Soul Stiss

Happy winter solstice everyone. The days just get longer from here.

Happy Solstice!

Happy winter solstice, everyone. The days start getting longer today.

And to You, Too

Oh, and, by the way, I'd like to wish all 7 of our regular readers---and anyone else reading this---a happy new year.

Holidays in the ATL

Regular readers may have noted a drop in activity here on the Offical Blog of Team Grondul lately.  Alison, Newton, and I just returned from a weeklong trip to Atlanta, where we spent the both Christmas and Michaelmas.  It was a good trip, all considered:  we spent some time with both sides of my family, ate at a couple of my favorite restaurants, and tried to relax.

Dog Christmas Comes Early

Yesterday, we got together with Newton's dog friends in the neighborhood and they exchanged Christmas presents. Newton got two great new toys that he really loves. Be advised that total scruffiness follows. Newton needs a grooming in the worst way, but we haven't been able to bathe him since his surgery...he's scheduled to get all handsome-ified next week. Speaking of his surgery, the biopsy results came back as benign...so yay! Another Christmas present...a clean bill of health!

Check out his Frosty the Snowman toy from Sam and Jack, the pugs!


And he got this cool toy from Quinn. What's in there, Newton?


Santa balls! Good boy!

Happy Michaelmas, Everyone!

This year's Michaelmas has, so far, gone much better than last year's. Being deathly ill has a way of ruining one's birthday.

It's a Festivus Miracle!

Today is Festivus. Since this holiday is intended to be a less commercial alternative to Christmas, I endorse it. Thus, I would like to wish a happy Festivus to one and all.

Happy Solstice

The winter solstice occurs today. Since the solstice is a measurable astronomical event and is not based on the inaccurately measured birth of some cult leader, I endorse it as a holiday. Thus, I'd like to wish a happy solstice to one and all.

Sharon at Christmas

Here's yet another Darmok-style metaphor that we use around Team Grondul World Headquarters. This one was inspired by an incident from my mother-in-law's childhood.

Sharon at Christmas, metaphor. Any person who has ruined a surprise for herself.

This metaphor applies not just presents and winter holidays. It also applies, for instance, to spoilers.

OK, NOW I am ready....

...to get into the Christmas spirit! I get annoyed every year that the Christmas season seems to keep starting earlier and earlier. I kid you not, I went to the store to find some Halloween decorations for our party this year, and they were GONE, replaced by Christmas stuff. This was a FULL WEEK before Halloween! Insanity.

Anyway, now that Thanksgiving is over and the leftovers are becoming less and less appealing, I am ready to start thinking about Christmas. Michael and I drug out our decorations this year and put up our little 5 foot artificial tree. I know, I know...sacrilege, right? However, I am an allergy sufferer and I have vivid mucous-tinged childhood memories of the one year my family got a real tree. It was bad. Michael, however, loves plants and we both fell in love with this tiny little potted spruce tree at Lowe's. So...we decided that Newton needed his own tree this year. Also, please note our non-traditional (but super cute!) stockings.


I think he likes it, don't you?


And here he is, posing in his lovely hand-knit (by me!) Christmas sweater. I hope Muffy doesn't read the blog or else she'll ruin her Christmas surprise...guess who else is getting one? ;) Oh, incidentally, we just got him groomed and we have a whole lot less dog that we thought we did this morning. He's a skinny little thing!


Well, I hope that gets you in the holiday-season mood! I'm off to go eat some more leftovers.

Newton from Dad's Perspective

After seeing the last post, my dad sent in a few shots he took of Newton during our December visit.

The first two are good shots are Newton cuddled up with his role model, Marley.

This last one is just funny. Newton, as you may recall, often sleeps or lounges in uncomfortable-looking postures.

The Spork of the Gods

My new sister-in-law,* Ashley, gave me the this titanium spork for Christmas and/or my birthday. She somehow got the idea that I enjoy owning objects made from titanium; I can't imagine how that happened. Anyway, I'm now able to eat both liquids and solids with great ease and speed, thanks to the spork's 15-gram mass.

It's too bad I can't foon my spork, though. Alas.

* I'm still getting accostomed to having a sister-in-law. It's weird to use that phrase.

I'b Sig

I came down with some kind of respiratory infection on Christmas day. Normally, I get over these things in about 36 hours, but I felt terrible the next day, forcing me to cancel my Michaelmas plans, about which I was rather excited. I was quite a bit better the following day, so the long car trip back to Maryland wasn't a complete nightmare, but my symptoms are still---still!---lingering. The worst part is that I have decided it's unwise to exercise strenuously during my illness, so I've eliminated weight training and limited my cardiovascular exercise to easy rides on my trainer; it's driving me crazy.

Ah, the Bachelor Lifestyle 3: Your Newton Update

Newton has made some significant progress recently, so I thought I'd report it here.

• First, for the last couple of weeks, excluding our disorienting trip to my ancestral home, he's been sleeping through the night. He hasn't woken us up because he needs to use his box* or, as is more often the case, because he's awake and wants to play. Ah, sleep...
  
• Second, for about the same length of time, he's been much better behaved around the house. Aside from being quite consistent about using the box, he doesn't chew as much on things he shouldn't , and when you tell him to drop something, he often does. Good boy!

All of this is particularly useful now, since Alison has gone to Chicagoland to visit her family. While she's gone, I've been practicing my single-parenting skills and doing "guy stuff" with Newton.

* I don't know if we mentioned this before, but we are litter-box-training him.

Mr. Marley I Presume

Team Grondul recently traveled to Atlanta to spend a couple of winter holidays with my family. The trip gave my parents their first opportunity to meet their "granddoggy," and it offered Newton his first chance to meet his "cousin" Marley. The two pups got along famously. The 55-pound Marley played very gently with the 10-pound Newton, and I think Newton now wants to be a boxer when he grows up.

Here are some photos of the two of them together and a couple of Newton in Marley's bed, which is comically oversized:

A Festivus for the Rest of Us

It appears, from this article, that Festivus is starting to take off.

Festivus, it turns out, was not invented in 1997 by the Seinfeld writing staff. In fact, it was created way back in 1966 by the father of a future screenwriter on the series. All the features of the holiday other than the Festivus pole---the feats of strength, the airing of grievances---were part of his family's annual tradition. Now, the holiday is starting to grow in popularity, due principally to its anti-commercial message---no gifts are exchanged at Festivus, and little decoration is needed---and sales of Festivus poles are climbing.

Perhaps Festivus will replace the Winter Solstice as my second favorite winter holiday. (Michaelmas will remain my favorite, of course.)

How the Grinch Didn't Steal Christmas

Yesterday afternoon, Alison and I hosted our second annual party-to-watch-winter-holiday-movies. Our plan was to watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas and The Nightmare before Christmas, but we somehow never got around to it. Instead, we all just chatted and ate. I think a good time was had by most, possibly all, so I'll call it a success. I should point out that Newton, having been recently groomed and showing off his new "sit" and "down" skills, was the hit of the party.

Shiny!

Are you a hard-core Whedon-ite? Do you bring a tree into your home and decorate it around the time of the December solstice? If so, you need this.

How the Grinch Stole the Nightmare Before Christmas

Alison and I also hosted a winter-holiday-movie-watching party this weekend. In attendance were Nick-and-Amy and Lisa-and-Greg. They are a lot of fun. I feel bad for them that they had to spend their evening with me. At least they got Alison out of the deal.

We watched the original, animated How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Tim Burton's first stop-motion feature, The Nightmare Before Christmas. Here are few things I noticed for the first time that night:

• The Grinch's dog, Max, totally steals the show.
• Cindy Lou Who seems to represent the larval stage of the Who. I mean, she has no legs; somehow she just hovers from place to place.
• The Grinch's plan really isn't that nefarious. Lisa came up with a much more sadistic (and effective!) plan that revolved around cutting all the Who's hands off. I've said it before: she's an evil genius.
• Chuck Jones' hand is quite obvious in HTGSC; the sight gags would all be at home in a Warner Brothers cartoon from the 1940s or 1950s.
• Christmas Town in TNBC is clearly a visual quotation of Whoville.
• It appears that Jack Skellington and I wear the same size suit jacket: 20 extra extra extra extra long.
• The vampires who live in Halloween Town don't seem to be very sensitive to sunlight. They do carry those swanky parasols, though.
• Greg does a creepily accurate impression of the elderly pedophilic newspaper subscriber from Family Guy.

By the way, it seems like almost all my friends are couples now, and most of them are married. (See the hyphenated guest list above.) I'm not sure how to feel about that. Should I feel old? I think I should feel old. And stuffy. Any minute now, I expect to become more politically conservative, start wearing my pants around my armpits, become unable to operate electronics, and begin going to bed around 7:00.