IS SANTA CLAUS REAL?

I'm learning constantly about the wonderfully creative, talented people in my extended family.  This was posted on Facebook today by my niece, Loretta.  In spite of my usually crusty exterior, this got to my inner "nice person".

I most assuredly perpetuated the lie. I had so many wonderful memories of Santa coming to my house when I was a kid, that it brought me great joy to do the same for my child. Unfortunately my son was very observant and put my lying skills to the test. Questioning why Santa's presents were in packages like the store and the worst one, why Santa had the same wrapping paper as us. The latter is how he figured it out. We had told him at the time that Santa had run out and had to borrow some from us. After that year Santa's presents were always wrapped in paper that was completely different and hidden away. When my son was 9 we moved and when we were hauling stuff into the new place, he found the Santa wrapping paper. That was the moment he figured it out. He was so upset, but not that Santa wasn't real, but that we had lied to him. You lied, you lied to me is what he kept saying. This was in August. By the time Christmas had rolled around he had calmed down and one evening on a drive home from some event we had a conversation. My son at the age of 10 told me that really Santa was real. Not that he was a real person, but he was real in the spirit of giving. That's what Santa was all about. I was a very proud parent at that point. Deep thinker my boy. Now at the age of 21, my son has fond memories of Santa coming to visit and understands the lies. We have been forgiven. So even though I was scolded for lying I would do it all over again without hesitation. Everybody needs a little magic in their lives.

Loretta Taylor Haase

THE TALE OF THE MYSTERIOUS LEAK

Today's post was written by my wife, Judy, better known here as SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed).  While the BRD (Beautiful Rich Daughter) was in Mexico last week, SWMBO house-sat for her and her three cats in Prescott, about 100 miles away.  Here then is her story of her return and an ensuing adventure.

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I got home Friday after being gone for a week .  Unpacked my stuff and went through a week's worth of mail. Did some reading.  Went to bed and got some sleep.

Saturday morning at 8:00 a.m. I walked into the kitchen to find a stream of water running from the refrigerator across the kitchen.   Decided that the evaporator pan must be over-flowing for some reason.  We moved the monster double door fridge out far enough to get behind.  As I was gathering tools to remove the back panel of the fridge, Bruce decided to get the hell out of there and go to the store.

I removed the LOWER BACK panel.  This didn't do a whole lot for my lower back.  There were about eight screws to undo. I used a refrigerator coil brush (didn't think I had one, did you) and the crevice tool of the vacuum cleaner to remove dust, cobwebs and cat hair from everything I could reach.  The evaporator fan started running while I was doing this, so I decided it had been jammed up with debris. I took the front panel off and vacuumed under there too. Now all would be well. I mopped up the water for the third or forth time, but decided to leave the fridge out in the middle of the room...just in case.

Then I went away for a while and came back ....to another stream of water.  I went online for solutions and everyone talked about the evaporator pan, etc.  One guy mentioned the drain hole in the back of the inside of the fridge which could be stopped up by food debris.  Use a pipe cleaner to clear it out and run some water down it and your problem should be solved.  So after about an hour on the computer looking for solutions I went back to the kitchen.  I took the bottom crisper drawer out and found about 1/2 to 3/4 inch of water in the bottom of the fridge.  The puddle had not been coming from the outside/underside of the fridge.  It was coming from the INSIDE.

So I took the next crisper drawer out......and the meat and cheese drawer, cleaned them and set them on the floor.  Still no evidence of where the water was coming from. So, I emptied the rest of the three shelves of the upper part.  Food all over the kitchen. As I got to the top shelf I could see some water dripping down the back left  side. That is the shelf that our box of red wine and our cold water container and tall bottles, like coke and milk sit on.  About this time Bruce (who had slunk back from the grocery store) mentioned that a leftovers container had had water on top of it this past week when he took it out of the fridge.  I took EVERYTHING off the top shelf and they all were wet on the bottom.  It suddenly dawned on me that it might be that the cold water container, which I had filled the night before, and was now half empty.....MIGHT BE THE CAUSE!  Within a minute, Bruce, who was watching a football game across the room said, "It might be the water container".   I dried it off completely and set it on a paper towel to see what would happen. In seconds, the paper towel was soaking wet.

I have the cleanest refrigerator in the state...inside and out.   But there is no water container in there right now. 

That's all, folks!

LIFE IN THE FAST LANE

Vacation time!

The BRD snorkeling off of Cabo Pulmo, Mexico.

(What the guy on the boat is saying at as he points to the water:  "Oh, wow, look.  It's a great white shark!")

VIVIR LA BUENA VIDA

Here are a couple of views from the room where the BRD* spent last week with her Beau Jack.

It's Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.  Two hour nonstop flight to and from Phoenix.  She liked it.

English translation of the title of this post:  Living the good life.

* - Beautiful Rich Daughter

LEST WE FORGET

(From today's New York Times)

On December 7th, 1941, Japanese warplanes attacked the home base of the U. S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, drawing the United States into World War Two.

More than 2,300 Americans were killed.

FRIDAY FUNNIES

The mercury dropped to 33 degrees here last night.  That's cold. And not funny.  So to remedy that . . .

Then, of course, there's the plague of the Holidays.

And, of course, where would I be without a cat picture or two.

Where would Internet humor be without PhotoShop, eh?

Happy holidays!

NELSON MANDELA . . . AND MONOPOLY

Nelson Mandela died today.  For those of you who don't know his history, I will recap it.

As a young man, he was arrested after co-founding a militant group which led a bombing campaign against government targets as part of a protest against apartheid in South Africa.  He was convicted of sabotage and conspiracy to overthrow the government and sentenced to life in prison.  After 27 years, he was released.  Rather than being angry and bent on vengeance, he worked with the white power structure to change South Africa.  Four years after his release he was elected president.

He was a forgiving and reasonable man in his later years and a symbol of virtue.  Today, at the age of 95, he died at home, surrounded by family.

Now, about Monopoly.  A friend sent me this by email today and I found it fascinating.  Here's hoping you will too.

In 1941, increasing numbers of British Airmen became prisoners of the Third Reich. The Crown was looking for ways and means to facilitate their escape... Obviously, one of the most helpful aids would be a useful map, which showed locations of 'safe houses' where an escaped POW could go for food and shelter. However, paper maps had drawbacks -- they make a lot of noise when you open and fold them, they wear out rapidly, and if they get wet, they turn into mush. Someone in MI-5 (similar to America 's OSS ) got the idea of printing escape maps on silk. It's durable, can be scrunched-up into tiny wads, and unfolded as many times as needed, and makes no noise whatsoever. At that time, there was only one manufacturer in Great Britain that had perfected the technology of printing on silk, John Waddington, Ltd. When approached by the government, the firm was happy to do its bit for the war effort. By pure coincidence, Waddington was also the U.K. Licensee for the popular American board game, Monopoly. 'Games and pastimes' was a category of item qualified to be inserted into 'CARE packages', sent by the International Red Cross to prisoners of war. Under strict secrecy, in a securely guarded and inaccessible old workshop on the grounds of Waddington's, a group of sworn-to-secrecy employees began mass-producing escape maps, keyed to each region of Germany or Italy where Allied POW camps were located. When processed, these maps could be folded into such tiny dots that they would actually fit inside a Monopoly playing piece. The clever workmen at Waddington's also included: 1. A playing token, containing a small magnetic compass  2. A two-part metal file that could easily be screwed together  3. Useful amounts of genuine high-denomination German,             Italian, and French currency, hidden within the piles of             Monopoly money! Before taking off on their first  mission, British and American air crews were advised, how to identify a 'rigged' Monopoly set -- by means of a tiny red dot, cleverly disguised to look like an ordinary printing glitch, located in the corner of the Free Parking square. Of the estimated 35,000 Allied POWS who successfully escaped, an estimated one-third were aided in their flight by those rigged Monopoly sets.  Everyone who did so was sworn to secrecy indefinitely, since the British Government might want to use this highly successful ruse in still another, future war. The story wasn't declassified until 2007, when the surviving craftsmen from Waddington's, as well as the firm itself, were honored in a public ceremony. Some of you may be too young to have had any personal connection to WWII (Dec. '41 to Aug. '45), but this is an interesting part of history.