining about because "we" did not even exist at that time.
And our crime now consists of supporting Israel and occupying Muslim lands. No, they don't mean just our troops in Iraq, even when we bring them all home eventually that will not resolve the issue, because 'Muslim lands' mean any and all of the territories they once had.
Yes...the ones they took by sword. They had a right to do that, you see.