We woke up to lightly drifting snow this morning (and an overnight power outage). It is just so lovely. Enjoy it while it is here - my outside thermometer is at 40 so my guess is this will be a short bit of whiteness. Our immediate family will celebrate Christmas at a beach cabin out on Guemes Island - low key, no gifts (except for the grandkids), just lots of relaxing and eating amid lively discussions (which, yes, will include politics).

I wish all my PNW garden friends a safe and peaceful holiday. Be safe if you are traveling. If staying home, curl up with a hot toddy!! Deb

(Winter 2011)

Oh Deb, that is such a beautiful winter scene. I have been cooking since around 4:30am. We eat tomorrow but some stuff I can do ahead. Somehow I got stuck with everything but the meat and dessert but that's okay. It will be hectic and noisy so I may just find a quiet corner of my DIL's apartment and hunker down with some wine and watch 'the show.' My son is here from Virginia to be with his family for two weeks then back he goes.

Merry Christmas to all who dwell here.

I'm getting some big, fat flakes here, too. I plan to drive home before they freeze on the roads!

Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates it, and Happy Holidays plus a very good New Year to everyone!

Merry Christmas to you too!
We have snow here!

lol. Rick you never disappoint. "to all who celebrate it?" I agree but never think to say so. So for all of our friends who march to a different drummer, may your days be filled with peace and friendship and hurry back soon to continue the happiness and joy of gardening.

Please don't let that be politically incorrect -- it is meant with all love and brotherhood. oopps. 'person'hood??? dratdoodle! I am going to put more decorations on the tree.

I know! "Peace on earth to ... people ... or whateveer ... of good will".

A friend went to grad school at Cal Tech and was elected head of the grad student council. Some of the people there (back in the 1980s or so) wanted the student council letterhead re-printed so Karen could be the "Chairperson" of the student council instead of the Chairman.

Well, Karen just wanted to be in charge and didn't care much about letterheads. The problem was that the PC crowd wanted her to throw away reams of usable, pre-printed letterhead and spend HER tiny budget to change "Chairman" to "Chairperson".

She would have slightly preferred "Chairwoman", but she didn't like the clunky-sounding "Chairperson" and REFUSED to spend HER budget on anything that wasn't HER top priority.

But there would have been a PC-storm if she had said that feminism and gender equality weren't worth spending money on.

So she came up with an argument that every Cal Tech person found convincing.

She demanded that IF the letterhead was going to be changed, that they would HAVE TO allow for the future where non-humans and intelligent machines might become the "Chair Thing" of the grad student council.

So if they didn't want to change "Chairman" to "Chairthing", she was going to BLOCK spending HER budget on something that would soon be considered "human-centric".

She kept her budget under HER control!

A bit of white-out could have changed it from Chairman to simply Chair - no muss, no fuss!

Good point! I think that tech-y people always look for complicated solutions.

If I see Karen again, I'll ask her why "White-Out" wasn't her answer.

Mostly, she was more interested in grinding up thing's brains and spinning them down, than in social issues.

Love it, just love it. Just saw this. My laugh for the day. As I said Rick, you never disappoint.

Just coming down from the holiday furor. Or maybe coming back up. I have been exhausted trying to be all things to all people. When will I ever learn. I don't like disappointing either.

But things are settled down. Got my peony order in. Was starting to have nightmares about not waking up in time Jan 1 when Solaris opened up and not getting the plants I wanted. Two I wanted weren't even up for sale and I changed my order around and then ordered several from Adelman's. Hey, a gal has the right to change her mind.

So Happy New Year (nothing objectionable there I don't think - you never know ) to all who dwell herein. Friends all!!

Those neurochemists are always grinding brains up and spinning them down.

Hmmm ... maybe that explains recent political developments. I'll have to ask Karen if any of her grant proposals included grinding and spinning voters' brains. (After the grinding and the ultra-centrifugation, they never work as well, even after you spoon them back into the skull.)

spoken like a true liberal

I try to phrase my political comments so they can be used by or against either side.

I mean, everyone agrees that "the other side is wrong". I figure that any time I say "too many voters are dumb", ALL of the readers will agree that "the other half" are brain-damaged.

You may be able to guess which half I agree with, but I try not to say which half in non-political forums.

I don't want to burden a gardening forum with political arguments. But it seemed safe to imply that an unusual number of people this year acted like they had something important removed. I thought that Republicans would agree, thinking of people who voted for Hillary. And Democrats would agree, thinking of people who voted for Trump.