Expurgated Christmas Carols

Observations

Just the other night K’s school held its “Holiday Concert.”  I proposed an informal over/under bet.  Which would be greater, the number of unexpurgated Christmas Carols or the number of Hanukkah songs?  While I thought myself to be clever, the question was moot.  The single “Hanukkah” song was only tangentially related to the holiday — simply stating that “Shalom Aleikhem” means “peace to you” — and the “Christmas” songs were two: Jolly Old St. Nicholas and Here We Come a-Wassailing (Caroling).  So the Christmas songs would have won the day, if only technically, but hark!  The latter carol has been altered!  Now you are saying to yourself, “Come on.  A real live communist could barely object to that song.”  I concur.  Leave it to your local public school choir teacher, however, to find something objectionable.  Here is the chorus to Here We Come a-Wassailing:

Love and joy come to you,
And to you your wassail too;
And God bless you and send you a Happy New Year
And God send you a Happy New Year.

And here are the last two lines as sung by the second-graders:

And we wish you and send you a Happy New Year
And we wish you a Happy New Year.

Generational Deja Vu

Family

Thumbing through some old photographs, I saw one that reminded me of a picture from my childhood, so I fired off an epistle to Mom and in short order I had a digital copy of the original.  Both of these pictures were taken at Bay Beach, Green Bay.  One was taken  of me and my son, ten years ago; the other was taken of me and my dad, 35 years ago.

Stuff 4-Year-Olds Do

Family, Photographs

When you have not had any 3 or 4 year old children in a few years, and the ones you have had were all boys, you are delightfully surprised by the things they do.

 

 

 

Squirrel!

Adventures

B has been aching to hunt squirrels, so that is what we did last weekend.  It was his first hunt as a shooter.  Our strategy was  good, we got one squirrel quickly, and we saw three others that B did not get a shot at.  Later, as we were cleaning and cooking the animal, Dad related how he used to go shoot three or four squirrels and his family would eat them for dinner.  He added that Pa (B’s great-great grandfather) also liked to boil the heads.   Apparently, this is a common practice.  Interestingly, B shot this squirrel with Pa’s 20 gauge Ithaca Model 37.

K joined us for B’s first squirrel hunt

 

Qdoba versus Chipotle

Observations

It is time for another restaurant challenge.  Last week, we had the rare occasion to visit a Chipotle Mexican Grill, and so we believe we have enough information to make a fair analysis between Chipotle and Qdoba, two nearly identical restaurants.  Let us compare:

  1. Chipotle has brown rice, plus the rice has cilantro.  Point for Chipotle.
  2. Both have delicious meats and burritos.  The beef at Chipotle is great.  The Ancho Chile BBQ at Qdoba is fantastic.  This round is a draw.
  3. If you get salsa in a cup at a Chipotle, they charge $1.25; Qdoba does not charge extra.  Point for Qdoba.
  4. If you get a naked burrito at Qdoba, they do not charge you when you ask for chips to go with it.  At Chipotle, you will pay for them.  Point for Qdoba.
  5. Qdoba has cheese sauce (with the unfortunate moniker “3-Cheese Queso Sauce”).  Chipotle has none.  Point for Qdoba.

Qdoba has just handed Chipotle a whoopin’.

Cincinnati Helps Out

Adventures

The young P’s and I lately returned from Cincinnati.  We experienced a few challenges downtown, but the response we received was refreshing.  Three times we ran into issues with directions or parking, and each time, someone came along to help out.  In the first instance, it was a random lady walking down the sidewalk who gave us helpful information — unsolicited — and in the last two cases, two different garage employees helped us with difficulties at our parking garage.  We thank you Cincinnati.

Brought to you by your local atheists

Adventures

C and I spent last weekend away and found out that our hotel was the site of the local atheists convention. We found ourselves wondering. Who are these atheists? What do they discuss at their conventions? What are their goals? These questions and more need answers, and there are answers.

These atheists were the positive kind.

Somebody knew about the convention and parked this across the street.

C, possessing her father’s knack for this sort of thing, asked some of these questions directly of one of the attendees. He looked uncomfortable. She also struck up a conversation with the driver of the billboard. He was bemused by how hard these people were working at believing in nothing.