Sorry, meant to use this one last week, but got all distracted. Today’s word is: dragon

Happy New Year!

May you have all that is good in the coming months.

This holiday also had a trip to VA, where my all of my cousins were in for Christmas. At the instigation of Ben, we made the Lithuanian cookie Krusties (pronounced, at least by my family, christies)

The recipe is fairly simple:

Krusties
1/2 tsp baking powder
6 whole eggs
6 egg yolks
2 sticks butter
6 cups flour
1 shot whiskey/rum
pinch cardamom

1 large can crisco, for frying

Mix together all the ingredients in a mixer. Wrap in waxed paper or place in a plastic bag, and refrigerate overnight.

When ready to make, heat solid fat (Crisco or lard) in large frying pan. You’ll need an inch or two of hot oil.

You’ll also want to line most of your work areas with newspaper, or used wrapping paper, or anything else that absorbs oil and sugar, and makes clean up easier.

Find aprons for everyone–this can get messy! We rolled out our batches of dough on floured waxed paper.

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I had a nice Christmas, especially since I was unexpectedly able to spend part of it with Jules.

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Adeste, fideles, laeti triumphantes:
Venite, venite in Bethlehem:
Natum videte Regem angelorum.
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These are some things for which I am thankful for this year:

My aunt
Michael
My niece
My Kindle
Being employed
Living in West Virginia

To those who have served, past and present, thank you.

Happy Birthday Canada!

Happy Birthday Kathy!

Happy Birthday Phiala!

And HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MEEEEEEE!

For those who have served this country, past and present, thank you for your service.

Happy New Year!

No resolutions for me, just hopes this year is less painful than last, for everyone.

That’s how much we’ve traveled since the 24th. I am very glad to NOT be on the Interstate today.

I took a lot of pictures today.

Like 700.

Out of that there were 50 I thought were pretty good that I uploaded to Flickr.

These are some of my favorites of those:

CHICKEN DANCE! (Yes, Jules loves the Chicken Dance.)

Jules and Holly. Holly is an extremely anti-social husky, however, she seems to have completely taken to Jules (notice that Brian still doesn’t trust Holly 100% yet.)

Angry Baby is Angry.

Got camera loot for Christmas: flash, wireless shutter release, wired shutter release–all kinds of excitement.

Here are a couple of pictures from today:

Happy Thanksgiving!

Even if you’re not in the US, today is a good day to count your blessings.

I’m thankful for:
Michael
Grandmom
My Aunt & Uncle
Julliene
Chocolate
Employment
Health Insurance
Pie

92 years ago today The Great War, the War to End All Wars, official ended.

Twenty one years later, the second World War started, and horrors even greater were seen and experienced by soldiers and civilians alike.

On May 26, 1954, President Eisenhower officially changed Armistice Day–a day to honor those who fought in WWI–to Veterans Day, to honor all veterans.

Five years later, the Vietnam War would begin, and the American view of military service would change profoundly.

Of all the war memorials in the US (not including Arlington Memorial Cemetery) I believe that the Vietnam War Memorial is the most profoundly affecting.

Because the war was so controversial, and because so many veterans were treated shamefully upon their return home, that I find The Wall so affecting. It is if, as a country, we suddenly woke up to the wrongness of our actions. To me, the Wall, and the listing of the names of those who died, is in part an apology to each soldier listed there, it makes them individuals remembered for their service that was so unappreciated at the time.

For the current wars, we have digital memorials that are updated daily, remembering those who have died with more than just names. And these memorials are deeply affecting. But nothing compares to standing at the wall and seeing name after name listed. The sheer magnitude of the loss is almost overwhelming.

On Veterans’ Day, we should remember the individuals who have served, but in remembering the individual losses, we should not lose sight of the vast number who have given their lives in their service. We should remember not just those individuals who served and the sacrifices they made, but also the loss to the country of so many of our sons and daughters.

American Military Service from the Civil War to the First Gulf War
U.S. Military Service During War 41,891,368
Battle Deaths 651,030
Other Deaths (In Theater) 308,800
Other Deaths in Service (Non-Theater) 230,279
Non-mortal Woundings 1,431,290

To those who serve, past and present, thank you for your sacrifices so that we may remain free.

Inter Arma Silent Leges
-Cicero

If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war.
- Pentagon official, on why US military censored graphic footage from the Gulf War

It is well that war is so terrible; else we would grow too fond of it
– Robert E. Lee

A man’s country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle.
– George William Curtis

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
- Thomas Jefferson

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
-Abraham Lincoln

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- Benjamin Franklin

We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.
- William Faulkner

The Day of the Dead isn’t Halloween, it’s about remembering the dead and celebrating their lives, some of the activities are Grave cleaning, grave decorating, and remembering and honoring the dead.

I can’t believe it! We had a trick-or-treater this year who was NOT the offspring of a friend! That is the first ever since we moved here 9 years ago.

But of course we also had our expected trick-or-treater:

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ADDENDUM the First:

This is my 10/10/10 10:10 picture.

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day!

My pirate name is: Black Ethel Bonney

Like anyone confronted with the harshness of robbery on the high seas, you can be pessimistic at times. You can be a little bit unpredictable, but a pirate’s life is far from full of certainties, so that fits in pretty well. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

Here be a very nice English t’ Pirate translator page

Labor Day in the United States exists to celebrate the rights that workers in the United States have achieved in the past century, and to give us time to allow those who keep the power on and the trains running and all those other jobs that require you to get your hands dirty, a day to be recognized for their work.

We must remember the past, and some of the incidents that made labor unions so critical, and continue to make them important today.

Health and safety have improved vastly across the board in the past century. We hope never to have another incident like The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, where 146 men, women and girls died when the exits were barred and a fire broke out.

However, some industries seem hardly to have changed in the past century. Farmworkers struggle to live on less money than most Americans make in a year.

The median personal income from farm work and other work sources combined was between $5,000 and $7,500.

And the modern meatpacking industry seems in some ways hardly to have moved beyond conditions described by Upton Sinclair in “The Jungle.”

…the reported injury and illness rate for meatpacking was a staggering 20 per hundred full-time workers in 2001…

…OSHA administrators and independent researchers have found a common corporate practice [in the meatpacking industry] of underreporting injuries of all kinds. One recent estimate puts the undercount of nonfatal occupational injuries across industrial sectors as high as 69 percent.“

And then there is the industry of my home state, the coal industry. From the Mine Wars in the US of over a century ago, to modern mine disasters, such as the Upper Big Branch Mine and the Sago Mine men die while trying to make a living digging coal.

[Massey Energy] amassed more than 1,100 violations in the past three years, many of them serious. Federal regulators even ordered parts of the mine closed 60 times over the past year.

…two Massey Energy Co. officials who spent four unsupervised hours underground immediately after the deadly April 5 explosion.

[Coal companies including ICG and Massey Energy] …hope to use newly loosened campaign-finance laws to pool their money and defeat Democratic congressional candidates they consider “anti-coal,” …” they want to “”create a politically active nonprofit under Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code, so they won’t have to publicly disclose their activities — such as advertising — until they file a tax return next year…

Today is the day to remember those who have lost their lives and their health doing nothing more than trying to make living.

Happy birthday Michael!

My most favorite husband EVER!

Really!