A Dr. Who Christmas (if you love Dr Who you'll just get it)

 On the first day of Whomas my true love gave to me A spaceship made of a tree.

On the second day of Whomas my true love gave to me;

Two companions running and a spaceship made of a tree. 

On the third day of Whomas my truelove gave to me; 

Three Daleks yelling, Two companions running and a spaceship made of a tree. 

On the fourth day of Whomas my true love gave to me; 

Four men  from UNIT. Three Daleks yelling, Two companions running and a spaceship made of a tree.

On the fifth day of Whomas my true love gave to me.

Five CYBER MEN. Four men  from UNIT. Three Daleks yelling, Two companions running and a spaceship made of a tree.

On the sixth day of Whomas My true love gave to me;

Six scary monsters. Five CYBER MEN. Four men  from UNIT. Three Daleks yelling, Two companions running and a spaceship made of a tree.

On the seventh day of Whomas my true love gave to me;

Seven fancy bow ties. Six scary monsters. Five CYBER MEN. Four men  from UNIT. Three Daleks yelling, Two companions running and a spaceship made of a tree.

On the eigth day of Whomas my true love gave to me.

Eight Rinos marching. Seven fancy bow ties. Six scary monsters. Five CYBER MEN. Four men  from UNIT. Three Daleks yelling, Two companions running and a spaceship made of a tree.

On the nineth day of Whomas my true love gave to me;

Nine feet of knitting. Eight Rino's marching. Seven fancy bow ties. Six scary monsters. Five CYBER MEN. Four men  from UNIT. Three Daleks yelling, Two companions running and a spaceship made of a tree.

On the tenth day of Whomas my true love gave to me; 

Ten writers typing. Nine feet of knitting. Eight Rino's marching. Seven fancy bow ties. Six scary monsters. Five CYBER MEN. Four men  from UNIT. Three Daleks yelling, Two companions running and a spaceship made of a tree.

On the eleventh day of Whomas my true love gave to me;

Eleven trolls a grumping. Ten writers typing. Nine feet of knitting. Eight Rino's marching. Seven fancy bow ties. Six scary monsters. Five CYBER MEN. Four men  from UNIT. Three Daleks yelling, Two companions running and a spaceship made of a tree.

On the twelfth day of Whomas my true love gave to me.

Twelve show runners planning. Eleven trolls a grumping. Ten writers typing. Nine feet of knitting. Eight Rino's marching. Seven fancy bow ties. Six scary monsters. Five CYBER MEN. Four men  from UNIT. Three Daleks yelling, Two companions running and a spaceship made of a tree.

Adventure planning

 I have decided to attend a fan convention with my books in the spring.  This is not a small thing. The convention is in the smaller city where my daughter lives which is a three hour bus ride from Toronto. There's no fee for the table but since I don't drive this will require bus fair there and back. Big secret, not cheap. 

 

Also not cheap is the simple fact I will have to buy my stock. I've started stocking up now and I have decided to concentrate on the novellas. I'll have post card sized hand outs to direct people to the rest of my work on amazon. 

The whole thing wont be cheap at all but it will be an adventure and after the past two years, sitting behind a desk, wearing a cloth mask and knitting while a crowd wanders past wondering who the heck I am counts as an adventure. When you factor in this COVID thing is not going away, I think adventure counts as a descriptor. 

Bottom line is when you are an unknown author, you have self published because you spent twenty years trying NOT to self publish and failed; you have to do your own PR. A table at Toronto's Fan Expo is eye wateringly expensive. I need to work my way up.

Adventure here I come. 

Do Stuff

 I can't say this enough. Do stuff. If you don't have much money do small stuff. Do stuff and take pictures of the event because you might end up with a period of time where circumstances stop you from doing anything. You know like a freaking plague.

My 60th birthday happened just before the boom lowered. In fact there was the odd news report of something happening in China but no one thought it was much because they were controlling the press coverage pretty closely. Also frankly everyone remembered the H1N1 and SARS scares.

H1N1 was easily dealt with by vaccinations that were ready to go because of ongoing research. SARS while bad for the few people who caught it did not travel nearly as readily as COVID so that while in many cases it was often devastating to the people directly effected it touched relatively few people. 

My actual birthday happened in the middle of the week so I had to grumble my way through an ordinary work day. That weekend most of my friends were at a fan convention. I ended up going to the Canadian National Exhibition with a different friend who favor's a different convention. 

Neither of us are big ride fans but we enjoyed the displays in particular the pictures I have added here. They are all Chinese lanterns. Some of them moved. We spent a long time wandering through the display and taking pictures. It was a good birthday.

PS; the weekend after my other friends and I went to a movie as kind of a casual birthday party. It was great.

Random stuff.

 Several things are bugging me this evening. A big one is one of my knees has decided to go out without permission and I spent some of the afternoon using a cane and trying to convince it to return to its appointed job. We all get our own special problems as we get older. I seem to have been assigned knees that don't want to work. Covid in general has had me delaying going to the doctor but I will eventually have it looked at in the mean time "grumble grumble stupid joints."

Seriously your average rooster has the right idea. Do what you want, complain to the sun if it wakes you up and if you get annoyed by life, scream and scratch at the annoyance till it goes away. 

Recently I got told on Facebook that someone had made a duplicate of my page presumably for hacker reasons. I announced the problem to the people I am connected to then went on a fever of password changing just in case that was a factor. 

Deep down I have to admit the passwords had been the same for way to long but changing them was a bug I didn't need. I'll tell you something else I didn't need. My hands automatically typing the old password in different spots then having to go CRAP then type the new one. 

Seriously if you are typing a password without thinking its probably time to change the thing.

On a holiday note my daughter lives in a whole other town. Of the handful of times she makes the trip to Toronto one is Christmas day. Generally we see a movie then come home have dinner and she goes home the next day. A nice Jewish Christmas. The only thing more cheche would be if we went out for Chinese food. 

Last year she stayed home of course and that probably got her thinking. This year she's coming a few weeks early instead because frankly traveling at Christmas is a nightmare.  So enjoy your weekend Christmas shopping. We'll be at the movies watching Ghost Busters.  

Let the December madness begin. 

Where we put the dead.

 On a side note my insomniac self found out last night that the You Tube app on my bottom of the line android tablet does not work anymore, is no longer supported by You Tube and there's no way to download a replacement. I can still watch You Tube on the thing I just have to access it via Google. Problem being the background is blinding white. This is not good for someone who just wants a blur of words to distract her from her own brain so she can get to sleep or back to sleep. 

                                                                        RIP APP

On to actual death. Not a cozy topic but it does tend to catch up with one. Really old cemeteries actually can be very interesting. That fellow up there is near the entrance to Mount Pleasant Cemetery in mid town Toronto.  Not sure why he's there but he does tend to epitomize the hidden feeling you get when you either have to go to a funeral or have to organize one. My parents have passed but I didn't have much say in what happened (long story). I do remember the vivid feeling of "Oh hell now what"? 

Don't remember the story on this fella either. Seems to be above it all doesn't he? 

Where we put the dead can actually be very interesting. Hence the cemetery tour.  Over in Europe I have been walked through the standard catacomb tours. They weren't just places for early Christians to hide they were places to lay dear Uncle Commodus out on a shelf. Fancy going to a religious service two tunnels over from a fresh internment? I wouldn't.  

Toronto is a young city in a relatively young country but we have some keen Toronto tours.

The couple I have gone on were led by an American Archeologist who is in the process of getting his Canadian citizenship. He's great and has learned a lot about who is in Toronto's plots.  

I think my favorite story is about a stone set simply to remember someone because there is no body underneath it. The man remembered there had more bad luck than is strictly speaking reasonable. Then he inherited a bundle and decided to heck with it he was going to see the world. He did see the world and in the process got sick as a dog. To sick to walk. He was carried aboard the boat to cross the Atlantic. That boat? The Titanic. 

Come to think of it coping with changing apps is a problem I can handle after all. 

December

 We are into the second half of November now and I think its safe to say Christmas is coming. Like a monolith December hangs above us all. There are different ways to approach the holidays.  I tend to think of it as a very Celtic northern European winter festival. It's the dark of the year and from here on in the days slowly get brighter. 

I'll probably go into more detail at another time but I was raised Anglican, I'm now Jewish (non practicing, long story). Celebrating the season with this kind of attitude soothes my inner pagan. On Christmas day I make a nice meal, veggie lasagna when my daughter is able to come, spare ribs and a couple of different kinds of veg when its just me and my son.  We also go to the movies in the afternoon. You find an interesting crowd at the movies on a Christmas afternoon. We once saw a whole cluster of saffron robbed Buddhist monks. Don't know what they were there to see but presumably their abbot gave them the day off from becoming one with the universe to have some fun. 

When done right this time of year can be a healing time. Those with nothing get a lift up. Those with plenty get reminded that sharing is a human obligation. A long time ago I read an article written by someone who volunteered to deliver Christmas boxes for kids who otherwise would get nothing from Santa. On one delivery the mother of that family mentioned the people in the apartment next door had just arrived in the country. They had very little.

Having packed extra boxes for just such an occasion they knocked on that door next. The father of the family protested that they didn't celebrate Christmas. The woman writing the article told him; "We do and there's no reason for your kids to go without a treat. This is Canada and its Christmas."

So yeah. Its Canada and its Christmas. Be kind to yourself and celebrate being alive in however way you see fit. After the past couple of years its practically a notable achievement. 

Most of all be kind. 

Weather

 Other cities in eastern and western Canada laugh at Toronto weather. To be fair they have a point. In generally we are warmer in the winter and have way less snow than almost every major city this side of the Rockies. 

There's an extra expensive neighborhood down town that holds an ice sculpture contest in February. Its great stuff but its also at a spot in the calendar where we often get a thaw. Makes for a nice winter day out but I bet the sculptors get a bit ticked. 

Basically we are right on lake Ontario in the crook of several different wind directions and tend to get missed by most of them. Its a tricky balance. We just happen to be on the right spot. If you want to know what its like being on the wrong spot google Buffalo New York and winter. They really get hit. 

When bad weather doesn't miss us we can have problems. One winter SNOWMAGEDDON hit so hard that the mayor of the time was having serious problems getting everyone to work. He called on the local army for help and got made fun of for doing so. This wasn't really fair. When you have the capacity to move X amount of snow in a day or so, thereby allowing people to get to work, and you have to move XXXX amount of snow; preventing the city from grinding to a halt can make you do some silly sounding things. 

So, its November. Most of the time we don't get anything more than a dusting before now and the end of December when it really does hit. Most of the time isn't all the time though.

Winter is coming.