New traditions

I've loved seeing what my sons want to continue for their holiday traditions--for the most part, they've taken everything I did and incorporated them into their own family celebrations. That makes me feel really good.

This is our fifth Thanksgiving with Ben and Jen and the second year Jordan and Sophie have been able to join us. So we have a couple of new traditions:

• Our Great Pizza Cook-off. This started as a competition between Kent and Ben and now we've decided it's really just a way for us all to have great pizza. This will be our third cook-off.
• Catan Championships. Jordan, Ben and Kent played last year and are playing again this year. I think this will be a new tradition for them.
• Faux Christmas. Ben and Jen graciously put up their tree the Friday after Thanksgiving so we can help and then we open presents. Alison is old enough to know that this isn't the real Christmas celebration and still young enough to enjoy opening all the gifts.
• Pea Tasty. OK it's not really called that, it's called tea pastry but Ben couldn't say that when he was a little kid. We always had the pea tasty for Christmas breakfast and that's a tradition Ben has continued.
• Bake time with Alison. Last year Sophie and Alison made cookies together and this year they are going to make cup cakes. I think Sophie is a saint.

Did you know your adult children develop strong opinions of their own? And that you can really learn from them? Well they do and I most definitely have learned from both sons. This week, Ben told me I shouldn't use the tag "stupid things you're rather not know." He said it's demeaning about what I write and also slightly dismissive toward the people who read this blog. I've thought about it, and I'm going to stop using that tag. It will be hard but I'm going to give it a whirl.

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm in Virginia with Kent, both sons and their families for the holiday and I'm really glad to be here. It's a very cool thing to have adult children as interesting as mine are. I take no credit--as my brother is fond of saying when complimented or dinged about his own children, "it's not my fault."

I hope you are with those you love and who love you right back. I wish for no drama, much tasty food and a relaxing, restorative time.

More later!

Unrelated rantlets

Rantlets are tiny little rants hardly worthy of the word rant. So here we go:

I’m tired of the meme first world problems. Yes, I know others elsewhere have it a lot worse than I do. I get it. But these are my problems and hey, guess what—I live in a first world country complete with first world problems.

I’m also tired of applying for jobs with companies that use antiquated web sites. I'm talking about web sites that can't accept documents in Word 2010 and won’t run in Chrome. Hey, a job application is also a chance for me to evaluate you, company who has the job posting. So don’t use Web 1.0 technology and do update your site so I can upload my resume into the dark abyss of your company never to be seen or heard from again.

Also this week I ran across a company with a career section of their web site that was in such bad shape regarding security certificates that both Chrome and Internet Explorer had absolute fits about me going there. And yes, this was one of the companies whose site flat wouldn't work in Chrome. Please for the love of God join us in the 21st century and make your web site compatible with the major browsers.

That leads me directly to the dark abyss of no answer or response to a job application. Seriously, it’s not all that difficult to set up a script to let all the non-winners know you filled the job. If tiny companies in Iowa can get that script up and running, so can you, big giant companies in major cities. It's the polite thing to do.

Finally let’s talk about the TSA. Ah the joys of either getting virtually strip-searched or else patted down before I can fly. I guess I slept through the  biology class that covered the parts of the human body, because for the life of me I never heard of a body part called resistance. The TSA sure has and they love to karate chop me there every time I fly.

Friendsgiving

We went to our friend Fiona’s third annual Friendsgiving Saturday evening. She provides the turkey, plates, utensils etc. and we all bring everything else. I usually bring my cranberry-port sauce, the one my friend Shima calls the boozy cranberry sauce. This year I found a recipe for honey roasted almonds so we made a batch of those before we headed over. Oh my goodness those were tasty. They are also all gone.

The nice thing about Friendsgiving is it provides the perfect kick off to the holiday crush and ensures we see all our friends while we are still sane. I love it and I’m so glad she does this every year.

Back to cats

I thought I'd already posted a video of their feeding frenzy but maybe not. So here's a video of the nightly food ritual, complete with their pathetic cries.

Chloe is the worst offender. She starts sounding off a good two hours before feeding time with her monotone meow, which is fairly annoying. Wally doesn't stir until the can has been opened. Then he'll saunter into the kitchen and wander around. He rarely meows while we get the food ready and when he does, it's cute. He's got a little meow for having such a big personality. Eddie's meow is both loud and expressive, which is exactly how he is.

The freak

I’m sure you’ve heard of the whole Penn State/Paterno/ Sandusky mess. I think the two most chilling stories I read were about (1) Penn State students rioting over Paterno being let go and (2) the story about the grad assistant who saw something, reported something but not until the next day and then . . . nothing?

I think I’m the freak here.

I have reported people for things done against those who have no recourse, not something I think happened or something I suspected happened but events I saw. Here are my bona fides:

• I reported a woman whose children slept in urine-soaked playpens who were also fed mold-infested food.
• I confronted an “abusive” man berating a woman at Murphy Hall at KU. That ended up being some freaky theatrical experiment and when I figured that out, I hauled ass into their little debrief and confronted them about the dangers posed by pretending to be abused when in fact they were not.
• Last week I stopped a tiny, no more than three year old girl from being hauled down a super long escalator by her slightly older big brother. I think her mother was pissed but too bad. I’ll take pissed mom over injured kid any day, thanks anyway.

So I don’t understand why on earth Paterno didn’t do more. For that matter, WTF, grad assistant who saw the inappropriate shower. What were you thinking? Were you afraid your career would be damaged? How about the life of the boy in that shower, did you think about that?

At this point, I'm OK with being the freak.

Freeze frame

Wally likes the camera. In fact, he’ll be doing something funny or silly or cute and he’ll keep doing it until I get the camera and either take a picture or video.

Case in point is today’s video. He lolled around on my desk with very appropriate music in the background exactly as though he were some kind of star at a photo or video shoot. I could have taken a much longer video as far as he was concerned.