Yes. Exactly.

This puts into words what I feel is going on in Quebec right now far better than I ever could.

Contrary to what outside observers may think, it is not always about sovereignty.

Lessons Learned

So it turns out that several beers and several glasses of good port and a bunch of good food and conversation with interesting people and cute kids doesn't actually make your cold go away, but only makes it feel like it has.

A random thought

Good red wine really is much better than bad red wine.

That is all.

As you were.


is the bottle really done now?




wimper

The ickness

So, the best way to spend Christmas is not huddled under a blanket shivering. Nope.

Nor is the best way to spend it checking your temp every 15 minutes...

That said, I went to bed at 11ish on the 25th and woke up at 11ish on the 26th. Then, for my next trick, I had a 2.5 hour nap in the afternoon. Last night was a more normal 8ish hour sleep. I don't feel great, I'm still achy and hopped up on NeoCitron (cherry flavored FTW!)... Christine says I look 10 years younger.. I'm going off to bed again shortly.. I'm hoping for the 18 year old me to wake up...

That said we all managed to have a great time at our 3 Christmas celebrations and we all got and gave good loot.

Of Shortbread and Nostalgia

I never knew my maternal grandmother, she died way before I was born. She was a Scottish immigrant to Canada and brought with her many traditions from the old country.

One of them was shortbread at Christmas. Not the fancy English shortbread cookies, or fancy things that were jammed out of a cookie gun or some crap like that. No. Shortbread, thick slabs baked in a baking pan. The average piece being about an inch or so squared. It's shortbread that you have a few pieces of with over tea or whiskey or Eggnog. It's muscular shortbread.

My grandmother taught my mother to make the shortbread and my sister and I were taught by Bev. The only instructions were hand written by my grandmother on a index card that was nearly translucent with years of handling by buttery hands. The temperature was listed as "Moderate oven". After years of experiments we've hit on 300 degrees. At some point Bev rewrote the recipe on another index card. It to is now nearly translucent.

Now that Bev is dead as well, the shortbread is now one of the connections that's left between she and I.

Today I was making two more batches for gifts and Lucas wanted to help. So the circle remains unbroken because I started to show him how to make it. He's still too little to knead the dough (taking it from crumbly to nearly like playdoh is tough sledding, even when you cheat like I do and soften the butter in the microwave) but he helped measure.

It will be years before the recipe is like a muscle memory, but it's a start.

The tenticles of my memory

I've got a bad memory for certain things.

Numbers, postal codes, names, combinations for locks, bank accounts... all elude me.

Stupid details stick in my head like glue.

I read an article recently (god, how I wish I could remember where - oh the irony) about how we're all losing the ability to remember because so much of our memory is stored online and we don't have to remember.

My first thought was "oh great, another "the internet will kill us all and make us dumb and violent and mean" scare". My second thought was "OMG I HOPE SO!".

First it would mean that everyone else's memory sucked like mine. Secondly it would mean that I could start remembering things.

All of this stems from looking in my junk mail folder... all the crap I've signed up for over the years, sites I've visited with cookies on them... my whole range of interests nicely packaged up in spam.

The lights are growing dim Otto. I know a life of crime has led me to this sorry fate, and yet, I blame society. Society made me what I am.

I've been in a bad mood.

And hiding.

Also working like a mad man.

And in a bad mood.

And stressed.

There is snow on the ground and a Christmas tree in the living room.

I'm relatively healthy, my family is amazing. I have a home and friends and a good job.

So I'm going to deal now and stop being a stupid ass (well about blogging at least).