Christmas Day, 2019

We truly had some highlights this year in stockings / presents:

• I received a pair of tiny folding lorgnettes
• Our brother-in-law received a very special present. Three years ago at the lake, his catch included a very old Sperry topsider, which he threw in the trash when he got back to the marina. Oldest neph retrieved it and this year put it under the tree for his uncle.
• Our sister-in-law had a special piece of jewelry repaired for my bro -- the ring that my dad and my mom's dad both wore. It's onyx and gold, with a center diamond. The diamond was used as a partial down payment on a car, back in the day, and grandaddy must have had the ring designed around it. I always liked the way that the sides resembled fenders.

Christmas Eve 2019

In the lead-up to this year's Christmas middlesis was getting stressed. It turns out that she hates all the fancy stuff (crystal, linen, etc.) that makes for more work. This is the stuff that I lovingly held onto because I thought that's what the family likes, and change is difficult for some. Sis said she wasn't coming out for Christmas if something didn't change. She's the only one that can make change, because she has the strongest opinions. So she consulted with the rest of us, and we agreed to change. It all worked out.

Some of the ideas seemed like more work, and I spoke up for once. I asserted that I wanted my own style of Christmas. Colorful, fun, sparkly. And when I told the mama, she riffed on a bunch of random stuff but stuck to the idea of it being fun and we should dress down, not up. She called it our "Christmas Special." Well, ok!

At one point I wanted it to be influenced by RuPaul, but suddenly that seemed too difficult. What did manifest was tables covered in crazy fabrics from the thrift stores of our fair city and Stockholm, accessorized with granny's epergnes and, pink and purple candles from a recent estate sale. Oldest neph made a decoupage unicorn, and there were granny's jade fruit and unicorn drops from CVS.

 

The biggest change was asking the nephs and their families to make dinner. They rocked it. Youngest neph had caught the limit on the opening of crab season, so he made crab and artichoke dip, and brought dinner rolls. Oldest neph made the salmon. His wife and our niece made cookies, and middle neph and his family made salad, stuffed potatoes and beans. They all had a good time coming together and all of us were more relaxed. It rocked in every way.

We've decided that next year's decorative theme will be unicorns. And the nephs will do dinner from now on.

 

Color

The other day I read two fascinating pieces about color.

The first, about the first aniline dye accidentally created by William Henry Perkin. His discovery, mauve dye, led to a fashion craze and the understanding that chemistry could turn into industry.

The second was something I found while looking for genealogical information by reading finding aids of the archives of Saxony. There I learned that there was something called Saxon Blue. Researching a bit, I found this amazing piece about the development of color in the 18th century in Europe. Saxon Blue, it seems, was a thing. And since I've been doing some research on art and artists of 18th century Saxony (especially Anton Graf and my 5th ggfather Ernst Gottlob), this will make for some fun reading.

Family Time

And in other news, I have a genetic conundrum.

Earlier in the year I looked at my genealogy website and found a person on my mom's line who is identified as a first cousin. I had never heard of this person. My two theories were that either my grandmother had a child as a teenager, put the child up for adoption and this is the child of that child or, my uncle had a child with someone. Both of these seem like possibilities. I guess that a third could be that my grandparents put a child up for adoption. I used to be able to rule this third option out, until I figured out that we don't seem to be related to the people identified in the family tree as my grandfather's relatives.

Gee.

I was contacted by a person a few months ago who is fairly certain that she is the daughter of the same uncle. Again, seems possible given what I know. The lady contacting me was one of those folks who took a DNA test and found out not only that her father was not her biological father but that she had two half brothers she'd never heard of (they are both adoptees). This also meant that the brother she grew up with only her half brother. A lot of news.

I started trying to help this lady figure it out, and corresponded with the researcher who is helping *her*. The only problem is that when I looked through my DNA matches, I seem to not be related to the people in my grandfather's family tree. Oops! I am related to my grandfather, as is my brother, but we don't seem to share genetic material with any of the people on that family's line. Further, my grandfather and his older sister might have been born 8 months apart. I think this is where the break in the family line occurs.

Basically, none of my genetic matches seem to have the very common surname I'm looking for. On my mom's other side there are tons of relatives that I recognize. And on my father's side there is at least one person who I expect to be a cousin who is also a genetic match. 

Ironically, this lady *is* genetically related to the people I thought I was related to, and I am not. She and I do not share DNA.
 
This got weird and interesting without my even realizing it.

Christmas Cactus and Stuff!

I must have a dozen Christmas cactuses at this point. Many are the same type, the classic one with the bright fuschia blooms. If those guys start pumping out the flowers I'll move them to the porch, but for now I'm starting my Christmas display by putting out the singular beauties that are different from the rest.

My absolute favorite is a coral colored beauty. She bloomed two years ago but not last year. I made it my year's goal to give the cactuses more attention so that that doesn't happen again, and I was rewarded. I can't get enough of this one.

 

It now has pride of place alongside a light pink one that my mom favors, paired with one of this year's most beautiful pointsettias, courtesy of Ace Hardware. I would LOVE it if I could get this thing to grow in my garden. Occasionally you see someone with a pointsettia hedge in their yard and it is quite spectacular. Fingers crossed, people.

 

Oh, and lobsters with Santa hats have infested my mugo pine.

 

Happy Holidays

Holiday -- a term used in painting. Holidays are places where the paint does not stick to the wall, or places where you have skipped, often noticed afterwards. In the case of this oil pastel stick, holidays are places where the paper shows through.

I love this word, which I just learned in an art mediums class.

Joy of Non-Repeat Experiences

A friend of a friend invited me to a psybient music performance last night. Not sounding familiar? Yeah. Me neither.

I pretty much know now that I would hate Burning Man. Aside from the grit and lack of clean bathrooms and heat stroke, I am just not that free. And I'm super judgmental, which is exactly what BM (and this event last night) is not. And here's my description.

There was bad art galore, some of it being live-painted. And not the good kind of live painting but the kind where you bring your already painted painting to the show and then make small, strategic dabs of paint on it in order to enhance its value and not eff it up so someone will still want to buy it. That stuff is being done in the main hall where the music is being performed. Some of this painting is "good" and some of it looks like the result of a "Pinot and Paint" party where you and your friends try to recreate a Roger Dean painting.

Act 1
Not bad. Crazy mashup of pulsing music and geometric black and white graphic visuals projected on the entire stage. Sword dancer performing.

Act 2
Australian artist in leather hat mines trippy (i.e. non-Western) music to a pounding beat. The visual artist paired with him has made computer artwork of Hindu deities that appear to break into components and turn inward, "swallowing" themselves. I found this pretty offensive. Some dancers.

Act 3
Man in fedora with pheasant feather accent creates pounding beats. Somehow, he finds an extra-low setting for the bass and it feels like my internal organs are being tossed about my abdominal cavity. I think this is my favorite of the three. Some of the dancers, wear leather pants with white graffiti and studs, and have small leather tops that show off their tattoos. The pants have no bottoms, and the bottoms in the holes have no muscle tone. So when they occasionally shake their butts, the cheeks just flap.

I knew I was officially done when a guy brought a gigantic vase on stage and put it on a stand. Then he made an arrangement of fern fronds in the vase, to the beat of the music. I paid real money to watch a guy dramatically recreate a fern using parts that had been a fern, on stage. That was both my favorite and least favorite thing.

Then aerial acrobats appeared, and dangled from the ceiling, and I was really hoping I could get my host to agree it was time to leave... and we did.

The venue holds 500 and it was at capacity as we left, around 1:30+ am. We didn't get to see the act we'd gone to see. I have to say that the event was well organized, felt safe, people were pretty well-behaved, it had clean bathrooms and other than some seriously sour aromas (cumin armpit and people smoking cigarettes that smelled like a burning combination of beedis, fish sauce and that smell when you floss your teeth), it was pleasant.

Now I get to repay the favor and pick the next adventure with this friend.