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Greetings, my fellow port swillers!
I don’t know why, since they do it every year, but ol’ Robbo was surprised and shocked this morning at hearing the first bits of Christmas musick being played on the local classickal station.
Indeed, my exact words were, “Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no!!”
As I say, it’s the same pattern: They start by doing a little “Christmas” fill-in at the top or bottom of the hour the Monday after Thanksgiving. Gradually, they add more and more such musick to the playlist. By the week of Christmas itself, the stuff is wall-to-wall and one is heartily, thoroughly, totally sick of it.
And on December 26? Zilch. Nothing. Nada. Back to regular programming as if nothing had ever happened.
Feh.
As I grow older and crankier, I resist this whole biznay more and more. As of yesterday, it’s Advent, dammit, ADVENT! (Happy Liturgical New Year, by the way!) Christmas does not start until the evening of December 24th. Furthermore, it doesn’t end until January 6 (or February 2, if you really want to kick it).
As a matter of fact, Advent is one of my favorite seasons of the year, combining as it does a certain Lent-like repentance with an excitement over the impending arrival on earth of our Lord. Thus, yesterday ol’ Robbo duly put up wreaths on the front doors of Port Swiller Manor swathed in purple ribbon and also built an appropriate Advent table wreath.
Sigh. I know, I know. The whole modern “Christmas Season” is just a secular, commercial-driven co-opting of the Christian tradition (well, at least of its more surface-y traits). And every year, it’s more about the co-opting and less about the tradition. (See, for example, the gradual displacement of the greeting “Merry Christmas!” with the much more anodyne and meaningless “Happy Holidays!” Try the former at work and you’ll find yourself hauled up in front of HR for hate speech.)
Need I point out that Scrooge did have at least something of a point? Bah, humbug!
The good news is that the Gels get this as well. Indeed, Eldest has taken to spending the period between Thanksgiving and the Real Christmas saying to everyone, “Merry Xmas!”
Greetings, my fellow port swillers!
I hope you all had a joyful and stuff-a-licious Thanksgiving holiday! Certainly the Family Robbo did: As per usual, we went down to visit my brother’s family in North Carolina. (He and his wife have a son and two daughters, all of whom are roughly of age with Robbo’s three gels. The Boy, for example, is a sophomore at Virginia Tech, while Brother’s gels are in high school.) Much merriment was had by all. The cousins get on very well among themselves, Bro and I found much reason to stand guard over the outdoor grill while the turkey was cooking (constant monitoring of the thermometer is crucial, you understand, and adult beverages only aid in concentration), the wimmynfolk confab’d to their hearts’ desires up in the kitchen, and all in all, everything was hunky-dory.
Robbo’s older cousin was there as well. As regular friends of the decanter may recall, said cousin has a passion for genealogy. This time, she trapped ol’ Robbo in an extended monologue on our ancestors of seven or eight generations back – Scots-Irish Presbyterian stock with names such as Gilmore and Paxton – who had settled the upper Shenandoah Valley in the 1730’s. Curiously, given that I went to law school at Dubyanell, several of my ancestors of those generations were killed, kidnapped and/or enslaved in Indian raids in 1759 and 1763 during the French and Indian War not more than a couple miles from where I lived and studied. Small world, ain’t it?
On the one hand, the inner history geek in me loves this sort of thing. On the other? Well, is Thanksgiving Dinner really the time to spread out reproductions of 1734 land-grant maps and superimpose current Rand-McNally counterparts in order to assess streambed shifts in the Maury River and Kerr’s Creek for purposes of locating precise boundary lines?
We Didn’t Go There
And speaking of my cousin, it has become her custom to challenge us to bring Virginia wines to each of our regular meet-ups (Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter), there to compare and contrast the many labels available (all of which are complete dreck, if you ask me). This year, the Devil whispered into ol’ Robbo’s ear that Trump Wine might be appropriate, both since it is bottled at Monticello and also since said Cousin is a proud Lefty.
I showed my brother said bottle ahead of time and asked his advice. His opinion? Nyet!
On reflection, I concluded he was right and hid the bottle until our cousin left. (We drank it later. Truth be told, it wasn’t awful, but I wouldn’t buy it again.)
The only other things to say about the holiday are travel-related:
Downbound, Ol’ Robbo found himself in the lee of the smoke of several forest fires blowing across Nelson and Amherst Counties. It’s corny to say, but it really did feel like twilight at noon as we made our way through, thus seriously messing about with Ol’ Robbo’s internal clock. Coming home, everything seemed to have cleared up to a great extent, thank goodness.
Upbound, just south of Altavista, Virginia on Highway 29, Ol’ Robbo suddenly spotted a dog on the median: It was a young bloodhound (or some sort of hound, anyway) lying curled up in the grass and looking around in a confused way. There was no place to stop just there, the formulation of what I had seen took a couple minutes to congeal in my braims, and what the hell could we have done with another dog anyway? Anyhoo, after a couple minutes, I told Mrs. R what I had seen. Being the far more practical and hands-on of us, she immediately called teh local animal control dispatcher and related to them what I had spotted.
I dunno if there was any follow-up.
One thing Mrs. R and I agree on: People who dump dogs (or other animals) at the side of the road ought to be shot.
UPDATE: Ol’ Robbo completely forgot to relate an aspect of this trip that is sure to add many, many demerits to his Man Card. You see, barring unforeseen complications, it is no more than a 5 1/2 to 5 3/4 hours’ journey from Port Swiller Manor to my brother’s house. Not exactly a short hop, but hardly an all day excursion either.
Nonetheless, Ol’ Robbo allowed himself to be cajoled into stopping on this trip no fewer than three times – in each direction! The most infuriating stop was the last one: 45 minutes out from home, the Youngest – who had been sleeping most of the way – woke up and announced that she needed a pit stop. And like the sap that I am, rayther than telling her to cross her legs and suck it up, I shamefully pulled over at the next convenience store/gas station.
What can I say? Mea culpa.
Man Rules, of course, clearly dictate that stops on long drives are determined solely by fuel needs. Everything else – water, snacks, meals, potty breaks – are supposed to key on that determination, and that determination alone. You know you’re not stopping again for another three or four hours? Plan accordingly!
Deviate from this plan and you’ll be stopping every freakin’ 20 minutes for one reason or another.
The Family Robbo may need to take a very considerably longer ride some time in the next few months, and I have already made clear to Mrs. R (and directed that she inform our offspring) that I will not display such weakness again.
Greetings, my fellow port swillers!
Well, here we are in Thanksgiving Week. What with all the to-do coming over the next few days, Ol’ Robbo probably won’t get back to the blog much before Saturday. I know this is hardly crushing nooz to the three or four of you who actually read this thing, but I thought I at least ought to let you know.
So, exit question: Which was really the “First” Thanksgiving?
Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts, Fall, 1621, which some argue was arbitrarily imposed on the Country because the Yankees won the Civil War and got to re-write the history books;
Berkeley Plantation, Virginia, December 4, 1619, which doesn’t look so good a) because of the above-referenced Yankee bias, and b) because the colony got wiped out three years later by the Powhatans;
St. Augustine, Florida, September 8, 1565, which..I mean….Spanish and Catholic? Can’t have that as the standard; or
Spanish explorer Juan de Oñate and his expedition, Palo Duro Canyon, Texas, April 30, 1598. (See immediately above.)
(And, of course, there may be other claimants.)
Have at it, if you like. But I also will leave you with something on which I’m sure we all can agree:
Courtesy of the Roman Catholic Boys for Art.
Happy Thanksgiving, friends of the decanter, and I’ll see you on the other side!
Greetings, my fellow port swillers!
My name is Robbo and I’m an eeedjit.
It is a custom at Port Swiller Manor that ol’ Robbo cooks the family dinners on weekends, in part because I enjoy doing it, in part because of the unspoken understanding that I am a better cook than Mrs. R. This is not boasting or belittling, merely a product of circumstances: Both of my parents cooked (the Mothe is a superb chef and the Old Gentleman could hold his own) while neither of Mrs. R’s does (heating up pre-made meals from Stew Leonard’s does not count). As a result, I picked up a basic understanding of kitcheny things in my misspent yoot and she simply didn’t. (And let me say here that I am somewhat Sam Gamgee-like in my knowledge: Within my own 20 mile geographical equivalent limited range, I am very competent, but I cheerfully acknowledge that I am ignorant of almost everything beyond it.)
Anyhoo, in honor of Eldest’s return from college, this evening I was cooking up a shrimp and prosciutto pasta dish to which she is much addicted, but which we rarely have, given that it comes out to about eleventy-billion calories per forkful and leaves one wreaking of garlic and shallots for about 48 hours.
Because Mrs. R has professed to vegetarianism since the last time we had this dish, I decided to sauté the prosciutto separately from the other ingredients in order that everyone could enjoy it one way or another. To this end, I set out a separate pan of olive oil on one of the back burners to heat up.
What with my family’s infuriating habit of vanishing in the hour before din-dins, leaving me to deal with things by myself, ol’ Robbo once again gave his usual impression of Basil Fawlty, simultaneously trying to cook the main dish, prep the salad, set the table, set out appropriate condiments, and get drinks. As I scrambled about, I lost track of the need to do up the proshute.
Suddenly remembering that the oil was more than hot and that the pasta and main sauce were about ready to go, I grabbed the bowl of cut up proshute and flung it into the pan.
That, as they say, tore it.
The proshute hit the pan, the pan splash hot oil onto the gas burner, and up she went with a most impressive shwoooosh!
The pan was on one of the back burners, by the bye, which means it was directly in front of the splashboard and directly under the cabinet overhang. They were rayther quickly engulfed in flame.
It’s an interesting thing: Ol’ Robbo has never really stopped to think about whether he is brave or not. The number of times I’ve had to face a real instantaneous crisis decision in my life, I’m happy to say, has been really rayther small. Well, for what it’s worth, in this instance (without thinking but not without some pretty lurid language) I immediately reached into the fireball and bare-handedly snatched the pan away from the burner.
The fire quickly went down and out, the remaining oil in the pan sloshed about a bit over the range and adjoining counter. I didn’t even get singed.
Crisis averted. Laus Deo.
Of course, I had a mess on my hands: olive oil everywhere and a blackened backsplash and cabinet door. Windex (that Wonder Product) seems to have done the job for the vast majority of the discoloration. To the extent that Mrs. R chooses to quibble about the remaining scorching, it is my intent to argue that such things give a kitchen real character (as opposed to those pristine ones featured in the snootier real-estate magazines in which you know to the very depth of your being that nobody, nobody, has ever really cooked anything).
Oh, for what it’s worth, everyone seemed to like the meal.
UPDATE: “Reeking of garlic and shallots” of course, not “wreaking”. You know, like the famous scene in “Casablanca” where Peter Lorre is nailed by Captain Renault’s men and screams at Bogart, “Reek! Help me! Reeeeeeeeeeek!!!”
Yeesh.
Greetings, my fellow port swillers!
Ol’ Robbo had breakfast for din-dins this evening – eggs, sausage, and hash browns. Yum. My main motivation was a desire to finish up the last of the sausage in the Port Swiller Manor fridge before the Eldest Gel arrives home from school for Thanksgiving break tomorrow and noms the lot behind my back. You’ve got to move fast with these kids.
Speaking of the rapid approach of Thanksgiving, twice today I saw mention of something called “Friendsgiving” – once on a flyer in my office lobby and once on an ad for Starbucks or something like it.
Friendsgiving?
Maybe I’ve seen this before, but so many terrible perversions of tradition have come down the pipeline in recent years that I simply do not recollect it. Was this yet another assault? The word Thanksgiving implies, after all, a) that one has something for which thanks should be given, and b) there is Someone who must necessarily be the recipient of said thanks. Was this new spin some kind of hipster attempt to subtly bypass those implications? To yet again deny the existence of God and our dependency on His love? To make it All About Meeeeee?
According to the Urban Dictionary, “Friendsgiving” is:
The celebration of Thanksgiving dinner with your friends. This usually occurs on the Wednesday before or the Friday after Thanksgiving Day, since Thanksgiving is usually reserved for family gatherings. “Hey guys, bring over your family leftovers to my house on the Friday after Thanksgiving to celebrate Friendsgiving!”
Weell…………
This explanation of the word seems fairly innocuous on its face, I suppose. Cutesy-Stupid rayther than sinister. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with the implied hospitality, practicality, and friendship. On the other hand, though, a quick perusal of Google hits about it reveals a whole mess of articles along the lines of “Family sux because they’re all so problematic and they’re such a pain to get to, so this holiday is much better because it’s totes easier and you spend it with your friends instead.”
So, yes, after all: shallow, self-centered, hedonistic, subversive, and stupid. In other words, perfectly emblematic of these wretched times.
Speaking of which, another story of the Eldest’s collegiate debut. (It’s the gift that keeps on giving.) Today in her history class, the prof turned the discussion on to last week’s election results. Apparently, there are a trio of SJW types in the class who always Say The Loud Things during discussions. This time, the Gel tells me, they were in high dudgeon: How could Any Woman vote for Trump? How could Any Minority vote for Trump? How could Any Gay Person vote for Trump? How? HOW?
Finally, the Gel said, “Why don’t you actually ask one? After all, they’re individuals, not statistics. You might just learn something about the complexities of other people’s outlooks and worldviews, and you certainly need to learn to deal with them.”
Heh.
After class, apparently, another student sidled up to the Gel and thanked her for speaking out. The prof did the same when the Gel dropped by her office later to gripe about the meme that Shrillary’s loss was somehow a message to girls that they couldn’t become President. “Where does that come from?” the Gel demanded. “What am I supposed to be, a sheep? I can do whatever I damn well want, including becoming President or staying home and raising a family, and nobody can tell me otherwise. Modern Feminism can go to hell.”
The Gel despises identity politicks, in case you hadn’t noticed. So do the Middle and (to a growing extent as she becomes more aware) the Youngest. I may or may not have had something to do with that.
Double Heh.
Greetings, my fellow port swillers!
What with the shift back to – what is it? – Standard Time, we’ve now entered that period of the year known to ol’ Robbo as the Time of the Mole People, those several deep, dark months of late fall/early winter in which my commute each way is carried out in darkness.
I hates it. I really do.
Anyhoo, it may just be my crabbed imagination, but it seems that this year it is taking the traffick rayther longer to get used to the darkness. All Summah long, there is a certain daring-do bravado about the way people drive along my commuter route during rush hour. Naturally, they tend to sober up once the Darkness first overtakes them and to no blame, but usually this transition is fairly quick and we’re back to bumper-to-bumper gridlock at various speeds.*
Not this time. What has it been – two weeks or so now? Day after day, ol’ Robbo keeps finding himself stuck behind some pokey, hesitant driver unwilling to keep up with the flow and instead intent on riding their brakes. Why is this? I dunno. Globull Warmening, probably.
I am not, and never could be, a Road Rage Guy. I am, however, susceptible to what one might call Road Fume Syndrome, the condition where one finds oneself muttering under one’s breath and speculating about the intelligence, morals, situational awareness, and parentage of the doofus in front of one who is seemingly incapable of more than 50% of the speed they ought to be maintaining despite the fact that others are thundering past them, and also despite the fact that those trapped behind are dependent on them to keep from getting stuck in the middle of an intersection when the lights change.
Grrrr….
I must admit that, although this feeling goes directly against Christ Jesus’ directive that we exercise patience, these are the times that I long for the commercial availability of passenger vehicle photon torpedoes.
Mea culpa. Now get the hell out of the way! Mr. Checkov? Fire!
*Ol’ Robbo’s morning commute consists of a traverse of his near-outer suburb, a jaunt down a parkway and a claw through downtown to his office. Evening? Strike that. Reverse it. Without traffic, I could make it between Port Swiller Manor and the ol’ office in about half an hour. Because I get in early, I usually make it in about forty-five minutes in the morning. In the evening? With good conditions, it’s closer to an hour. However, it is not at all unusual for me to take between one and a half to two hours to claw my way home, especially at this time of year. So you can understand my frustration, I hope.
Greetings, my fellow port swillers!
Sad news: Middle Gel tipped me off this evening to the the death of Annie Schmidt.
Who, you might ask?
Well, she was the daughter of Jon Schmidt, one of the founders of the Piano Guys. She’d been out on a solo hike in the Oregon wilderness and had gone missing about a month ago. According to the story, her remains were found at the bottom of a cliff and her death attributed to blunt force head injuries. Bottom line: she fell.
I had originally been inclined to say something here about the foolishness of solo hiking, but pace. There is nothing, from what I know, worse than surviving your own child and I’ve no reason to add to that burden.
I bring this up because, again, Who, you might ask? Well, the Piano Guys are the Gel’s favorite musickal group. She’s got several signed CD’s from them and has seen them at least three times in concert the past few years. (I went with her to the last one at Wolf Trap last summah.) The PG’s really aren’t my thing, but on the other hand they’re a heck of a lot better than Miley Cyrus’s “twerking” or your average Boy Band or Gansta Rappa that most of teh kids seem to follow these days.
A sample of their mishmash of classickal and modernsky:
Also, in their stage show, they are unabashedly religious (Mormon, I’ll grant you, but still….). In this day and age, it is quite refreshing.
Anyhoo, as teh Gel herself admits, as sad as the nooz is, at least the family now has closure, which I suppose is something. (As I say, I hope never, ever, to have to go through such a process myself.)
Greetings, my fellow port swillers!
NRO (who I embargoed during the campaign) and the Puppy-Blender have thoughts on the hissy fits going on across various school campuses nationwide in the wake of The Donald’s victory.
Eldest Gel tells me that in the past day or two, a few Sweet Briar students have posted messages on campus social media to the effect of “If you supported or support Trump in any way, you’re a racist, sexist, homophobic, meany-pants, and I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU!!!!!!!”
Apparently, the school president got wind of this and sent out a campus-wide email in response. To borrow the Gel’s summation, he said, “Life, and particularly college life, involves being exposed to and respecting other points of view, even if you disagree with them. So cut this crap out now and grow the hell up.”
Yep, ‘zactly. And the message seems to be keeping in line with what the Gel tells me the vast majority of the faculty are saying, too.
One of the many reasons we sent the Gel to SBC was our belief that it is not as badly infected with P.C.-ism as a lot of other schools. Good to see that belief confirmed.
Greetings, my fellow port swillers!
A conversation from this morning:
Self: What on earth are you doing up at 6:30 am on a Saturday?
Youngest Gel: Dad, it’s Friday.
Dang extended weekends. I’m getting old and confused.
Anyhoo, the big nooz last evening was that Youngest made her school swim team. She just made the cut time and apparently the coach likes her attitude and enthusiasm.
I must say that I’m quite proud, particularly because I had nothing to do with this. The Gel had swum for our pool club team for a number of years but then dropped out this past summah. A couple months ago, however, she decided that she really wanted to get on the school team, so she started training again (she’d worked with this program in the past, but stopped after swimming head-first into the wall and suffering a concussion), and now here we are, all because of her own efforts.
Think she’s pleased? She spent all last evening walking around saying, “That’s right….Youngest Port Swiller, varsity athlete – believe it, baybee!” (There’s no freshman or jayvee team at her school. You’re either in the Show or you’re not.)
I expect a major outlay in purchases of sweatshirts, t-shirts, window decals, and the like, but so what. If she’s on the team, working hard, and pulling her weight, let her have her fun. (Ain’t ol’ Robbo getting indulgent in his old age?)
She also mentioned the benefits to her resume. “Do you think I could wind up swimming for UVA?” she asked me.
“Well,” I said, “competition to get into UVA from around here is wicked fierce. Yes, you almost absolutely need a varsity sport, so this is an excellent start. But you also need a GPA of about eleventy-billion and a Nobel Prize in astro-physics, so get cracking on those books, too.”
I think that gave her some food for thought.
Since the gel’s only a freshman and is at the tail of the team, I don’t know how many meets she might actually make this year. Frankly, the fewer the better, at least from my standpoint: Swim meets are amongst the dreariest and most boring of all sports events, at least from the parental point of view – hours of sitting around on cold, hard benches just to see your kid in the drink for about 30 seconds at a go. (That is, of course, unless your wife has secretly volunteered you to man a shift at the snack bar. Then it’s even worse.)
Greetings, my fellow port swillers!
Eldest Gel was telling me more of the post-election atmosphere on campus last evening.
First, her English prof came to class with his dog yesterday. “I thought after what happened last night, we could all use some therapy,” he said. Then he looked over at the Gel and said, “Except you, of course.”
The Gel, to her credit, burst out laughing. “Figured me out, have you?” she said.
“It wasn’t that difficult,” he replied.
That’s my gel!
Her History prof took a different tack. “You all know my political views, of course,” she said, “I’m as liberal as you can get. But know this, too: I believe in the 1st Amendment more than anything else. If you voted for Hillary, fine. If you voted for Trump, fine. If you voted for somebody else, fine. What’s important is that none of you, no matter who you voted for, should ever be afraid to say so in my classroom. Nor should you feel afraid to give your opinion about anything else, no matter what it is.”
Of course, since it’s a private college, there really isn’t any 1st Amendment issue here. Nonetheless, I really like this woman’s attitude. The Gel likes her, too. When we chatted, I told her that her prof was an example of Principled Liberalism, an increasingly rare specimen these days. This, as opposed to Leftism, which is nothing more than the Will to Power and has no principles whatsoever.
The Port Stands At Your Elbow 
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