The Myth & The Majesty

I'm having one of those weeks where I realize just how much of an adult I actually am. Bear with me here. First, I got exactly what I asked for for Christmas. One of these things was a memory foam mattress topper, easily the least exciting thing I've requested since I realized five years ago that I could use a powered screwdriver. And let me tell you -- that mattress topper was everything I hoped it could be. I haven't gotten that great a night's sleep at home in forever. This also happened. If you've been here for any length of time, you will know that my xkcd love is well-documented. Thing Explainer is Randall Munroe's expansion of a comic that described the Saturn V rocket only in the most common English words. The book is downright beautiful, including detailed drawings and simplistic explanations for everything from smartphones to bridges to the sun's structure. (Now I want a poster-sized version of his periodic table.) And that copy of ...

I wrote this in three different parts over the course of about two years. Two of them have been previously posted; one part has never seen the light of day. I now present them all together, as they are really intended. (It's ... long.) * In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.(This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register. (Luke 2:1-3) The innkeeper had been swamped for the last few days. More than once he had turned away guests, and a couple of times he had nearly evicted others for their loud revelry. His own house was crowded with his in-laws. To tell the truth, he was just looking forward to the completion of the census so he could go back to his usual clientele of merchants passing through. It wasn't just his inn; the whole town was crowded. The decree required that everyone return to their ancestral home...

Did Christmas just plain sneak up on anyone else? There I was, minding my own business, getting my shopping done slowly and making plans for what I thought was a far-off future ... and I turned around and it was December 20th. What? It's the 23rd? ... Crap. I'm almost done. I've declared myself done shopping, there are only a few more things to wrap, and I've got the ingredients to my contributions to Christmas dinner. I think. Hopefully. The weather looks surprisingly cooperative, by late tonight my siblings will at least all be in the same time zone as the rest of us, and really all that's left to take care of is laundry. Except there are more interesting things to do. Christmas is also that lovely time of year when people flock back to town for the holidays and I get to be surprisingly social. This year, I even got a surprise in the form of Ms. B (really, I should call her Ms. Bbbb), who I haven't seen in actual multiple years. Summer staffers that a...

Well ... It's that time of year again. My tree is up. There are even a few wrapped gifts under it. We've hosted our two usual Christmas parties and now have a few quiet days. And I've gotten my requisite almost-cold, meaning today my voice seems to register somewhere between "lifetime smoker" and "Bea Arthur." Around here, December is a month for big projects and random family gatherings. [As such, the camp dining room is getting a new floor and both of my siblings were in town last night for one night only.] It's also time for the yearly wrestling match where we try to talk Dad into giving us Christmas present ideas. In and around everything else, it's usually a chance for me to catch my breath, a break in the routine to evaluate the year behind and the year ahead. Full disclosure: I am struggling with that this year. 2015 has been ... interesting. If I'm on top of things [ha!] there will be a summary post at the end of the month...