Barely 3AM

"Christmas Back Home" ~ by xkcd

Previously: "Past Three O'Clock" & "Mince Spies"

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'Tis the Season to Stay Up Very Late!

Insomnia ~ Jeopardy! ~ More

A Grim St. Nicholas

A Troubling St. Nick
Poster advertising The Museum of Communism
Prague, Czech Republic
Notice the helpful advice in the lower right corner -- "Above McDonald’s" -- yet another special feature of this already priceless poster, offering the perfect blend of ancient & popular cultures. I was immediately intrigued by the sight of this poster in the window, and visiting this totally eye - opening museum was one of the highlights of our visit, conveniently located right across the street from our hotel. However, we never did make it to the McDonald's.

One of the displays in the museum was an imitation corner store, showing how difficult it had been to buy household supplies. As part of the display, there were a lot of empty shelves behind the counter and a sign: "Maybe Next Month."

When I asked in the REAL (not imitation) gift shop if they had postcards of the St. Nick poster, the cashier said, "Maybe next month"! This was in October, and I was thinking in advance of buying a few dozen to send as Christmas cards when I got home; so at first I thought the answer implied that they might get more in stock in November, closer to the holidays.

Then Gerry McCartney said, "Remember the sign in the little store? Maybe it was a meta - answer!"

Previous Posts
on St. Nicholas

Mantelpiece

Mantel display, reflecting all fleeting seasons!

So many decorations from so many good friends: Lily of the Valley Egg from Susan Endress Blubaugh @Pysanky Spirit, Pumpkin Couple & Jane Austen Earrings from Katy Bunder, Sugar Skull Couple & Bronte Earrings from Victoria Amador, Pop - up Bats from Vicky McLaughlin, Witch - hat Candlesticks from Diane Cox, Shakespeare Not Stirred from Jonnie Guerra.

Across the top -- vintage Humpty - Dumpty Egg Cup from England, painted egg from Poland, Nativity (including elephant!) from Smithsonian. Far left on the wall: Gerry brought me the wall clock from the Sagrada Família, Barcelona; far right: the Castle of Love wall plaques are from Warwick Castle. Lower right, Sacagawea from T. J. Maxx. And, last but not least, the white pumpkins are from Walmart, early 21st Century!

Detail:
Dia de los Muertos Bride & Groom
from Auntie Wickie

Lily of the Valley Plate from years ago,
belonging to my Grandmother Rovilla Lindsey

Other Seasons
Christmas 2016
(photo 2017 - 02 - 03 / see also 2017 - 01 - 11)

Valentine's Day 2018
(photo 2018 - 03 -21)

Easter 2018
(photo 2018 - 04 - 01)

Winter Dreams
January 2011

Current Events for Advent

Advent Calendar Cat

“Pardon my sanity in a world insane.”
Emily Dickinson

Some articles for each week of Advent,
preparing our hearts to make the world
a better place in the New Year:

The First Week ~ Hope

"The short history of global living conditions
and why it matters that we know it"
~ Updated in 2019 ~
by Max Roser

The Second Week ~ Peace

"The Enemy Within:
Our grasp on what it takes
to sustain a democracy is slipping"
~ December 2019 ~
by James Mattis

The Third Week ~ Love

"Feeding the Hungry
is Our Moral and Social Responsibility"
~ March 29, 2019 ~
by Monica Brown Moss

The Fourth Week ~ Joy

"A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Is More Than a Feel-Good Movie"
~ November 21, 2019 ~
by David Sims

P.S.

GIVE THEM SOMETHING TO EAT!

There is SO MUCH food in this country -- so much, in fact, that, for better or worse, we often throw away the excess without even flinching. Please GIVE IT AWAY and let people eat it -- not the trash food, but the good food. There's plenty of that too! This isn't about who "deserves" food -- there is no such thing. It is about distributing the bounty in a land of plenty.

As Richard Rohr says in Falling Upward: "There is no longer any question 'Does he or she deserve it [love, inclusion, acceptance, forgiveness, the loving gaze of God]?' What we received was totally undeserved itself" (160).

P.P.S.
Yes, we are all connected:
"The World as 100 People"

Black Cat Friday

Who needs Black Friday when you have Black CAT Friday?!

Lester & Fuqua (i.e., James the Less & James the Great)

Anyone familiar with our cat Fuqua knows that he has a very elaborate and important name: James B. Fuqua. Some folks refer to him as "James" but I have always called him "Fuqua" -- until a year or so ago when we came across a facebook funny about the little child who asks his parents why his baby brother is called "James" when, in fact, "He's only one Jame."

After that, it was just too much fun to start referring to Fuqua as "Jame" on a regular basis. He had been an only cat since September 2018, when we lost our dear old Pine; so, in every sense of the word, he was "only one Jame."

Then came a day in mid - July when the time seemed right to present Fuqua with a kitten, so off I went to the shelter and came home with this little Shadow Baby, who needed a name to match his brother's!

Using Fuqua's full name as a starting point, we decided to call our new pantherlet "James the Lesser" -- no, not a minor King of England but a minor saint. At last, we had two James! Not only is "James the Lesser" the perfect namesake for a Shadow Baby, but it also led to the perfect nickname:

"Lester"

Getting to know you,
getting to know all about you . . .

Eating Together

Sunbathing

Making the bed . . .
or preventing the bed from being made!

Playing in the Bread Basket

Fuqua has loved this basket since kittenhood ~ July 2012

7 years later, Fuqua stakes his claim ~ July 2019

Hey, this is fun! ~ Lester ~ July 2019

Lester, channeling his inner Fuqua! ~ July 2019

Fuqua as a Baby ~ Spring 2012 ~ curled up for a nap
beside the ashes of Dear Old Josef 1988 - 2007)

Seven years later ~ Summer 2019
Baby Lester finds the same nesting spot

Halloween Cats
Fuqua ~ 2018

Lester ~ 2019

I love the way my friend Alma says, “Oh my cat!”
I’m going to start saying that as my primary exclamation of surprise!
[Like me, Alma is the keeper of two black cats.]

The Rich Pumpkin

Urban Pumpkin ~ Seen in Boston ~ November 2018
The Pumpkin

Oh, greenly and fair in the lands of the sun,
The vines of the gourd and the rich melon run,
And the rock and the tree and the cottage enfold,
With broad leaves all greenness and blossoms all gold,
Like that which o'er Nineveh's prophet once grew,
While he waited to know that his warning was true,
And longed for the storm-cloud, and listened in vain
For the rush of the whirlwind and red fire-rain.

On the banks of the Xenil the dark Spanish maiden
Comes up with the fruit of the tangled vine laden;
And the Creole of Cuba laughs out to behold
Through orange-leaves shining the broad spheres of gold;
Yet with dearer delight from his home in the North,
On the fields of his harvest the Yankee looks forth,
Where crook-necks are coiling and yellow fruit shines,
And the sun of September melts down on his vines.

Ah! on Thanksgiving day, when from East and from West,
From North and from South come the pilgrim and guest,
When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board
The old broken links of affection restored,
When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,
And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before,
What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye?
What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie?

Oh, fruit loved of boyhood! the old days recalling,
When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!
When wild, ugly faces we carved in its skin,
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!
When we laughed round the corn-heap, with hearts all in tune,
Our chair a broad pumpkin,—our lantern the moon,
Telling tales of the fairy who travelled like steam,
In a pumpkin-shell coach, with two rats for her team!

Then thanks for thy present! none sweeter or better
E'er smoked from an oven or circled a platter!
Fairer hands never wrought at a pastry more fine,
Brighter eyes never watched o'er its baking, than thine!
And the prayer, which my mouth is too full to express,
Swells my heart that thy shadow may never be less,
That the days of thy lot may be lengthened below,
And the fame of thy worth like a pumpkin-vine grow,
And thy life be as sweet, and its last sunset sky
Golden-tinted and fair as thy own Pumpkin pie!

By John Greenleaf Whittier (1807 - 1892)

Friendly Porch Pumpkins ~ Boston ~ November 2018

Painted Pumpkins ~ October 2019
Wabash Landing ~ West Lafayette, Indiana

Writer's Tears

No, whiskey is not my favorite,
but I am partial to this name!
I asked Regen, one of the owners of our favorite neighborhood bistro ~ Town & Gown ~ if she and her husband Matt, who's from Ireland, carried this brand of whiskey in their bar. I told her that I was curious just because I liked the name of it, and she said:

"Me too! When the salesman first showed me this
product, I said 'Writer's Tears!' Sign me up!"
Haha! You can see why I like it there! They think like I do! I still haven't actually tried it though, so I have no idea how it tastes, but it might be good as a prop when reading an Irish novel!

Or an American novel:

Ordering drinks always floored me. I didn't know whisky from gin and never managed to get anything I really liked the taste of. Buddy Willard and the other college boys I knew were usually too poor to buy hard liquor or they scorned drinking altogether. It's amazing how many college boys don't drink or smoke. I seemed to know them all. The farthest Buddy Willard ever went was buying us a bottle of Dubonnet, which he only did because he was trying to prove he could be aesthetic in spite of being a medical student.

"I'll have a vodka," I said.

The man looked at me more closely. "With anything?"

"Just plain," I said. "I always have it plain."

I thought I might make a fool of myself by saying I'd have it with ice or gin or anything. I'd seen a vodka ad once, just a glass full of vodka standing in the middle of a snowdrift in a blue light, and the vodka looked clear and pure as water, so I thought having vodka plain must be all right. My dream was someday ordering a drink and finding out it tasted wonderful. . . .

The drinks arrived, and mine looked clean and pure, just like the vodka ad. . . .

I began to think vodka was my drink at last. It didn’t taste like anything, but it went straight down into my stomach like a sword swallower's sword and made me feel powerful and godlike. (10, 11, 12)

from The Bell Jar
by Sylvia Plath

Or a short story:

"Anis del Toro. It's a drink."
"Could we try it?"
The man called "Listen" through the curtain. The woman came out from the bar.
"Four reales."
"We want two Anis del Toro."
"With water?"
"Do you want it with water?"
"I don't know," the girl said. "Is it good with water?"
"It's all right."
"You want them with water?" asked the woman.
"Yes, with water."
"It tastes like licorice," the girl said and put the glass down.
"That's the way with everything."
"Yes," said the girl. "Everything tastes of licorice. Especially all the things you've waited so long for, like absinthe."

from "Hills Like White Elephants"
by Ernest Hemingway

************

"You're a writer; you're supposed to be sad."

What, after all, is a writer's life without a dose of despair?
from Dear Committee Members (p 68)
by Julie Schumacher

“The world is a hellish place, and bad writing
is destroying the quality of our suffering.”
Tom Waits

“I drank to drown my sorrows,
but the damned things learned how to swim.”
Frida Kahlo

Meme ~ The Scariest Halloween

The New Yorker ~ Ha

Ah Portland!

Late Autumn in Portland, Oregon

Now, what does that sign say?

As we know, all too well,
"Life is a constant battle
between the heart and the brain.
But guess who wins . . ."

Ah Portland! Ah humanity!
The pervasive homelessness that we saw while walking around Portland was very sad; it was painful to witness such evident despair. We did not see this problem when visiting Switzerland in September or Prague in October. On the other hand, those two places were plagued by relentless graffiti -- and not the artistic kind! Everywhere you looked, there was scribbling and defacement, even on centuries - old buildings. A shameful sight!

Lausanne, Switzerland

Prague, Czech Republic

Still, despite the urban issues, I would always choose to visit the city over the country.

One Portland friend responds: "I agree with you about the homeless in Portland and hear it debated frequently on OPB news shows. There is a general problem in Portland of new wealth and developers constantly removing affordable housing (as has occurred in many other cities). Even if agreements and plans are eventually reached, it will take years to carry them out (also true of the bridges and light-rail crossings between Vancouver [WA] and Portland; I now assume that won't change until they collapse after earthquakes). Every city has its problems but, like you, I prefer big cities as a tourist and like being within close range of a city, even a medium-sized city like Portland."

Dining With Dear Friends
The Zeus Cafe at the Crystal Hotel, Portland

Terrific Title!

[click to enlarge for reading]
Who doesn't love a good title -- one so quirky that you just can't forget it, that you love to repeat over and over again, just to hear the sound of it? I particularly admire the way that Gregory Corso wrote an entire poem made up of Saleable Titles. Yes, indeed, I have always (ever since first reading his list back in 1976) wanted to read them all!

When it comes to irresistible titles,
poet Dana Roeser is the best!
Need I say more:

As soon as I murmured these intriguing titles under my breath, I knew I had to find those poems, track them down inside the pages beneath the magical cover art and read each word until I had discerned the mystery of the changed theme and the thundershirts. Sometimes a beloved family pet takes a turn for the worse on the very night that the household is filling up with not - very - loveable guests. Sometimes a transparent ghost in the wind reminds us that our exposed souls might need a thundershirt to make it through the coming cold. Read more! / Plus this review!

P.S.
February 2026
Comparing Corso list of titles
to Bilston's list of first lines . . .

On Facebook
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(see comment RE Leonard Orr & Sharon Olds)

Dolce Far Niente

Dolce Far Niente, 1897
John William Godward, 1861 - 1922
[one of several "Dolce Far Niente" paintings by Godward
My friend Nikki recently taught me a new phrase to describe these mellow late fall days when we're inclined to hunker down in the kitchen, whiling away the autumnal hours under a pile of inconsequential projects: a little reading, a little writing, a lot of dabbling. How did I not know before now (especially since I'm so good at it) that the proper name for this kind of time - wasting is dolce far niente: the sweetness of doing nothing, pleasant relaxation in carefree idleness, or, as Nikki puts it, "indentured servitude to the goddess."

I admit that often when I say "I'm working from home today," I am, in reality, doing nothing from home all day! Still, I like to refer to it as "working" because, after all, I am always making connections:

Similar proverb: "How beautiful it is to do nothing and then to rest afterward."

Mark Twain: "Work consists of doing what a body is obliged to do; play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do."

And of course dear Anne Lamott: "puttering . . . my main spiritual practice."

Sometimes, I'm practicing the piano!

Spirit, 1885
George Roux, 1853 - 1929
Thanks to Sir Igor for sharing this scary painting!