Why you gotta do me like that, Milholland?

This comic is a bit distressing. Davan, the character holding the green present, received it from his recently deceased father. I really did not need this reminder.

On the morning of 26 December, 27 years ago, I got the phone call from my mother that my dad had died in his sleep the night before. So I’ve been there.

I’d called on Christmas day, of course, and mainly talked with my mother. I would have talked to Dad, but he was in the midst of cooking their Christmas dinner — always a big deal for him — and when Mom called him to the phone, he was too busy, and he just yelled his last words to me:

“Goddamn cat! Get down from there!”

I have tried to live my life by those words of wisdom ever since. One needs a credo, and I should remember to pass on something equally significant to my offspring during our holiday calls.

It’s Xmas Eve, time to try and get in the spirit!

It’s been a rough year, and I’m not in the mood to celebrate much of anything. No getting together with family, so no special effort required for a Xmas feast, no lefse (I’m not setting foot in the local store to buy any), and winter just arrived tardily yesterday, so who cares? I’m planning to squat at home, maybe get out in the morning to deliver a Xmas feast to the spiders, have a zoom call with the kids and grandkids, and zoom has lost a lot of its novelty in the past year.

So here’s some seasonal entertainment, at least. This one is familiar ground: HBomberGuy deconstructs the absurd notion of a War on Christmas. The whole idea is stupid, fittingly spawned from the warped mind of that horrible Culture Warrior and serial harasser, Bill O’Reilly, and many atheists have covered the silliness in detail over the years, making this a kind of comfort food for everyone.

Then there’s this one. Cody is struggling to restrain his rage at American politics, both Republican and Democratic. I’d say this would be an excellent warm-up to stoke the fires of fury before you go to Xmas dinner with your racist MAGA uncle, but you’re not doing that this year, right? You’re going to miss the opportunity to vent at your horrible relatives, so instead let Cody be your proxy as he fights his inner demons.

If you have kids at home, be sure to replace their excitement and anticipation of Xmas morning with existential dread instead. Tell them about the vastness of the universe and the inconsequential, insignificant nature of their lives, and how you shouldn’t fret about Cthulhu Claus coming down your chimney because Cthulhu Claus cares nothing for you.

Have a squamous Xmas Eve, everyone!

Foraging run completed

Today was grocery shopping day, which involves getting up early in the morning and driving 45 miles to the northeast and filling up the car with two weeks of food. The early is required to get there before there are any crowds; the drive to Alexandria is necessary because too many people in Morris don’t give a damn about masking up or social distancing. I suspect many of the people in Alexandria are just as bad, but at least we’ve found a couple of stores that actually enforce the policy to some degree.

Going early wasn’t as useful this time, I think because it’s so close to Xmas and everyone is stocking up. We hadn’t quite paced ourselves appropriately, though, and not only had we gone two weeks without fresh groceries, but our long-term supply of staples was getting low. The dried beans canisters were partially depleted, and we were completely out of rice. So we got it done today, and now the next time we have to go grocery shopping it will be the year 2021, when the hellscape of this year will finally be behind us.

Everything will be better, magically, in 2021, right? It’s not like we’re going to get into a new year and start fondly reminiscing over how much better off we were in 2020, are we?

The Texas bridezilla is the worst bridezilla

We got married in a nice, middling-sized event — 40 or 50 people, I’d guess, in a little wedding chapel, with nothing particularly fancy or expensive. The best part was seeing old friends for a few hours, but if the wedding had taken place in 2020 rather than 1980, we would have skipped the whole thing, just had a tiny private ceremony (or even just a civil ceremony, the two of us signing a paper before witnesses) and been just as happy, and we’d still be just as married to this day. I guess it’s because we aren’t Texans, an alien subspecies with some wacky ideas.

The wedding photographer had already spent an hour or two inside with the unmasked wedding party when one of the bridesmaids approached her. The woman thanked her for still showing up, considering “everything that’s going on with the groom.”

When the photographer asked what she meant by that, the bridesmaid said the groom had tested positive for the coronavirus the day before. “She was looking for me to be like, ‘Oh, that’s crazy,’ like I was going to agree with her that it was fine,” the photographer recalls. “So I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’ And she was like, ‘Oh no no no, don’t freak out. He doesn’t have symptoms. He’s fine.’”

The photographer, who has asthma and three kids, left with her assistant before the night was over. Her exit was tense. The wedding planner said it was the most unprofessional thing she’d ever seen. Bridesmaids accused her of heartlessly ruining an innocent woman’s wedding day. She recalls one bridesmaid telling her, “I’m a teacher, I have fourteen students. If I’m willing to risk it, why aren’t you?” Another said everyone was going to get COVID eventually, so what was the big deal? The friend of the bride who’d spilled the beans cried about being the “worst bridesmaid ever.”

Did I say wacky? I meant irresponsible. Also, that bridesmaid who was so cavalier about the health of her students needs to be fired, immediately.

The story ends with a nice kick in the butt.

The photographer who got sick after shooting the COVID-positive groom said her experiences throughout the pandemic have left her a little depressed. She recalled one conversation from that wedding, before she left the reception. “I have children,” she told a bridesmaid, “What if my children die?” The bridesmaid responded, “I understand, but this is her wedding day.”

That’s one sick culture when the fancy party on day one of a marriage is worth the lives of a few children. There’s this whole bridezilla stereotype that really needs to die.