Ramblings on the Eve of the Apocalypse

As you can all see, I haven’t been blogging much lately.  Life has been busy and I’ve been preoccupied with other things.  I even missed by 8^th blog anniversary earlier this month.  But life is good and since I don’t expect the world is going to end tomorrow, I thought I’d stop by blogland long enough to let everyone know I’ve not experienced an early Mayan apocalypse.  

I thought several times about addressing what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.  When I first heard the news last Friday afternoon, I was even more shocked to realize that while it was happening, I was at our local pool, volunteering to teach swimming to elementary kids.  What a tragedy, but everyone else has been talking about it where there isn’t a lot that can be said.  I suppose that, in a way, talking about it is the only thing those far away can do to show they stand beside those grieving.  But sometimes the news media seems so invasive of privacy that I get sick of watching it.  And also, I wonder what’s happening in the rest of the world.  Midweek, I finally switched over the BBC to check and see if North Korea armed any of their rockets or if the Syrian nerve gas was leaking in our direction.  We live in a crazy world.  Christmas is supposed to be the celebration of the birth of the Prince of Peace, a birth that was marred by Herod’s killings of the innocent.  The world remains in a fallen estate and we hope and pray. 

Maybe I should talk about the weather.  Interestingly, the grass this morning was greener than it was in July!  Tonight, we may get some snow but that’s what they also said last night and all we got was rain—lots of rain.  It doesn’t yet feel like Christmas, but on the other side of the big lake they’re getting plenty of snow.  Maybe the ground will be white by the 25^th.

If I don’t get back to you beforehand, have yourselves a Merry Christmas.  At some point, I will post (with photos) my new Christmas tradition—fruitcake. I had to scourer over three counties to find all the ingredients and about burn up a mixer, but the cake is baked and currently aging (wrapped in paper that’s soaked in bourbon every couple of days).   As I’ve been saying, it’s either going to be very good or a waste of good corn squeezing.