Us At Home

A real conversation from last night...

H: I want to get one of those cute little cylindrical pillows to go in front of our shams.
B: If shams have real pillows in them, why are they called shams?
H: You silly.
H: (trying to change the sugject) What do you think of Yule logs?
B: I have never understood how they are different from regular firewood.
H: They are lighter in colour.
B: They are sham logs!

Thanksgiving

We had a lovely thanksgiving!!

It started very early on Wednesday morning, 3 AM to be exact. I always find it amazing that when starting a trip I can sleep for only three hours the "night" before, wake up at a time when I would normally roll over and curse the clock, and be cheerful and efficient, pack us off into the car with snacks, all the necessaries for all weathers, and not forget my contact case. The Brain drove, blessings be upon him, and I slept. That is, I slept until he asked if I thought the front right tire was making a funny noise. Then I was awake and paranoid. We had to stop because even though Hemlfried is new-ish, we are both cautious about vehicles. You will never guess where we stopped... Bethlehem, Pennsylvania - the home of the World's Famous Pot's Doggie Shop. We were actually right across the road from it. For some of you all I need say is "Quiz Team.” For others of you, too bad. There was nothing wrong with the tire, so we continued north.
After a very easy trek north, six hours and no traffic, we arrived to stay with our friends. They were a bit surprised at how early we arrived. The Heart went with all girls to get nails done. The Brain went to bed, as he had only 3 hours of sleep the night before and had not slept on the trip. After that we decorated for the morrow (later we found out that the very pretty berries on the tables are poisonous and we had to clear them away for fear of killing off the dogs).

Wednesday evening we went to my "growing-up years" church for the Thanksgiving service. Afterwards we went home, finished the decorating and we introduced the company to Hoodwinked. It is a spoof on detective movies. If any of you are fans of The Thin Man you would really like this. The detective is based on Nick Jones.
Thursday dawned warm and clear - not a small feat for later November in New England. Breakfast was scrumptious. You may wonder, "Why do your friends serve a scrumptious breakfast on Thanksgiving Morning?" Well, everything is done well at Mrs. P's house. Especially the food and decorating. We watched the parade, the dog show, the granddaughter amuse the family, it was all very relaxing.





An abundance of friends gathered for the traditional meal of Thankful Thursday. The young and newly married were placed at our end of the table which made catching up great fun. Some of these people I have known since I was seven. One of them has recently married a charming lady who makes great pumpkin mousse. After dinner we played parlor games and feasted on six pies, one the afore mentioned mousse. We all skipped out on White Christmas, which is a Thanksgiving tradition with the family, and watched Sahara instead. Normally, I do not like Matthew McConaughey, but he is tolerable in Sahara. The politics are terrible, but the adventure is great. Also, the Sidekick character, played by Steve Zahn, is worth watching without the rest of the flick.

Black Friday - here we have another tradition of longstanding fun. I mean it; we go shopping, which means a lot of standing and fun. Only we go more to see the sights, get the exercise, and mock the serious shoppers. For one thing, we did not even have breakfast on Friday until 9 AM. So that put us out for all the "really good" deals of After Thanksgiving Sales. Whatever. Driving through the hills, we found a mall, and in the parking lot of the mall we found a parking space. Then we all piled out and strolled off to the mêlée.
Our Set has a few rules that makes the shopping fun - none of these are hard-and-fast.

1. Pick the stores you want to go to and go to them.
2. The Group goes together. This means that you all enter the store, shop around, and when you are done go out and stand against the railing opposite the entrance until the group is assembled. The men are usually the first out of the stores, excepting of course Brookstone and FYE.
3. When you get tired go to The Rainforest Cafe for lunch. Very cool restaurant especiallyly the violent thunderstorms that occur on the half hour.

Friday evening we could not put off a Christmas movie any longer, so we settled on The Santa Clause. It is rather ridiculous, but the legal jokes are funny. The Brain especially enjoyed telling what they all meant. I liked the E.L.F.S. - maybe we can incorporate that into Spycamp next year??
Saturday morning we had another lovely breakfast. After the littlest P had her morning nap we all bundled up to go cut down a Christmas tree. As soon as we go to the cars we had to strip off some of our heavy layers, another day in sunny, tropical New England. The family had never been tree hunting that early in the season, so while we trampeded though the "forest" at the tree farm we heard cries of "here's a perfect one," "here's another perfect one," "how are we supposed to pick from so many choices?” Finally, they were able to pick. The men performed the ritual lying on the ground and sawing while the women performed the ritual standing back and taking pictures.

Then we all headed up the hill to have the tree bound up before the men strapped it to the car. The women looked into the farm store, but found no mistletoe – the Heart is looking for some to use as a Christmas decoration. Back at the house, we finished up our visit by another great meal and then said our goodbyes.


The trip home was even more uneventful than the trip there. It took six hours - how we could miss all the traffic on Thanksgiving weekend is beyond us, but we were thankful nonetheless.



Oh, and we are celebrating 9 months today.

And He Shall Be Called....

Ploppy... Ploppy The Christmas Tree






We have our first Christmas tree. Yes, we named it after an obscure character from Jim Hensen's Farscape. We are going to keep it in the pot and convert it into a house plant after the hols are over. We plan to keep using it for a Christmas tree until it or we grow up.

The Conference of the Birds

The Heart recently found the following text in منطق الطیر ‎(translated "The Conference of the Birds"; transliterated "Min-tokh el-teer") a book of poems written in Persian by Farid ud-Din Attar. The Conference contains about 4500 lines. The poem is an allegory of a journey by a group of 30 birds, led by a Hoopoe. It represents a Sufi sheikh leading his pupils to enlightenment. (Note that Sufism is a sort of mystic Islam that most Muslims consider unorthodox.)

The Conference is a beautiful example of Persian poetry. The story relies on a clever pun between the words Simorgh — a mysterious bird in Iranian mythology which is a symbol often found in Sufi literature — and "si morgh" — meaning "thirty birds" in Persian.

Two foxes met, and tasted such delight
They could not let each other out of sight.
But then a king came hunting on the plain
And parted them. "When shall we meet again?"
She yelped. He barked back as he reached their hole:
"At the furrier's, dear - hung up as a stole!"

Between Lines 2009-2027
The Conference of the Birds, by Farid ud-Din Attar
Translated by Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis

This reminds me of another great poem, by the German Jewish poet Heinrich Heine:

Mine is a most peaceable disposition.
My wishes are: a humble cottage and a thatched roof,
But a good bed, good food, the freshest milk and butter,
Flowers before my window, and a few fine trees before my door;
And if God wants to make my happiness complete,
He will grant me the joy of seeing
Some six or seven of my enemies hanging from those trees.

(allegedly {read: the Internet said so} quoted in Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents.)

Casting The Family

After a visit from the Heart's brother, we three decided to cast ourselves, our family, and our friends for the movie of our very interesting life. Please comment if you want your selection changed... and we will think about it.

The Brain - Hugh Jackman
The Heart - Kate Beckinsale

Tom - Sean Connery
Deb - Imelda Staunton
TJ - Brad Pitt
David W - Sean Bean

MichaelP - Robin Williams
Debbie - Sandra Bullock
Adam - Orlando Bloom
Katherine - Kiera Knightly
Melissa - Drew Barrymore
Celia - Halle Barry
David N - Daniel Radcliff
Grace - Jodella Ferland
Rose - Dakota Fanning

David H - Jet Li
Beth - Miranda Otto
Thomas -Ed Harris
Carrie - Rachel Weisz
Helen - Sarah Michelle Geller
John P - Michael Caine
Pattie P - Glenn Close
Em - Uma Thurman
Darce - Jessica Biel
Jonathan K - Liam Neeson
Jeff N - Alan Tudyk
Galen - Daniel Craig
Daniel - Jorge Noa, or Clive Owen, if Mr. Noa cannot make it.... :-P

Music II

We have begun following the advice you have been so kind as to provide. While in many ways, the car seems to exude a Vivaldi personality, the Snakes on a Plane album seems to work very nicely. Cobra Starship and the related bands (Gym Class Heroes etc.), in particular, have a very fun, lively, and "con moto" style that works well with the nimble little Deutchlander. (Thanks, Derby, for the suggestion.)

As has been noted by the Wileyman regarding a different album, the included snipets of dialogue detract from the enjoyment of the music. However, with a little sound editing we should be able to cure that problem and reburn a clean copy for everyday use.

Maroon 5, U2, and Evanescence are also being tried, though Helmfried does not appear to have taken to the U2 as well (at least, to HTDAB).