The Happy News thread

[enterprikayak]

wow. it's all, like, Thanksgivingy and shite around here. Yeah, we already did that. Back in October. The "normal" month to do it in. Hopes you all have a lovely day!

Here's non-turkey happy news:



Priso's mom is a teacher and so the Ministry of Education is filming a video about early childhood learning and it's being done by Priso's mom's friend. So today some filmy peeps showed up and filmed Aureilia playing playdoh with Daddy (in this picture) and playing her wee harp and doctoring her frog and other things. I thought it was for internal use, like teacher professional development.

Turns out they're making thousands of copies and sending them along with the standard "Baby's Best Chance" government booklet to all new mothers in the province. And in our local hospital maternity ward, the nurses force you (they actually badger you endlessly) to watch this closed-circuit tv system on a loop with educationamal videos on car seats and not shaking your baby to death and sids and breast feeding (and LATCH!) and now Aureilia and me and Priso will be on there too!

And LATCH!

[blacknblue]

Egad. Here I am brushing virtual elbows with celebrities and never suspected it!

[Linda]

Uh, about Hercule Parrot and turkey. He only gets a little bit...but he LIKES it. His diet consists of pellets made especially for parrots with the bird vitamins in them, some fruit (which he flings around more than eats), and his favorite desert - peanuts (also restricted in quanity). Water of course is his drink.

If he sees me eating anything, he expects to at least be offered a piece of it. Mostly he rejects it, but if it is not offered, he objects in a very VERY loud voice - that can be heard in the next block, probably. I guess his diet is fine, he has lived with me for 19 of his 20 years. His life span is 60 to 100 years. We are not sure parrots are strictly vegetarian. We don't know all of what they eat in the wild. He has shown some very efficient snake killing behavior with a toy snake one of the grandkids had. Wild parrots might easily have some meat in their diet; its not been proven or disproven yet.

[blacknblue]

Why shouldn't a parrot eat turkey? A cat eats mice don't they? A turkey is a bird. So what? A mouse is a mammal, just like a cat. They belong to the same taxonomic whatchamacallit, but they are not the same species.

[justTripn]

HAPPY THANKSGIVING (I got this in my email)

Twas the night of Thanksgiving, but I just couldn't sleep
I tried counting backwards, I tried counting sheep.
The leftovers beckoned - The dark meat and white
But I fought the temptation with all of my might.

Tossing and turning with anticipation
The thought of a snack became infatuation.
So, I raced to the kitchen, flung open the door
And gazed at the fridge, full of goodies galore.

I gobbled up turkey and buttered potatoes,
Pickles and carrots, beans and tomatoes.
I felt myself swelling so plump and so round,
"Til all of a sudden, I rose off the ground.

I crashed through the ceiling, floating into the sky
With a mouthful of pudding and handful of pie.
But, I managed to yell as I soared past the trees...
Happy eating to all pass the cranberries, please.

May your stuffing be tasty, may your turkey be plump.
May your potatoes 'n gravy have nary a lump,
May your yams be delicious may your pies take the prize,
May your Thanksgiving dinner stay off of your thighs.

HAVE A WONDERFUL THANKSGIVING!!!

Oh and this is a pretzel "salad":

http://images.allrecipes.com/site/allre ... l/6900.jpg

(the pretzels are on the botttom under the cream cheese, suggar, and whipped cream.)

[JadziaKathryn]

May your Thanksgiving dinner stay off of your thighs.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow Americans, and for the rest of you - - - um, have a nice Thursday. I'm off to my grandmother's for our Thanksgiving. My contribution is pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.

[blacknblue]

Oooohh...

I ate too much...

[dark_rain]

My new ipod nano arrived yesterday! Now I have my small collection of ent episodes on it, for watching on the train and whatnot.

Happy thanksgiving to y'all!

[JadziaKathryn]

I love Black Friday!

I was in line at Walmart at 4:40 and I got a digital camera for an awesome deal. I've been using a film camera but I'll take so many pictures in Australia (and want to share them) that it's time to go digital. All kinds of shopping deals this morning. Now that I've napped, it's time for round two...

[TPoptarts]

It's true, absolutely: family is all.

This deserves to be inscribed in platinum over the doorway of every home, and every government building, on the face of the Earth.

The ultimate purpose of every living thing is to survive long enough to reproduce effectively. By effectively I mean, reproduce and get the next generation up to a point where they are able to take care of themselves. Everything else is designed to facilitate that primary objective. Intelligence evolved as a tool to expedite that primary objective. Human culture, civilization, philosophy, law... they are all merely window dressing that we developed for the purpose of expediting the primal objective of surviving long enough to reproduce effectively- keeping the children alive long enough to grow up.

Anything that fails to actively promote that basic goal is pure waste, and should be tossed out. Anything that acts contrary to that goal is contra-survival and suicidal by definition, and needs to be ditched *immediately*. Nothing about our civilization, careers, culture, religion, social structures, economic systems, or anything else we do is worth keeping if it interferes with our primary mission.

"Family is all."

Pure wisdom. Forget platinum. It should be carved in diamond.

Uh. What do you make of me then? I'm never gonna have kids and like I have 3 sisters who aren't frelled up like me so there's like a high probability that I'll be an aunt at some point but it's not like I'm even in touch with them and I won't have anything to do with their kids obviously, well I really don't have anything to contribute to a kid's life anyway so what exactly am I to civilization??

[evcake]

You are yourself, as my Mom would say. I have two aunts and one great aunt who are not related to me at all. Nothing to do with genes, just - well - love. All three were important to my developement as a person. I didn't realize this at the time, of course.

My Mom would echo BnB's sentiment, but she puts it in another way. What she says is "Love is really all there is."

[TPoptarts]

Well scratch that then because I can't love

[enterprikayak]

Your mad scientist creator should have constructed you with the ability to love. As it is you're all dead inside.

Alas!

[justTripn]

She said she "cares about everyone" so don't buy into this "can't love anyone" thing. It's just symantics. And, T'Poptarts it's way too early to tell whether or not you'll have kids. Even if you don't want to get married you can get yourself some kids, or some friends and some friends' kids. Once again, you are SO young. If you take another ten years to get into a settled life, you still have plenty of time for the possible family or extended family/group-of-close-friends-of-all-ages.

I also had a great Black Friday. At Bath and Body Works I got $10.00 off my first purchase of $30.00 or more, a free lipgloss, a free set of four purfumes, and the opportunity to by a "$60.00" fake lamb's wool blanket for "only" $35.00, which I decided I "needed."

My three boys got two pairs of jeans for $10.00 each and like 6 more for $17.00 each, and four knit caps, with a little brim for 2.99 each.

[JadziaKathryn]

and the opportunity to by a "$60.00" fake lamb's wool blanket for "only" $35.00, which I decided I "needed."

Well, winter is just about upon us, and you need to be warm, right?

The local bookstore had free books! Advanced proofs not for sale - I scooped up four.