Who Let The Cows Out - Moo, Moo, Moo, Moo-Moo?

Just kidding - I'm pretty sure they are supposed to be there. I don't really have much interaction with the Bovine Brethren but from what I have been able to glean, they really aren't given to "wilding". In fact, I have become so accustomed to being the only house up on a hill that if I happen to see shadows moving, I wonder just what the hell is going on? It's always cows - who are rather more ninja-like than one might imagine.


The cows are moved around the farm from field to field (and they are scattered all about as it is - I don't know how they keep track) because...well, I'm sure there is a good reason - the grass is always greener in the other pasture? One can never really take the New York out of the New Yorker.


Generally cows only moo-ve into my perview when we are exercising the hounds. The hounds are just curious and want to sniff around and say "hi" and the cows, for the most part, would prefer that they not do that. One time, about 8 or so cows came running down to one of the gates we were about to open and cross as if to say "Yeah, no - we don't want to share any of this field today". When it became apparent to the cows that the hounds, horses and people were indeed going to be coming into their pasture - they literally looked at each other and in their very best Monty Python re-enactment, did the "Run Away! Run Away!" battle scene from Holy Grail.


Recently, Dee had to travel on business and so I was to lead the next three walkouts. I am getting a bit more confident and am often now able to make a sound come out of the horn that doesn't sound like a desperate cry for help from a living thing.


The first walkout, I had forgotten to ask where the horn was and couldn't find it in any of the usual places (it was, in fact, hung where it should be, I had just never noticed it there before) and had also forgotten to ask about "treats" so this session was done hornless & treatless (Dee doesn't always give them treats while we're out - but I figured since I was the substitute teacher that some canine graft & corruption in the form of small bone-shaped biscuits would've been helpful). 

We came to the last field and pond and since there were quite a few cows already at the pond, decided it might be best to just lead the hounds away from that pond. I then looked down the hill to see an ass-load (agricultural unit of measurement) of cows being led into the field. Jesus tap-dancing Christ! A quick consult with the riders and we decided that I would call the hounds behind me but rather than give the command to "go", I would just move slowly down the hill diagonally away from the incoming crowd with most of the riders keeping between the cows and hounds. It worked! The hounds followed my cart and moving as a unit everyone got to the bottom of the hill without any confusion or tears. 

I was well pleased with that maneuver (probably not as impressive to the veterans but I enjoyed it).


The second walkout was pretty stress free (but crazy hot) until the end. We got all of the hounds into the trailer to take them back up to the kennel except for Ice-T (I am not changing any of the animals' names until or unless I am advised they have lawyers on retainer). Normally behaved like a gentleman, Ice-T decided to channel his inner rapper and run back into the field. Dee truly loves every one of her creatures, great & small, from the horses down to the bees so I had NO intention of telling her we had lost one of her hounds, I yelled to the poor, exhausted, blazing hot riders "No one leaves until we get T back here!"

Oh dear, it's just occurred to me that technically I may have been holding a half dozen or so people hostage at that point. 

Well, what does one do when faced with a short, round woman of a certain age who is brandishing a whip and is covered in sweat, dust and pond scum, and currently has Bette Davis eyes - and not the good kind of which Kim Carnes sang either. I'm thinking more "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" eyes or "Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte" peepers. Well, we finally got T back but by that point we could only get him into the cab of the truck. Have you ever tried to drive a truck with a trailer full of hounds behind you and a foxhound sitting on your lap?  Well, I have.


By the third walkout, the temperature had been steadily climbing every day and that alone could've caused the spontaneous combustion of any living thing but just as I pulled on the front door, not only was I hit by the heat but also by a smell that I could only think was one large dead thing (something in the Woolly Mammoth size range) OR a large amount of smaller dead things. Turns out it's fertilizer time. New York, in the height of summer, with the sanitation people on strike, isn't even in the same class of stink. 

Fortunately, with the exception of a continual wish for a gas mask, that walkout went well. Dee was returning that afternoon leaving me no time in which to find alternate living arrangements had it not.

Tomorrow we ride (I cart) at dawn (well, not dawn so much as 90 minutes earlier than usual) 'cause that heat isn't going anywhere anytime soon.  

Onward & sideways!

I'm Sorry, I Was Not Aware There Would Be Backing Up...

I had a very sheltered upbringing - on the Upper East Side of New York. I was very fortunate to have been afforded a most excellent education at The Convent of the Sacred Heart on 91st Street & Fifth Avenue. It was an unusual time to be growing up anyway - the times they were indeed a-changing.

The academic program was, and still is, of the highest order and though I don't know if such a thing even exists anymore, I vaguely remember a very tepid sort of Home Economics class (or club, maybe?) I just know that I didn't have to take it. The reason this course was not emphasized was that it was just presumed that a young lady of the Sacred Heart would have staff.

Another elective that was not offered (although I don't believe it was offered at either Spence or Nightingale - two other private girls schools in the immediate area) was driving. As New Yorkers, we mostly walked and/or were driven. Getting one's driving license just wasn't the milestone for us that it was for, you know, everyone else in the world. Or America at least. 

The first driving license I had was in the mid-1980's when I first lived on Anguilla (the northern most of the Leeward Islands). There we drove in "American" cars (steering wheel on the left) BUT as Anguilla is a British dependent territory (British West Indies) we drove on the left side of the road.


This is helpful nowhere.

The first American driving license was issued to me in the early 1990's in Montana when I was splitting my year between Missoula and Anguilla. I then spent the next decade driving on the right hand side of the road for half of the year and the left hand side for the other half.

Because of the impediments that came with driving on Anguilla - goats leaping into the middle of the road from out of nowhere, pot-holes that could swallow a small car and confused tourists trying to negotiate the roundabouts AND remember that they need to stay on the left hand side of the road, I have always been a very vigilant driver but because so many others are not, I am also a very anxious driver.

To be honest, it is not always the other driver, most of my life is anxiety driven.

I don't like driving on highways, don't like driving fast, not a fan of the windy road, get claustrophobic if I am surrounded by a lot of traffic, am now quite night-blind and still, to this day, when I am in a new place, I have to remember to drive on the right-hand side of the road until I get used to it.

Arkansas, it turns out, appears to be mostly winding two lane highways. I am now quite confident in making my way from home to our small town and its environs but it will still be a while before I can do the drive to Fayetteville. A) There is construction going on and those flashing lights and stripedy barrels only serve to confuse me (on top of the anxiety), 2) There is a LOT of traffic and C, D, E & F) I don't know where anything is.

Anyway, my friend Alex (also not his real name and coincidentally my friend Dee's older son (still not her name either)) is having some transportation issues just now and needs a lift to and from work. For the most part Dee takes him in the morning and I collect him in the afternoon. A couple of weeks ago I got a call asking if I might go for Alex in the truck as he had something large to bring home.

Holy crap - the White Rhino! The first time I'd seen Dee in over 30 years - she pulled up to the airport in this giant white truck, opened her door, slid out and then disappeared from sight for a few seconds before she came around the front of the truck. It's taken a while and I am now reasonably proficient at getting in and out of the passenger side with a modicum of dignity and a minimum of swearing but it is one big-ass truck.

I went up to Dee's house to swap my golf cart for the White Rhino and it had already been considerately parked in a manner that allowed me to just get in and drive. No having to reverse out and negotiate the parking area - just climb in and off I go. Well, the whole thing scared the crap out of me but it was time to suck it up and in the words of the philosopher, Nike, "Just do it!"

I would just briefly like to mention, as an aside, that if it is normal for your vehicle to have lights on that usually signify that something might be wrong, a heads-up could probably be helpful in the elimination of visions of the vehicle exploding before the completion of the task. There are almost no vehicles from this century on the compound so almost everything has its own eccentricities - as do many of the best people...

I pulled into the drive of Alex's job and he directed me to follow him around this building so he could load-in his stuff. Once the task was completed he said, "OK, just turn the truck around and I'll meet you over there" gesturing vaguely in the direction in which we had come.


Umm - what's that now? Just turn the truck around? Like, go backwards and then forward again? Well, it had never crossed my mind that I would have to turn this mother around - but then again, I reckoned that anything short of an actual building that might be behind me would not win in a confrontation with The White Rhino and so I wrestled that gear shift to R and then back over to D and we were outta there. 

Once I knew we were on our way back to the farm and that we would be in Drive for the rest of the trip I was able to enjoy the powerful feeling of driving a big old truck. I totally get it. Sitting eleventy feet above the ground and thinking: 

"I am The White Rhino - bow to me!"

My Kingdom for an Anchovy!

When I moved here, I was aware that the farm is in a pretty rural area.  This is one of the many things that I love.  My view is stunning in every direction and generally peace and quiet abide.  On a clear night, in the absence of ambient light, you can see almost every star ever discovered and practically read by the light of the full moon. When the moon is new however, finding your car can be a challenge as you walk, Harpo Marx-like, knees bent, taking tiny steps with hands gesturing frantically in front of you wishing you had bat sonar. 

The area in which I live is considered Northwestern Arkansas, abbreviated as NWA.  I cannot say how long it will be before images of Dr. Dre & Ice Cube stop popping into my mind every time I hear "NWA".

We are about 5 miles from town (pop. 2346) and about 30 miles from Town (where the University is located).  We have a lovely little downtown.  There is a traffic thingy that looks meant to be in the spirit of a roundabout but is really a rather confusing polygon of some sort.  There was some stunt driving involved during my first attempt at circumnavigating this 5th circle of Hell and I believe that poor Dee may have seen a lot of her life flashing before her eyes but admirably kept her calm and we tried it again.

We have a McDonald's, a Sonic & a Pizza Hut. About 100 feet from the Pizza Hut there is another little pizza place that is called, That Little Pizza Place.  Needless to say, this can lead to conversations of the "Who's on first?" variety.  

We have a Walmart (this is Arkansas, it's the law) and although I had really been a Target girl in the past, I am becoming quite fond of our Walmart.  Hey, on Mothers' Day morning I was able to get a wifi router and get connected again to the rest of America.  I just wish Pepperidge Farm double chocolate Milano cookies would stop falling into my basket.

Then we have our grocery store.  It is a chain store and I'd been to the one in "Town" before as it's on the way to/from the airport and that one is really nice. Ours is well, a bit less so. The people who work there are lovely, it's not that, it is the fact that either Mr. Magoo or Jackson Pollock is responsible for the layout of the store. There seems to be a little bit of everything on every aisle so the shopping experience is a cross between Concentration:

"Wait, I saw some of these things on another aisle.  Um three aisles over?" 

"No, I'm sorry, it was two aisles over.  And the board goes back." 

& Jeopardy: "I'll take Things Only I Know on Which Aisle They Reside for $400, Alex". 

If you pay close attention though there are little gems to be found.  There is a significant Mexican population here so there are bottles of Coke & Fanta from Mexico made with REAL sugar not the HFCS crap.  It means nothing to me, I've been on diet soda since 1963 but for someone who does enjoy "the real thing" - it is here.

Three different types of Panko bread crumbs - on three separate aisles. Who knew?

We're ass-deep (technical retail terminology) in Vidalia onions just now which seem to have elbowed the plain old regular yellow onions into obscurity.  I'm sure they'll be back though.

Early on, I decided to make a Caesar salad.  It's probably my favourite salad and as long as I have the required ingredients - I make a pretty good one.  Romaine lettuce - check, garlic, lemons, cracked black pepper, check, check, check.  Olive oil, Fresh eggs, Parmesan cheese & Worcestershire - got 'em.  Anchovies?  Anchovies?  Well, on the aisle that one might normally find anchovies, I found the usual suspects: tuna, clams (smoked & not), oysters (also smoked & not), sardines - a few different varieties.  Anchovy paste - sure, but nary a tin of anchovy fillets to be found.

I returned a couple of days later on a search and destroy mission.  I would be the Jacques Cousteau of supermarkets.  I would find those damn anchovies.

And so, with my shopping cart, temporarily christened "Calypso" and "The Best of Little Feat" playing on my iPod I began systematically going up and down every single aisle until finally, good news!  I spy a group of anchovy tins (a school of anchovy tins?) on the shelf.  And look, only $1 each?! Hey wait, what's the catch? Oh, well there ya go - they expired last December!

And this, ladies & gentlemen, is why I can't have nice things. What I will do is purchase plenty, plenty tins of anchovies the next time I find them. 

As God is my witness, I will never go without anchovies again!

Where Could I Be? Believe It Or Not, It's Me!

Okay, you know that thing where when you smack something so hard that as soon as you look at the affected area, a bruise has already formed?  Well, this morning, the golf cart grabbed my beautiful hunting whip, literally whipping it out of the cart with the knob end whacking me on the shin.  Just exactly above my work boots.  Huzzah.  Fortunately my whip, made by a local artist/equestrian, is fine.  Given the location of the bruise, I am able to wear an ice pack but still continue to wander about - although I feel rather like Lindsay Lohan under house arrest.

Oh, well now I've jumped way too far ahead...

I went to a small, private women's liberal arts college on the east coast that folded in 1977 leaving us with no alumnae association.  We all scattered to the wind as happens during several decades. Once I had the internet, I tried looking for a couple of my friends - the ones whose married names I knew. Whose weddings I'd been to.  This was still during dial-up days when you would put your words into the search box and then you'd go, say, make a meal and then come back to see if anything came up.  The first one I found was my friend, PK. Funny, smart, loving, lovely, beautiful PK.  Her obituary from just 3 years or so prior - breast cancer.  I wept for 2 weeks and then stopped looking anymore for a while.  

A few years ago, I heard via my old colleagues on Anguilla that someone was looking for me and I gave them permission to give out my personal info.  

In the meantime, I  tried putting some names into the facebook search box again and finally a couple of them came up!  One was for the friend who was looking for me and another confirmed that the info I had recently come across for another bff had been correct - she did live in Arkansas. Dee (not her real name - forgot to ask her if I can use her name in my blog) asked me if I travelled and would I come & visit?  Well, I hadn't gotten on a plane in almost a decade because A) I hate it and 2) for much of that time, I was too large to fit into those seats but I said "Sure" and along with another friend (and roommate of almost 5 years from NYC days) we agreed to meet at Dee's farm to celebrate the Royal Wedding of Wills & Kate  - AND as it turned out the capture of Osama Bin Laden as well. We'd also spent the NY black-out of 1977 together.

None of us had seen each other in over 30 years but within 30 minutes it felt as though it had only been 30 days - not a whole lifetime!  

Over the next few visits, Dee & I had discussed me moving down here in a sort of hypothetical scenario but since my housemates in Montana were putting their house on the market and I was going to have to pack up all of my stuff anyway, it seemed to be a sign that it might just be time for a new adventure.  Dee's friend and tenant had an extra bedroom in his house and he was willing to share with me so I thought, "why not?".  After all, isn't it what almost every little girl and her bff decide around 9 or 10 years old, "Hey, if neither of us is married when we are old (generally deemed at that point to be 35) then we should live in the same town and grow old together".  Sort of Golden Girls in The Ozarks. My friend Nici, has been a great inspiration in having faith in leaps of faith.  So here I am.

Foxhunting is a big deal here and Dee is Master of the Foxhounds.  Holy crap, this is no job for sissies.  There is a ton of work involved in running the farm and over the years, she has learned a great deal about veterinary medicine as well and I am just generally in total awe of her.  If they were to make a movie of Dee's life - Barbara Stanwyck would've been the best choice to play her - except for the fact that she is way, way older than Dee and also, quite dead.

I am trying my best to learn things so that I can maybe be useful and give her a hand whenever she needs it.

In the off-season, the hounds are "walked out" (or exercised) twice a week (generally the same days as the hunts in season).  Today I was asked to lead the walkout (just the 3rd time I've done it).  We (the golf cart - usually with with Dee & me in it and generally anywhere from 2-4 people on horseback) travel about part of the farm from pond to pond and also keep the hounds used to hearing and responding to the commands that Dee gives them during the hunt. The hounds are told to "Come behind!" (the golf cart now but Dee on her horse during the hunt) and then with the command "Ok Boys!" they are off like a shot.  It's very cool.

The cutting of wheat is just beginning so in most of the fields the grass/wheat is getting really tall. The hounds would go running off and then come running back looking at me like, "Where are we going? We can't see! The grass is TOO HIGH!" When it was time to get them behind the cart - I had to stand on the golf cart so they could see me and I could crack my whip to get their attention.

About three-quarters through the course, the end of my hunting whip got caught in the golf cart wheel and was snapped off the seat next to me and the rounded knob-like handle whacked me in the shin for good measure.  Hurt like a mofo but am happy I didn't harm the whip.  Fortunately, it is made of ash, a hard wood.  Unfortunately for my shin, my whip is made of ash, a hard wood.

As always, when something doesn't necessarily go my way, I try my best to find something optimistic in the situation (I don't know why - I have pharmaceuticals).  Anyway, at least my legs are no longer winter white which would make this bruise (about 6 inches long at the moment, still early days) MUCH more apparent and dramatic.  Also, I believe that I have clothing in black, blue, purple, green and yellow so that I might colour coordinate my outfits over the next few weeks as this bruise waxes and wanes.

I do so love a good colour theme...

Smoke More Pot, Play More Music.

The older one gets, the longer the general cocktail party patter becomes about one's health or lack thereof. 

I would like to take this moment to address my young and able-bodied friends and family - I am SO not shitting you when I tell you to not take even one moment of your youth for granted.  That "perky" might be used to describe any of your body parts whatsoever is a time period that goes by SO fast that it is startling in hindsight.  And to have a body that works pretty much the way it was meant to, is a gift. 

Don't fuck it up.

My knees were already on their way out by the time I was 20 from playing sports and by 21, I had ruptured a disc in my back and now, at this point, my body is pretty much just straight up giving me the finger. 

About 35 years ago, I was high and listening to my beloved Supertramp, specifically the bass-line to "Even in the Quietest Moments", in headphones.  Really loud.  I realized at that time that I had totally forgotten about the stupid sciatica pain while I was concentrating on the music.  So, for me - I find it a useful tool and have used marijuana and music (listening or playing) for both stress and pain management since that time. 

I am fortunate to live in a state where medicinal marijuana is legal.  Unfortunately they are now trying to make it as difficult as possible - but that is a story for another time.  Fortunately (I guess) my brokenness does qualify me for a "green card" so I still use this method, lo these many years later.

Obviously there are pills involved as well.  I'm not insane (legally). 

As I now travel the maze of medical personnel, I am having to remember to do or say things to avoid the looks of grave concern on their faces.  It's mostly my blood pressure.  It really is okay - unless I am in a doctor's office.  I now make a record of my blood pressure for a few days before the appointment to hand in. Medical homework.

I was having a discussion with a friend today and said that I had done an experiment the night before my last doc appointment. Earlier that evening I had come home from the adorable preschool presentation of one of my tiniest bffs, so I got stoned (Bob Dylan said we must) and played my guitar for a half an hour or so and then took my blood pressure.  It was extra low. 

"What do you take from this?", my friend asked.

"Mostly that I should smoke more pot and play more music", I replied.

Easter: Now With Zombies!

Dear Vatican Department of Marketing & PR:

I am writing to you as an RC (Recovering Catholic - although let's be honest - who amongst us actually recovers fully?).  Jesus-tap-dancing-Christ, the guilt alone - oy!

I've mentioned in the past that I feel about religion the same way I feel about camping - I am glad that these activities exist for the many who find them enjoyable - please just leave me the hell out of it.

You pretty much lost me when I found out that the end of The Lord's Prayer was not, in fact  "And lead us not into Penn Station" but rather "And lead us not into temptation".  I still think I was right...

The Goddess only knows that during these times when religion has almost become a dirty word; a shield, behind which people try to hide to justify the most heinous of behaviours, that you guys have one extra big-ass PR problem on your hands.

It seems to me that you are missing a golden marketing opportunity to drum up membership and maintain loyalty amongst today's younger parishioners  - Yo! You two with the pointy hats over there, stop the winking and giggling.  You're not helping yourselves in the slightest, you know.  You people need to step into the, I don't know, 17th or 18th Century at very least. 

First of all - stop fixing that which isn't broken - why the hell would you strip some perfectly good Saints of their sainthood?  The ones that people had heard of and knew what they did? Like St. Christopher and St. Patrick - now travellers and Ireland are screwed. Great. Not really the way to win friends and influence people, IMHO.

You de-commissioned (or whatever) Limbo.  Mr. Harry Belafonte had always made it sound so fun.  Perhaps that was the problem - it was just sort of "Hell Lite", really.

Now that we have hit Holy Week and are sliding into the home base that is Easter - in order to attract the coveted 18-34 demographic - you should really be playing up the abundant gore factor of this otherwise pastel coloured holiday. 

It's all the rage now, vampires, zombies and the like.  You already have the whole crown of thorns and crucifiction bits plus you are also trying to sell the "See, he died on this one day and then three days later - Voilà! Apparently, he was rather less dead than originally thought and he rose again" theory.  Looking at this from a purely, uh, logical point of view: dead one day + not dead three days later = the undead or zombie. 

Also, if one guy rises from the dead three days later - who is to say that it didn't happen to others?  Certainly not all the time but clearly the mortuary sciences in general and embalming in particular were still a bit "hit and miss" back then but not to worry - you can totally use this to your advantage.

So, you can still keep the pastel coloured outfits avec chapeaux, the chicks (both real & marshmallow) & bunnies (both real & chocolate) - but in order to catch the attention of the preferred demographic you need to take advantage of the elephant (who coincidentally also used to be dead a few days ago and then now isn't) in the middle of the room and use it as your new catchphrase: 

Easter: Now With Zombies!

You're welcome.

Jesus Has Two Daddies

Hark, the herald angels shout!
One goddamn string of lights is out!

Well, 'tis the season - at night, other than the Great Wall of China, the only other thing that can be seen from outer space is: our house (although it is a very, very, very fine house). 

My housemates, of 20 years, John & Tony, LOVE to decorate the house at Christmas.  Tony is sent up on to the roof, generally in October to put all of the outside house lights in place (before weather makes that a suicide mission).  The outside trees and bushes can then be done at leisure.

Right after Thanksgiving and once poor Tony (the only one still agile enough) brings all of the boxes of ornaments up from the basement - they fill up the guest bedroom in its entirety.  Christmas, especially for gay men (I don't mean to call out any one group, but if you can name another who is, in a preternaturally large percentage, associated with good taste and creativity then please do keep me posted) as Christmas allows for the very tasteful to dip their toes in, dare I say it, the Sea of Gaudy. 

As long as taste and elegance have been restored by Epiphany.

In fact, it is a widely held belief, amongst a very large group of our friends, that any house, any where, that has Christmas decorations up after the 6th of January, must sadly be the home of people who drink way too much to care.  Although strands of just white lights are always in good taste.  In a car of any size, with any combination and permutation of our friends, the ones we see all the time and the ones we see once every few years, if we pass a house with Christmas stuff happening outside of the allotted time period, all conversation stops, and just like a Greek chorus, we cast our eyes downwards, and whisper, out of the sides of our mouths, "Alcoholics".

Anyway, this year is rather low-key and we have just the one tree.  Perfectly shaped and decorated, precisely as John's mother taught him - small ornaments at the top and then growing in size with the very largest baubles at the bottom.  It truly is magnificent and I have seen more than one straight man clutch his pearls and mutter "stunning" under his breath.  This year is a "bubble lights" year which Tony & I adore (and John does not).

Last year had been a non-bubble light year and so we hung the movie star ornaments on the main tree as well (they have often had their own tree in other years).  Ours, I can absolutely guarantee you, is the only household, in the world, in which it is possible for the following exchange to have actually happened last year:

Me: Uh-oh
John: What?
Me: I believe Myrna Loy just fell off the tree.

And sure enough she had.  This year, the movie stars are adorning the oleander.

For the first ten years that we lived here - I was always away at work, hearing Christmas carols played on the steel drum.  Really never did get used to that.  Anyway, at some point, John had decided to go through my boxes of Christmas ornaments which I had packed up when mummy died and never looked at again.  Lo and behold, he found the little wooden crèche that had belonged to my mother's mother and perhaps went even further back to Ireland.  The house here had been always been manger-free until then but for some reason John brought it out. 

You +1'd this publicly. Undo

Now, this is "Crèche Fucking Central".  The boys have collected either whole manger scenes or parts thereof in their travels over the last 20 years.  I was quite moved, the first year I was living here on a full-time basis, to see the crèche of my childhood that had always been on our mantle at home.  Upon closer inspection however, I found that a pink Cadillac and a turkey, that is way larger than scale, had apparently also made their way to Bethlehem.  Part of the reason for the turkey being so large is that once you lift up the turkey, there is a couple illustrating one of the many, many positions of the kama-sutra.  Oh, holy night, indeed!

Now, there is one Nativity that is all gold (which would be OTT at any other time of year, but is perfectly perfect just now).  There was another that was basically just three large wisemen, so we always thought of that one as them packing for their road trip to Bethlehem.  Sadly, Tony took out two of those wisemen last year when he fell down the steps and cracked a couple of his ribs.  A couple of other manger scenes are also scattered about the house.

Santa Claus? I cannot even begin to guess the number but there is not a place to cast one's eye in the kitchen in which there is nary a Santa.  But then again, the kitchen is black & white with red accents so it was just made for Santamania.

You +1'd this publicly. Undo

We are having a very small sit-down tomorrow night and I must remember to point out two things to our guests - one would be to not let the dessert I have made get anywhere near the candles.  The bourbon content is high.

And the other, is to point out our favourite of all of the nativity scenes.  It is a wee, small one and was brought back from one of John & Tony's many trips to Italy but sadly, the Blessed Mother had been decapitated on the trip home.  No worries though, we hooked Joseph up with one of the wisemen and voilà -

Jesus has two daddies!

Merries & Ho's to one and all!

You +1'd this publicly. Undo