12/25/24

 Wednesday, December 25, 2024

D+50

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frt6

sse3

In bed at 10:50, awake and up at 6:15.  

Prednisone, day 225, 7.5 mg., day 40.  Prednisone at 5:20 with banana bread.   Other meds at 8:15.

Our Christmas Eve family gathering was heartwarmingly wonderful or is it wonderfully heartwarming with Steve and Nikki, David, Sharon, and Ellis, Mary Beth, and Lynn Celek.  I took some photos but not enough good ones.  Steve and Nikki arrived at about 12:40, the others at about 4:30.  Ellis arrived in her party dress of brilliant sequins; she was, as usual, very loving and huggy to all of us throughout the evening, also very entertaining especially at dinner.  She's 10 years and 3 months old, going on 21.  Mary Beth, god bless her, asked if I had done any more paintings since she was last here and had me show her some of my 'masterpieces'   I learned that she was an art major in college.  The simple dinner of Nikki's lasagna, garlic bread, and Geri's salad, with or without dressing, was ready at about 6:30.  The center of gravity moved from the kitchen to the living room where Geri has the Christmas tree and where we had a fire in the fireplace for the only the first or second time since we moved into this house in September, 2011.  I didn't know whether the flue was open or shut because I hadn't been able to get down on the floor to stick my head into the fireplace to see, but Steve did it for me when he was here at Thanksgiving.  The center of gravity shifted to the sunroom where more good conversation occurred, including an interesting discussion of Luigi Mangione with Sharon the most vocal interlocutor.  We don't seem to have any rightwingers in our family so there was a lot of hostility expressed towards the health insurance industry and the corrupt American healthcare system generally, and also toward the media and the 'justice' system.  There was also conversation about Palm Springs, where Mary Beth has an RV, Joshua Tree National National Park, and Pando, the Trembling Giant aspen tree colony in Utah.  Conversation at dinner focused on tales of adventures and misadventures of Steve and David in their elementary and high school years, including Steve's Coast Guard rescue from an ice floe on Lake Michigan near the Hambrook house, its publicity/notoriety, and the subsequent calls from a stalking pervert: "Is the boy there?"  Steve'snew narrative was animated and dramatic and had everybody roaring, including Ellis.  We also heard of David's adventure egging David Evans' face and of David's and Steve's adventures with girlfriends, including the one who ruined the new furnace in our house on Newton Avenue.  We reminisced about Steve's bad choice in hosting a party at 3508 N. Murray when the house was uninhabited and the night I made him sleep in the garage because he came home late from a dance at the high school.  At the end of the evening, Steve & I shared our mutual affection and admiration, a very touching ending of a very wonderful day.

Geri was up bright and early at 7 a.m., emptying the dishwasher and starting the preparation for her pie-making (cherry and banana cream) and meal-making (prime rib roast, creamed spinach, potatoes, etc.)

Our Town, Christmas. In this morning's JSOnline:

A 6-year-old child was shot on Christmas morning, and Milwaukee police are investigating.  The shooting occurred just before 6 a.m. Wednesday on the 6100 block of N. 35th Street. The child was taken to a local hospital and was being treated for serious injuries.   The circumstances leading up to the shooting are under investigation, police said in a statement Wednesday.  No arrests have been made.  The investigation into this incident is ongoing, and Milwaukee police continue to seek an unknown suspect or suspects.

18 Questions, 40 Israeli thinkers; Netta Barak-Corren.  She is a brilliant, superbly articulate law professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.