Howdy do, partner. It sure is awful nice to see you. I hope you had a lovely week.
Great news! I found a bit of coffee leftover in the moka pot on the counter from last evening. A bit of boiling water later, and I have a very acceptable mug of coffee at my elbow to write this morning’s Quack.
Don’t worry, there’s plenty for you too. Grab a mug from the cupboard.
Let’s do this.
Little islands of calm
Erin and I have been repeating to each other for months we’re “not going to let Christmas get too crazy this year.”
After this many years, you’d think we’d have outgrown this level of naiveté.
Life is already busy. We are cups filled to the brim at all times. Christmas is a great big pitcher of busy poured into those already full cups.
I do believe we are getting better at this. We’re not sweating that the tree went up a little later than usual. When we arrived at my parent’s house in Ontario this October with a couple of bags of wrapped Christmas presents we looked a little over-eager. Now we look like geniuses.
(Let’s be honest: Erin looks like a genius. I look like a goofy white guy who married well.)
But even with all that, Christmas is chaos. (It’s also carnage, according to some.)
Erin and I are working through our list of Christmas stuff. Keeping on top of this means we have to sit down regularly to check in with each other. Yesterday morning, before we heading out to do a bunch of the Christmas chores, we stopped for coffee downtown. There were lists. There were revised lists. There were copies of the lists, distributed to all members of the team.
It was going to be a busy day. We could have just busted out of there and started down the lists. But we could make also time to play dominoes.
Little islands of calm like these are what I need. When I sit on one of those islands, I know that’s real life. When I look back on yesterday, that game was the best part of the day. We got so much done yesterday. It was a great day, in a lot of ways. But the best part was getting whooped by Erin at dominoes.
King of the crows
I sat in the van the other day, waiting for a kid to emerge from the house so I could shuttle them somewhere or other. As I waited. I spotted the king of all crows. I assumed him to be the top crow, because he had managed to get his beak on a 2/3s full sleeve of saltine crackers.
I imagine, as a crow, life is often about the surprise foods you find in the course of a day. And those days must be mixed. Not every day can be a French Fries in the Burger King Parking Lot Day. Sometimes you probably have to settle for a bit of stale popcorn or the onions discarded from a sandwich.
2/3s of a sleeve of saltine crackers, tho? That’s the crow equivalent of drawing Excalibur from the stone. This sleeve of sustenance places you above all crows, forthwith and forever.
Just imagine if he also found a jar of Cheez Whiz. Imagine!
Cats on counters
Part of Lolo’s spooky charm, I think, is her dark eyes sometimes seem to disappear into her black fur, especially in low light. It gives her a sense of mystery, if not making her into a bit of a character from a horror movie.
I have no story here other than she looked cute and mysterious the other day as Erin was testing some little coloured lights.
I have no story for this photo either, other than I thought Kitty looked cute with her little halo of sunlight. She’s not typically allowed on the counter in the kitchen, but I made an exception in this case because the little table we keep the kettle on is technically not in the kitchen.
I lost the debate again
Longtime friends of the Quack know I am a fan of coloured lights on a tree. It’s a subject I feel strongly enough about I wrote a song about it for my 52 Christmas songs project a few years ago (see Coloured Lights Look Like 1983 — in a good way).
Erin is a white light lover. And that’s………………….. fine. Everyone is different and special and wonderful, and they all have their own likes and dislikes which is……… fine.
I say Erin won the debate this year over the light colour, but I didn’t put up much of a fight. We had white lights last year too. But that was the first year after many many consecutive years where we had coloured lights, so I yielded my ground fairly quickly.
Longtime friends of the Quack will also notice our tree is crowned by “Brian at da top of da tree”, who I also immortalized in song.
OK, cuties. It’s time for Old Davy to wrap it up.
Thanks for hanging out with me for another Sunday morning. Thanks also to the members of my Patreon. You guys are the bestest.
Have a great week.