My last post of 2006

Dragon Mood? -- excited with anticipation

I'm getting ready to leave the pied-a-terre and head 'home' to the pine trees for the holidays.

Josh will be rolling in late tonight. I have cleaning and laundry and bedmaking to do before then, but those are simple put-on-the-Christmas-music chores that are part and parcel of holiday preparations. I'm hoping that Josh and S and I will have some time for fun and visiting this weekend.

I have a little Christmas elfing yet to do .... a gift check to cash and disperse from Papa and Evelyn .... gifts to wrap .... our traditional peppered smoked salmon fillet to retrieve from Oliver T's (Josh has agreed to drive over there with me) ... Christmas music to listen and sing along to ... drinks to drink ... Christmas Eve potato soup to prepare ... you know, the regular things people do in anticipation of Christmas!

Caroline rolls in late Christmas Eve. I'm just hoping that the roads are clear and dry for her drive.

We'll all gather (S's kids and spouses) late-in-the-day on Christmas Day to exchange gifts, eat, drink and smoke cigars. Whether or not Grandma and Sally will join us is up in the air. I don't know if S has invited them nor if they'll make the drive down.

Josh leaves to head back to Milwaukee sometime on the 26th. He's got work on his mind ... as well as partying with his peeps, I imagine!

Caroline is staying through the New Year. I'm not exactly sure what we'll be doing, but I know we'll have fun no matter what!

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you! Hard to imagine but my next post will be in 2007!

Another ripple in the automotive sea change

The Detroit News is reporting today that Toyota is set to surpass GM in 2007. Here's an excerpt from the article:

NAGOYA, Japan -- Toyota announced on Friday a global production target of 9.42 million vehicles for next year, increasing the odds that the Japanese manufacturer will surpass troubled General Motors Corp. as the world's No. 1 automaker.

The latest figure, announced by Toyota in a release, marks a 4 percent increase over the 9.04 million vehicles the company expects to produce this year and easily clears the 9.2 million vehicles GM is estimated to have produced this year.

GM does not give targets for next year, but it has been forced to scale back production recently, seeing its market share eroded by Asian automakers, including Toyota, which have a reputation for better mileage.

....Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe barely said anything when asked about the possibility that his company may soon beat GM in global output.

"That's just what the results may be," he said quietly at a news conference ....

The Faith Club

What to read a captivating book?

Check out The Faith Club: A Muslim, A Christian, A Jew-- Three Women Search for Understanding.

I heard a fascinating interview of these three authors on The Diane Rehm Show on NPR today.

Seldom does a book ask so much of its readers: open your mind, open your heart, examine your prejudices, purge yourself of them, become a better person, and then become an agent of change for good in the world. A modest proposal!

I'm hoping that Santa may bring me a copy for Christmas!

Catching up on birthday horoscopes

Dragon Mood? -- a wee bit of dragon confusion

I love to read my horoscopes (as well as many of my family members) from Astrodienst.

Here is one that I find particularly difficult to comprehend. I feel like I want to space out when I read this -- which is why I'm posting it here -- and all the more reason to read it and understand it.

Limited warranty
Valid during many months: This is a time of equilibrium and balance in your life, because now you have a pretty good idea of how to handle your own world. Events will run along more or less easily during this time. But it is important to note that it will not necessarily be an especially happy or peaceful time [my emphasis]. Our lives are directed by our own demands much more than we realize, but very often those demands are unconscious. We would often be horrified if we knew what we are really trying to do. We try to protect ourselves and what we feel belongs to us from "threats" that often are not real threats according to adult criteria. Yet we structure our world according to them. This influence only guarantees that you will be successful in patterning your world. If you are very unhappy at this time, you had best get in touch with what you are really doing.

This can be a time when you are successfully approaching your main conscious goals in life. Or it can be a time when you are being run largely by unconscious "programs," as if you were a computer. Usually you will experience a little of both of these effects. However, in the long run the positive possibilities are more useful to know about. Concerning the negative side of this influence, suffice it to say that the difficult and unsatisfactory aspects of your life that you are experiencing now require you to look into yourself more closely.

At this time you are particularly good at working with other people. You are able to see your individuality and differentness in a way that makes it possible for you to work with others in a complementary way so that neither you nor they feel competitive. You can work just as well with people who are above you and with those at your own level.

You approach your own goals methodically and practically, for you are not particularly idealistic at this point. You are much more concerned about how to achieve what you want in concrete practical terms. Use this time well, for it gives you the opportunity to lay a foundation that will protect you in the future.

Transit selected for today:
Saturn Sextile Saturn
activity period from end of October 2006 until beginning of August 2007.

Dooce gets it exactly right

Dragon Mood? -- amused


I read Dooce. Pretty regularly. Along with a few other million readers, I guess.

Writing about Leta in the middle of the night, Heather describes the event like this:

And this went on for hours. Hours. And more hours. As many hours as there are between three and eight AM, which doesn’t seem like many right now, but there in the dark as the minutes were counted out in a machine gun spray of syllables, it seemed like all of the hours that ever were, a collection of time so vast that I could have witnessed the Colorado River carve out the Grand Canyon, one layer of dirt at a time.

And that is what I think Dooce got exactly right. That insane, completely surreal, will-this-night-ever-end kind of feeling ... that leaves bewildered parent you wondering if you'll ever feel normal again, ever able to sleep again?

She got it pitch-perfect. From one ol' mom to a new one.