“My Work Here Is Done”

Remember back in the Obama years when this was still metaphorical?

No longer, thanks to Nancy Pelosi’s nephew and his band full of unqualified incompetents.

Pray for California.

Happy Belated New Year MOTI!

Sorry for the belated wishes, I’ve been a bit under the weather.   

Unfortunately terrorists have ensured that 2025 has not gotten off on a very good foot.

Things will get better after January 20th.

My only resolution is to clean out the refrigerator. 

Every 3 years, whether it needs it or not.

Hope your resolutions are equally ambitious.

Christmas 2024

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.  And this shall be a sign unto you; ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

Raj and I would like to wish all of our wonderful friends here a very, very Merry Christmas. We all deserve to set the world’s burdens aside and simply embrace the beauty and miracle that is Christmas.            

We send our love to each of you and wish you all a wonderful Christmas. Fill it to the brim with all the merry and the bright you can muster, for we are blessed.

 

Gnomes, Gnomes Everywhere

It’s that time of year again, when we must discuss the Hallmark Christmas movies. There continues to be two schools of thought regarding their virtues: one, they are harmless, escapist feel-good movies, or two: they are mindless, formulaic tripe. I suppose the Hallmark Christmas Movie Drinking game supports the later view in that there are thousands of these movies now but only a half dozen different plots.

Or, if you have to boil them down to just one plot line: “I will sooo fall in love with anyone I meet 2 weeks before Christmas.”

Oh well, it will all be over soon enough.

 

I’m on day 21 of my gnome Advent calendar which means I have 21 gnomes. Since I finally got my downsized tree up  I can display them properly. This is my Jettie memorial gnome tree:

Gnomes, gnomes everywhere!

Droned Too Much?

To hijack one of Gerard Vanderleun’s (RIP) enduring memes:

New Jersey: Droned too much?

 

Or not enough?

Wyckoff’s multicolored Christmas tree farm

Say no more

Please discuss.

“Do the Trump”

Next year the beautiful Christmas trees will be back, in both the White House and our own homes.

But for now we’re stuck with the FJB tree.

But hang in there, help is on the way.

Do the Trump, Do the Trump

“Do Not Open Till December 1!”

I followed Jettie’s instructions and opened her package yesterday. Inside there was another box, also marked in her unmistakable hand “Open December 1, not before and not after!” As if I would dare violate her orders.

And so, mystery solved: in addition to a crocheted hot pad-mop-up cloth (I have a lovely collection now) there was this charming foldout box Advent calendar. A little door for everyday from December 1 to December 24.

Front of Advent box, folded up

Open it up and there are 24 windows.  Behind door #1 was a little gnome all rolled up and smooshed in, he expanded when released from his confines.

gnome #1, sitting on the hot pad

There was also a Christmas card like I’m sure others have received with a picture of young Jettie, the way we want to think of her: young, full of life and at ease in her world. She was at Kinkaku-ji, a Buddhist temple in Kyoto. The year was 1993, when we were all young, full of life and with no clue what lay ahead.

Beautiful Jettie at Kinkaka-ji ‘93

Of course Jettie never sent a card without including a little trinket. This time if was a handmade tree ornament.

It will have a place of honor on my down-sized tree this year, along with the other Jettie ornaments she’s sent over the years.

So bittersweet, all done while knowing she was about to shuffle off this mortal coil. I would be lying if I told you it didn’t make me cry. What a hard year it has been for the MOTI, and yet here we all are: celebrating Trumps victory, Thanksgiving and soon Christmas. We are a tough lot and will soldier through together.

Since it is December 2nd today I also opened the second door: another little gnome! I may have to get another tree to hang my complete Jettie collection. Such a nice remembrance.

May one and all have a happy Muttday.

Happy Thanksgiving 2024

Originally posted 2021: Time flies; hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving this year.

For each new morning with its light, For rest and shelter of the night, For health and food, for love and friends, For everything Thy goodness sends. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have so much to be thankful for it’s hard to know where to start. So I will start with you - the MOTI who gather here. We are like family whose members don’t always agree and some times  even squabble but are nevertheless connected by a deep common bond. Unlike real families our bond isn’t blood but rather the shared values and principles that our country was founded on and we learned to cherish. We are bound together by our Constitution, the guide to building an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity, and civil society flourish.

I am thankful for the many other things I have to be grateful for: I’m grateful I was born on the cusp of the 50s, when America was great and nobody was ashamed of that.

A Sears-Roebuck Dutch colonial; ‘colonial’ - you could never list it that way today.

For having been born to a world where individual freedom, self-reliance and personal responsibility were core values of everyone who aspired to be a good citizen, and that was nearly everyone.

Where the freedom call of the open road was a siren’s song

beckoning us to explore the land and our place in it.

I’m grateful that I was born when America was seen as a melting pot - and that was a good thing, not bad. A time before ‘cultural appropriation’ was a thing and, if used at all, applied only to the Brits raiding Egyptian tombs.

Taco Tuesday wasn’t a thing and tacos weren’t racist

I’m grateful for having received an actual education focused on knowledge, critical thinking and how to think rather than indoctrination consisting of what to think about such things as ‘critical race theory’ and other ‘social justice’ issues.

I’m grateful that I was raised in a time when many people, black and white, worked to correct true civil rights injustices. And when “peaceful protests”

meant marches and sit-ins rather than riots and and the creation of fake victims to be exploited for political gain.

I’m grateful for having been young at a time when it wasn’t necessary to feel guilty about everything that I ate, drank, drove, bought or dreamed about for fear of being selfish and killing the planet.

Just because it was cool

For these, and much, much more, I’m truly grateful. I will wrap up this Thanksgiving post with my annual MOTI Thanksgiving prayer from my mirror days:

In addition to all the other blessings

you have conferred on my reflective frame

I wish to thank you, Lord,

for the companionship of steadfast comrades

whose wit and wisdom and strength

help steer me through these tempestuous seas

of flattery and lies churned to fury by the ill will of demagogues.

Amen.

A special thanks to all who visit here. I wish you a peaceful, happy Thanksgiving unmarred by strife. Because there is always, always something to be thankful for.

Prayers for all in need.