Fun Christmas Activities for 2020
- Walking in the snow/cold
- Wishing it wasn’t winter
- Crying
- Hating your life
- Hating everything else
Freaking party time.
All Along the Water Tower
A visual representation of how we all feel at the end of 2020:
Empty, broken, and ready to fall over? WAIT, I FEEL LIKE THAT ALL THE TIME!
I love the sounds they make when they hit the ground. Very satisfying.
Also, side note to the guy who flipped me off while I was running because he got stalled in the snow as he stopped to let me cross the street: if you would have used your blinker like a courteous human being, I would have known you were going to turn down that side road and I would have stopped to let you go so that you could have kept up your momentum. But you didn’t use your blinker, so I figured you were just going straight and thus I kept up my speed to cross the street, thus causing you to have to stop. Not entirely my fault, bro.
Noooooooooo
They’re taking down the last of the four cranes at the Cancer Center.
I am FREAKING SAD.
As I mentioned in a blog earlier this year, those cranes had been over there since 2007. Three of them were disassembled in September, and now I guess it’s time for the fourth and last one to go.
I’ll miss you, son Crane #2.
Hippity Huppity, I’m Feelin’ Uppity
I finally organized my earrings after having them in several chaotic piles around the house. Observe!
Yes, I have a lot of earrings. They’re the only type of jewelry that I wear. And the more ostentatious, the better.
(I know, I know, no one cares about any of this.)
December?
It’s December in Calgary and I just went running in shorts and a tank top.
It’s like 50 degrees out there.
What.
I’ve actually kind of enjoyed running in the 30-40 degree range; I don’t get nearly as hot (running is like the only time I produce actual body heat) and so I feel like I can run longer and easier, at least most of the time. When it’s in the 20s it’s a little rougher because my legs start off being really cold and thus feel really heavy and slow, but I can still do it.
I haven’t run in anything below 19 degrees yet, but I’m sure I will at some point.
But yeah, it is unseasonably warm here and it’s weirding me out. It legit feels like September.
Do re mi fa so OH GOD NO
Y’ALL I keep forgetting to introduce you to my new succulent buddy, Captain Planet.
His name was originally Captain Spiny, but in one of my many COVID dreams, I’d named him Captain Planet and I had the actual Captain Planet bust through the ceiling of the condo and tell me that his name was copyrighted and how DARE I name a plant after him ANYWAY, ‘cause WHAT DO PLANTS HAVE TO DO WITH THE PLANET SLDFJSAFDKFJFJFJFJFJF
So I decided to change his name in real life.
But yeah, he’s my new buddy. I got him from Safeway because he looked super sad and lonely in his little planter. He needed love.
Have a music blog, ‘cause it’s been a while.
(Has it? I actually haven’t checked.)
Here are a few badass songs that I’ve found in the past little while. Enjoy!
Amazing Grace by Pentatonix:
I was worried they’d make it too pop-ish, but they do an amazing job with it. I really like this cover.
Here is Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra:
The orchestra gives this song so much more depth, oh my god I love it.
Sheppard’s Animals:
Love the energy.
Teddy Geiger’s Sharkbait:
The bassline in this song is killer.
I’m sorry WHAT
I’m assuming the reason that this article is so hilarious is because it’s 4 AM and sleep is for LOSERS, but I could be wrong.
But anyway, apparently a city in Sweden has this Christmas tradition where they construct this giant straw goat (or, since 1986, two goats). They also have a tradition where the goats get destroyed somehow (usually by arson).
“The display has become notable for being a recurring target for vandalism by arson, and has been destroyed many times since the first goat was erected in 1966. Because the fire station is close to the location of the goat, most of the time the fire can be extinguished before the wooden skeleton is severely damaged. If the goat is burned down before 13 December, the feast day of Saint Lucia, the goat is rebuilt. The skeleton is then treated and repaired, and the goat reconstructed over it, using straw which the Goat Committee has pre-ordered.”
“Goat Committee” is a phrase I didn’t know I needed to have in my life until today.
Anyway, the Wiki article has a table listing, for every year, security measures implemented to protect the goat(s), when the goat(s) was (were) destroyed, and how it (they) were destroyed. And there’s a lot more destroyed goats than ones that survived.
And some of these entries read like plot points around which a novel could be written.
Fantastic.
Did the goats survive in the year you were born?
Um…
Calgary, u ok?
This is why I can never find my way anywhere. This is why I walk the same five routes all the time. Because the universe is ready to destroy me with this nonsense if I ever stray off the righteous path.
(The “righteous path” being the Bow River Pathway).
Edit: Nate, I know you were waiting for a hilarious blog on this sign. Instead you get mediocrity. It’s just like everything else I do, isn’t it???
??????
??
?
(?)
Let’s Play “What’s In My Drawer?”
So my “work at home desk” is the dining room table, meaning that I’m on the completely opposite side of our main room. I’m also right next to one of my little drawer towers. The drawers are semi-transparent, meaning I can see all the stuff in them. They’ve been driving me crazy for the past few months because all the stuff in them have been very disorganized, so tonight I decided to take everything out and re-organize it all.
Thus, you get pictures of some of my random crap, ‘cause I’m too antsy and panicky and sad to blog about anything else today.
A space pen! I’ve had this for a long, long time. Like, at least two decades, I think. And it still writes!
My “I voted” sticker from the 2012 election. I wish I’d gotten a sticker for the 2020 election, but I did an electronic download of my ballot due to all the post office nonsense, so I didn’t get a sticker mailed to me.
A bunch of Euros! These are from…I don’t know. I think some of them probably came from my dad, since he sometimes brings me currency from all the coolio places he goes. Maybe they were from when we went to Sweden/Finland/England back in 2003 (?), but I remember using Kroner and pounds instead of Euros…I think…I can’t remember.
The manual thingy that came with my bundle of Half-Life CDs from way back when. Remember PC games that came on CDs instead of Steam?
A card from the tattoo/piercing shop where Aaron and I got our piercings back in 2008. That was a fun little road trip.
I was super into The Guggenheim Grotto back in 2007. I bought a physical copy of this CD because the texture of the CD case was awesome. Look at how pretty that is!
My graduation tassels from my psych degree and my philosophy degree. I didn’t get one for my math degree (2012) because I didn’t go to graduation and didn’t go pick up my graduation crap. I was having a bad end of the semester and was inundated with papers to grade from STAT 251, so yeah. Would’ve been nice to have one, though.
BYE
Romans, yo
So I’m super interested in the Julio-Claudian dynasty now.
Thanks, Robert Graves.
I want to read more about it but I also want to keep going with my fiction list and I’ve never been one to be reading more than one book at a time (I don’t know why, I just don’t do that), so I don’t know what to do.
Also, I, Claudius has a sequel (Claudius the God) but it’s not on my “200 Books” list, so ldskghdlfjferfafslffl when am I going to read it?
Life is hard.
Edit: apparently there’s a BBC television adaptation of the two books?? I neeeeeed!
Woah, woah, woah, hold on…
Are you telling me that with all the absolute nonsense going on this year, the Doomsday Clock has only moved forward 20 seconds in 2020?
Like, I get that it’s based on nuclear threat more than anything else, but I would think that threat would, by default, increase with all this madness of COVID, Trump, the US election in general, climate change, etc. going on all at the same time this year.
Maybe it’ll change again after the election, who knows.
It’s getting colder.
It’s inevitable.
Calgary winters are long, dark, and sometimes brutally cold. The only two things that make up for them are a) summer days that aren’t usually too hot and daylight that lasts from 5 AM to 11 PM, and b) the fact that Calgary is a very sunny city, meaning even on a lot of those butt-freezing cold days, the sun is out, which makes a big difference.
This winter is going to be especially hard because I usually make it through the winters at least in part by being able to look forward to going down to Moscow for a few weeks over Christmas break.
That’s obviously not happening this year.
And another challenge for this year (apart from, y’know, trying not to get COVID): I got super into running over the summer, as you all likely know if you’ve been reading my blogs. While I feel like I could get used to running in the cold, once there’s snow and ice on the ground, I’m not so sure. The last thing I want to do is bite it on a patch of ice and screw up my leg (or something else) and be out of commission for any period of time.
I mean, I’ve got my treadmill, of course, but I don’t think I could run 14 miles on a treadmill. It’s a slightly different set of muscles and the furthest I’ve ever gone without stopping is about 8 miles.
Plus, running outside is SO MUCH MORE FUN.
So that’s going to suck once winter really sets in and doesn’t leave until like the middle of May.
USA! USA!
“How Many U.S. Cities Can You Name?” aka “Your Recall of the State Capitols is a Lot Worse Than You Thought.”
I can’t name a single damn city in West Virginia. What the hell is in West Virginia? I like to think my inability to recall a single location in West Virginia is because I’ve been traumatized by the shape of that freaking state and my brain is just trying to protect me.
“It’s okay,” my brain whispers as I cry in the corner. “West Virginia isn’t real. It can’t hurt you.”
Things I Want to Do:
- Make spaghetti
- Get hit by a truck
Not necessarily in that order.
IT’S THE SEPTEMBER LIST OMFG
- Mongolian BBQ survived the (first round of) the pandemic. THANK THE GODS.
- Someone tell me why my fucking toenail is turning into a concrete brick. Here’s a picture. That fugly bit at the front? That’s not the top of my toenail. That’s the width of the thing. What in the ever-living ass goblins, guys. I can’t trim this toenail because it literally will not fit into any nail clipper. I’m going to have to get like dog nail clippers or something. (Yes, there are sock fuzzies all over my toes.)
- I’m sorry, but are we really assuming that people are staying completely inactive during these quarantines? Exercising without a gym is a thing. I get that not everybody has the ability to do that, but I think most people, at least in the US and Canada, live in a situation where they could go outside and just walk around on occasion. And if not, what about exercising in the house?
- Did you know that there is a maximum number of videos that you can have in the “Watch Later” playlist on Youtube? Apparently there is, ‘cause I just hit it today.
- To add a little structure to my book list choices, I think I’m going to choose my next books “alphabetically” in the sense that I’ll have to pick a book from the books starting with each letter. For example, I just finished As I Lay Dying (my “A” choice) and am reading The Bonfire of the Vanities (my “B” choice), so the next book I’ll read will have to start with a “C.” Just to make things easier.
- Here’s another little tree picture I took on a walk. I did a bit of Photoshop to it to give it a little effect. Do you like it?
Uggggggggggggh.
Mets, oh my god, that was such a fitting end to a very rough season.
Anyway.
Look at how pretty Calgary is! Time to enjoy it for the next few days before everything dies and the temperature drops below zero. And stays like that until May.
I Voted!
After getting an email copy of my absentee ballot (and dealing with a few issues regarding the address printed on said ballot), I was able to fill it out and mail it today! Super fun. Don’t forget to vote, my American brethren.
Also, last Christmas my dad got Nate and me some Ancestry.com kits, and we FINALLY got around to spitting in the little collector tubes, so I sent those off as well. Mailing the tubes was a lot cheaper than mailing the ballot, but I wanted the ballot in a tracked package and expedited so that there’s very little chance it won’t get there before election day.
Once our Ancestry samples get to their destination, we should have our results in six to eight weeks. I’m curious to see the comparisons with my 23andMe analysis.
Also, no, I have no qualms about sending off my DNA to companies like this. What’re they going to do, clone me? Trust me, no one wants that.
CUZ BABY YOU’RE A FIREWORK
WANT SOME BIG BOOMS?
YOU KNOW YOU DO!
AND THEY’RE SERVED WITH A SIDE OF CAPS LOCK IN THESE TRYING TIMES!
North of the Border
This is probably going to sound super stupid, but every once and a while I remember that I am not living in the country I was born in and I’m like…oh.
Yeah, that sounds pretty stupid as I’m typing it out. But it’s not something that I consciously think about very often, so when I do actually think about the fact that I live in a country where I’m not technically a citizen, it’s kind of a weird thing. It’s kind of a shocking thing. I never thought I’d be living anywhere other than the US, but HERE WE ARE in a world where I’ve spent more of my adult life in Canada than in ‘Murica.
Kinda wild.
Sorry, that’s all I’ve got for today.
Cranefall
NOOOOOOOOOOO, the cranes surrounding the new cancer center are being dismantled! Those four cranes have been up since at least 2017 and provide so much extra light at night. I’m going to really miss them.
(“Cranefall” sounds like a good story title.)
Edit: only Crane #2 still stands.
Two Things Today!
1. I did my longest run ever today: 15 miles. That’s no marathon or anything (obviously), but that is my standard daily walking distance…a distance I never thought I could run. So that’s kinda cool.
2. The case for Kondle came today! Check it:
Now he’s pretty AND protected!
