Overheard in a Bethlehem Barn

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

I’m back - didja miss me? My sweetie and I drove to Annapolis today, after the roads melted. We had lunch and looked around the mall and just hung out together. I’ll go to work tomorrow - it’s not supposed to precipitate tonight, even if it’s gonna be cooooooooold, so the roads should be fine. Then tomorrow evening, we take to cat to Annapolis where we’re meeting my sister - she’s gonna cat-sit for us while we’re gone.

Weds after I get off work, we’re heading for I-95 south. We’ll stop somewhere in one of the Carolinas for the night and get to Ocala some time Thursday. So I’ll probably not be back on line till we get back to Md.

Try to get along without me. I’ll be thinking of you all! No really - every day I’ll think about each and every one of you. I may even shed a tear of thankfulness. Because I care.

Really! :smiley:

42

I think one of the nuns that taught me went so far as to say that one of the carpentry jobs Jesus did in his life was to make crosses for the Romans (hey, a man’s gotta work). She never said whether or not He crafted his own cross, but I think it was implied.

And as to your question, Inigo, yes, it is too late.

[jesus]

I can see my house from here!

[/jesus]

43

Yikes. Sounds like a place I don’t want to visit. I’m far too…delicate.
Ha

44

While the OP is certainly funny, Rue seems to have forgotten that Mary was jewish. As such, the dialogue was more more likely:

" A barn we have to sleep in? No, that’s fine."

“No, no, go ahead and leave the gate open. It’s not really that cold in here.”

“Sure you can keep drumming. I’m sure the baby would have woken up screaming even if it had been quiet.”

“No, it’s all right, you go have a drink with the shepherds. I won’t mind sitting here by myself with the sheep. And what else would I have to do?”

“You could scooch over a little maybe? Oh, no, never mind. No, it’s fine, stay there.”

and finally, “Look at that little pischer! A doctor he’ll be, or maybe a messiah.”

–Cliffy

45

Pfffff! 21°! We have -28°. And they’re big Centigrade degrees, not them teensy little Fahrenheit degrees!

We went out and got our tree on Friday, then did the annual rearranging of the furniture to make room in the corner. Saturday was cleaning and cooking to get ready for Mrs B’s annual tree-trimming party. I got to drive the non-driving guests home, and took them on the scenic route to see all the Christmas lights, which is another annual tradition. They live downtown and miss out on the suburban lightfest.

On the way back home, I got to warm my spirit (and freeze my butt off) helping free a car from a snowbank. The driver had taken the corner too fast and slid up onto a frozen snowbank, and was hung up with the front end stuck fast and both front (driving) wheels off the ground. We finally got six guys helping and just lifted the front end bodily and pushed the car back until the wheels could grip.

46

It’s cold outside.

Somebody was talking about getting into the eggnog…ah I see it was Fanny May. Hey, has anybody asked you about lending me money yet? Har har.

Anyway, I was just at the booze store and I gots all kind of booze a kid like me has no business having. Stuff with fancy names like cognac. I mean seriously, I have no idea what cognac is supposed to be. I saw Martha Stewart making real eggnog on her show this weekend while I was mixing up cookie dough, so I borrowed her recipe from the website. We’re gonna try it out methinks. I’m all kercited for the holiday.

Yup, still really cold out.

47

Yes…cold here as well. 18[SUP]o[/SUP]F. (That’s -8 for those of you who speak Celsius). And it was much colder this morning (-2 [SUP]o[/SUP]F /-19 [SUP]o[/SUP]C).

But I’m absolutely thrilled because…my dryer died Saturday night! Long story: I smelled gas when I opened the dryer door an hour after the dryer should have stopped running. The clothes were cold and damp. I called the gas company. The guy said there was no leak, but a broken igniter, maybe…not really what I wanted to hear at midnight going into Sunday morning.

Tonight I’m thrilled because I called the appliance repair guy this afternoon, he arrived within 45 minutes, replaced the flame sensor, replaced the vent pipe and leveled the washer and dryer and now the clothes I was going to wash over the weekend are well on their way to being clean AND dry. And it wasn’t all that expensive ($90 or so).

So if Mary’s got any leftover laundry (can’t have enough clean swaddling clothes, ya know), she’s welcome at my house!

GT

48

Let me get this straight: we have people whining about ambient temperatures like 18°F, disregarding the wind chill factor, and I’m supposed to care?

It’s -5°F here right now, and I don’t want to know what the wind chill is. It’s warmer in Calgary for Christ’s sake.

Shut up and sit down. I need to go find my hat and gloves.

49

Ambient?!?! 41 degrees (here) is not ambient. I have to find my turtleneck sweater for work tomorrow.

In the spirit of the holidays, would you like some warm gloves? I have a few extra pairs.

50

Could someone who isn’t really cranky define what “ambient” means to an engineer for screech-owl.

I’m busy trying to unbend my fingers.

51

Because I have absolutely no shame. I’m gonna post here, for the first, and most probably the last time anywhere, a little story I wrote for a Science Fiction as Literature class over 30 years ago. It may or may not have any relation to the OP.
Like that matters.
(I did clean up the syntax a little bit, but it’s otherwise in it’s original, painful, state.)
Angel

*“How do ya figger it Cap’n? Nobody knowin’ about this planet, I mean? These people are unbelievably primitive, but BIO checked out the one we shot last night and says he’s as human as we are.”

“Probably descendants of a colony ship sent out before the Great War and forgotten. Damn fine slave material though, men in the outlying systems will pay top prices for such choice breeding stock.”*
The Captain chuckled at that and Droop smiled nervously. It was dangerous not to.

“By the way Droop, you’re first mate now. I caught a thought from Carter last night I didn’t like.” The Captain chuckled again and Droop cringed inside. He’d shipped on many a slave raid but never with a Captain who was a slaver and a Mental too. Droop was glad there weren’t many around like him. It wasn’t healthy.

Holeman strolled over to where the Captain and Droop were surveying the town below. *“Ship’s loaded to the fins Cap’n. Where do we put the two we picked up in this little mud-patch?”

Put ‘em in my cabin, Hole, and then get the Hell offplanet before that damn F.I.S.S. ship catches up with us again.”* He winced at the thought.* “I’ll follow in the scout. I’m gonna have a little recreation tonight.”* He nodded towards the village, grinning at the pair. He knew and they knew that they wouldn’t dare cross him. The scout would follow the mother ship anywhere she went and the master computer wouldn’t, couldn’t, shoot her own scout. The only sure way to cross the Captain as to kill him, and they didn’t dare even think about that.

The Captain stood in the shadows, sending a mental net through the village. He’d seen a choice piece during their survey that afternoon that he’d regretted having to leave. Ah! There she was, alone and asleep. Good. He could use his full powers on her. He slipped through the window of the clay hut into her room. He reached into her mind and activated her libido to full arousal; she’d forget all about it later, such was the effect of direct hypnosis, but he’d remember. That’s all he cared about.

She was sleeping again. The Captain adjusted his jumper and on a whim checked her with his hand medkit. She was in her ovulation cycle. “Won’t she have a Hell of a time explaining how a virgin got pregnant without knowing about it, and with a Mental child, yet.” The Captain laughed. Then he had another idea and it made him laugh again, until it hurt to think about it. He sent an image into her sleeping mind, and the image spoke in her own idiom, saying; “Hail, thou art highly favored, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women…”

EXCERPT FROM REPORT OF SCOUT SAMUEL CAYCE, FIRST IN SCOUT AND SURVEY, T.S.N.
…all captive humans returned to their origins, memories expunged. Encountered subject’s scout ship exiting planet’s atmosphere and was forced to destroy same. Evidence of a strong psionic force aboard, but fire control computer had already been programmed. Surveyor Blake and I believe no lasting effect on planet’s culture. Surveyor Blake’s report follows….

52

Bumb, that was fascinating. Thank you.

53

You got me there Cliffy. I’m so ashamed. I’ll try harder next time. (No, I won’t, but looking back it would have been better if I did it your way.)

That was just… wow Bumba. I don’t know what to say.
I’ve always thought the Greek gods could be explained nicely with the whole People From Space line. Their ship is called Galactica… no, Olympus and Zeus would be very Captain Kirky and Hera would be his first officer trying to make him “keep it in his pants”. But that for later. Maybe.

Huh? Wha? “Mixing up cookie dough”? But you just slit open the tube and chop out chunks and you stick 'em in the oven and you got you some cookies. Where’s the mixing? Is that something you learned from Big House Martha? She’s not to be trusted you know.

Ha! I kid. I know how the whole cooking thing works. You know what I did yesterday? I made pretzels with the boys. Since Soupo’s on break from school and I was tired of the gleeful sounds of children playing (the dogs were hiding, but no one was bleeding yet) I though I could distract them in the kitchen. I was right, but it didn’t last. But the pretzels turned out pretty well.

54

Bumba, just like those cheesy science fiction comics I read as a child! You’re a natural. I miss those cheesy science fiction comics. I knew, even then, they were cheesy, but man were they fun to read!

To all you who are whining about how much colder it is where you are than where I am. Tough! Did I tell you to live there? I didn’t think so. So There! :stuck_out_tongue:

In other news:

I went ice skating! For the first time ever! My frosted butt is kinda bruised this morning but it was a ton o’ fun. See, well, I really don’t know how to explain it, but there’s this out door ice skating rink here til New Year’s Day. It’s been here since the first weekend in December. It stays frozen because of some kind of cooling mechanism underneath it that keeps it frozen, which is a good thing cause for the first two weeks it was here, temps were in the mid 70s to low 80s every day. Anyways, ACBG (he never ice skated before either) and I got this wild hair and decided to go try it last night, being as it was cold and all and just seemed like a good idea at the time. So we did. I fell. A lot. However, I did manage to make it all the way around the rink twice without falling down. And I didn’t hold on to nothin’ either. It was so hooty we decided that if we woke up today and didn’t have broken hips or sump’n we would go back tonight. I can’t wait! I still think we should get hockey sticks with the ice skates. Maybe that ain’t such a good idea. I’d probably just hurt myself.
-swampbear (maybe I’ll try out for the next Winter Olympics. HAH!)

55

Will someone please stop all those cattle from lowing, some of us are trying to get some sleep here.

56

It seems only appropriate that I share with you the title of a Christmas carol that makes the juvenile swampy snerk everytime he sees it:

"Here Betwixt Ass and Oxen Mild"

<snerk>

57

swampy gets himself a outdoors cooker for Christmas. Guess what I got myself? Go on! Guess! Okay, don’t then. I got myself a brand new Dirt Devil carpet shampooer. You might ask why I would buy myself a new carpet shampooer when I already had one. Okay, maybe you won’t so I’ll tells ya anyway. See, yesterday after I vacuumed all around, I pulled out my former shampooer and plugged it in and it started making this nasty noise and then this godawful smelly smoke started seeping out from under it. :eek: So, I put it out in the driveway for Mr. Anachi to give it a decent burial and hied myself Chez Target for a new one cause the carpeting absolutely positively had to be shampooed.

Last night Lil Lestat[sup]TM[/sup] got a brilliant notion that if it really got down below freezing this morning, he could take Mr. Anachi’s pressure washer and make some snow out onna lawn. Luckily, Mr. Anachi’s pressure washer is currently indisposed and we didn’t quite get down to below freezing…only 33 degrees. Lil Lestat has some screws loose. :frowning:

Well, I gotta go get gussied up to go to my department head’s house for the annual departmental Christmas luncheon. At my age gussying takes some time, don’tcha know. Boss and his wife put on a terrific spread so I’m looking forward to it. Supposedly there’s a brand new one hunnert dollah bill waiting there for me, too. See, bonuses got nixed this year cause, well, cause the advertising side of the business sucked. Anyway, the hunnert bucks is some kinda consolation prize or something. Interestingly, the new carpet shampooer was $99.99. Ain’t that a kick in the teeth?

Tupug (Off to Lave)

58

Wow, that’s too bad. You can’t even leave to get TimBits?

I saw Zato’ichi (or something. I dunno how to spell it) last night. Japanese movie about a blind samurai. It was really interesting. Especially the tap-dancing numbers, and the kid who thought he was a samurai and ran around naked and screaming.

Today is warmer, and there is snow. It’s pretty. And on Christmas Eve Quasi-Daughter, Mr. Lissar, and I are going to his godmother’s house for lunch and many bottles of wine. Woo-hoo!

Did I mention that I bought Mr. Lissar two Wheel of Time books for Christmas? Greater love hath no woman…

59

Cheesy? :eek:

Come to think of it, when I wrote that, you were a child.
Well, a teenager, anyway.

60

It feels cold enough to snow here, but we won’t see any. All conditions have to just ex-a-a–actly right for snow to fall here on the Western side of the Cascades. The wind is flippin’ bitter and makes for some rather rushed cancer stick breaks.

I didn’t do any baking and I didn’t do any ice skating either. My good friend made some fudge for me and the family but it’s already gone. It was rather tasty.

I overslept this morning and just barely squeaked into the office on time. I made it with two whole minutes to spare. I just hate when I oversleep. It just sets the tone for the entire day.

Well, I’ve got nothing exciting to add. So, I guess I’ll get back to preparing for my briefing next week.