Fud, Books and Fam

I’m a traditionalist – on Christmas we have Chinese food. This year will be different, Chinese food will still be in the mix though (TRADITION!!!). As with Thanksgiving, Jen and Oni won’t be hosting or attending the usual McMurrer Family Holiday Extravaganza – Trumpublican Greedtastic Incompetence™ banjaxed those plans, don’cha know. How many American families will be newly homeless on January first – in the middle of winter AND 45's plague?

“Asked later whether he expects a [relief] bill to pass by end of next week, [Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell laughed and said ‘no,’ according to a pool report.” (source)

They're not called a Death Cult for nothin', ya know.

So anyway, us Valhallans will huddle together on Xmas, eating, opening prezzies and binge-watching The Mandalorian. Oni, Jen and Ten will cook stuff. I’ll buy pies (OK, Ten will since I don’t leave the house anymore) and we’ll order take out crab rangoons for an app and maybe some dry sautéed sting beans and eggplant in garlic sauce for sides.

With the increase in my anti-seizure dose-per-day, my appetite has dropped off the radar – a good thing. I’m still all too madly in love with food BUT now I just talk, OK yell, about my cravings. Latest one (apart from Chinese food which is a constant) FROSTING. I started by screaming for cake until I remembered that cake only exists, to my mind, as a guilt quelling delivery device for ICING, straight up, no chaser.

I’m rereading Matt Ruff’s Sewer, Gas and Electric: The Public Works Trilogy and getting totally creeped out. Ya see, I first read the book when it came out in 1994 – back when 2020 was still so far into the hope filled future. In 2020 there’d be solar fueled flying cars! Star Trekian food replicators! World peace! Clean water and air! Cures for cancer and Nf2!

Yeah, my imagination doesn’t exactly run along realistic, dystopian tracks. I need hope and joy and shit. All bleak/zero optimism is a fucked way to live, n'est-ce pas?

It seems Mister Ruff, when writing this trilogy, had a window into our all too dark future. He writes of a pandemic which decimates a fair amount of the planet, disproportionately hitting African Americans. Sound familiar? A plane flies into the Empire State Building reducing it and the surrounding area to rubble (not the World Trade Towers but close). Oil companies are attempting to drill at the Poles. AND there’s some big billionaire capitalist but he seems, so far, not Trumpian stupid and evil but…we’ll see.

At this post Ruff’s tale feels less like sci-fi and more like journalism and history.

In other more pleasant news, Hillel and his brother made it down to Florida where they’re visiting their mother (after taking COVID tests and quarantining) She’s in her 80s and in better health than I’ve ever been. Yes, she IS fiercely superheroically awesome and I'm envious.

Dunno when Hillel will return BUT he’ll go from sun drenched beaches to, possibly, a foot of snow. Yep, we’re due for the first BIG-ass storm of the season At best, I’ll make it out onto the porch to snap pics.

Ten will put tarps over all of our possible cat hideouts. There’s a cot, a little heated cat house and my wedging table. Umlaut, Zeus, Girlfriend and NotSaru undoubtedly all have their own boltholes BUT, just in case, I wanna make sure they have warm-ish, dry backups.

Yes, life IS in fact all about the cats.