Christmas Eve Eve Eve Dispatches

Baby, it’s cold outside. This will make the 20′s coming tomorrow feel like the tropics.

I get paranoid in weather like this, wondering when something is going to break. I had a circuit breaker trip yesterday for no apparent reason. I worry about losing power in this kind of cold. This morning, I was wondering if the shower wasn’t as hot as it should have been. I hear about those people on the east coast who have been without power for 10 days and worry about what I would do if that happened here. What will the next gas bill look like? What am I going to owe in taxes? Insecurity seems to have the upper hand right now.

Humbug. My seasonal affective disorder is kicking in. For thousands of years, human beings have taken this time of the year to see hope in the birth of the sun or in the birth of the Son. I need to tap into that feeling.

• I had something happen yesterday that I don’t think I’ve ever seen. I reached for two dollars out of my wallet for the collection basket and, being a gambler, checked to see which serial number would have won a poker hand. The two bills were sequential. What are the chances of that?
• OK, the date for our January thaw has been set. Janboree never has snow or cold.
• Bonehead of the day is this 30-year old man who stabbed his brother over a video game.
• OK, my Christmas shopping is done. (Thanks Cinematical)
• Butter, cream: sounds like a winner in my book.
• People are giving up their pets because of the economy? Unconditional love for $1000 per year sounds like a bargain to me.
• Should the vacant YWCA site be replaced by low/moderate income apartments? The alternative would be to let it sit vacant until the economy takes off again. That could be next year or ten years from now. I’m unsure.
• Marilyn Monroe was at the Clarke Hotel the other night. I wasn’t invited.
• Waukesha Springs Health Rehabilitation center received a one-star (out of five) rating on a federal site which rates nursing homes. The facility spokesman says that, “they have action plans in place and are working on them.” Let me die before I have to go to a nursing home.
• Ann Coulter says, “No matter how many times Democrats steal elections, Republicans keep thinking the next time will be different. Minnesota is famously clean, isn’t it? It must different. It’s not different. It’s still the Democrats.”
• Along that same line, the Democrats in Illinois promised that the voters would select the replacement for Obama, until they thought they might lose.
• I thought it especially funny that Mike Madigan (Democrat) the Illinois speaker of the house blamed Republicans for Governor Blago’s (Democrat) troubles.