Paradise ponders... It was a high-delta day today in our household.
First, Debbie is feeling much better (thanks for the good wishes, all who wrote!). Her cough is greatly reduced, and she doesn't look sick any more. Her voice sounds normal, too. That's a delta on the plus side.
Two of our cats needed to visit the vet today, though. Both of them have urinary tract infections (UTIs) – that's the fifth and sixth, if I'm counting correctly, since we moved up here. The vet (and everything I've read) swears that UTIs are not infectious. With cats as isolated and coddled as ours, you'd think UTIs would be unlikely. Tell that to our poor cats! That's a delta on the minus side.
I spent the day working on some programming, mainly on a fairly complicated state machine tracking the state of one process from another process, using UDP messages encoded in JSON. I brought all the plumbing for that up from scratch in about 8 hour of programming. Speaking as an ancient and venerable assembly language programmer, it's just amazing how productive one can be in a modern high level language like Java, with the bazillions of free, high quality, open-source libraries available. I have exactly one programming tool that I had to pay for (IntelliJ's IDEA) – and that only because I'm a fussy, lazy sort when it comes to my IDE. If I was forced to use NetBeans or Eclipse, I'm pretty sure I'd survive. What a different world it is today for programmers, compared with my beginnings in the early '70s, when even assemblers were expensive, proprietary, and lousy :)
Saturday, January 2, 2016
One hardly knows what to say...
Friday, January 1, 2016
Happy New Year, everyone!
Happy New Year, everyone! We went to bed at our usual hour (around 7 pm) 2015, and our oldest dog (Mo'i) woke me up at 2:30 am in 2016 – he needed to go outside, and he didn't care what year it was :)
Our thermometer read 5.0°F, and the forecast says it will be -3°F by sunrise. Yikes! People who have lived here a long time tell us that this sort of cold weather is very unusual here, especially for such a long spell. It's hard to be a global warmist up here :) Allegedly we'll have above-freezing daytime temperatures again by Wednesday. After this cold spell, that will feel like time to break out the shorts!
Our thermometer read 5.0°F, and the forecast says it will be -3°F by sunrise. Yikes! People who have lived here a long time tell us that this sort of cold weather is very unusual here, especially for such a long spell. It's hard to be a global warmist up here :) Allegedly we'll have above-freezing daytime temperatures again by Wednesday. After this cold spell, that will feel like time to break out the shorts!
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Paradise ponders...
Paradise ponders... Debbie is down with a bad cold. It got worse all day yesterday, but today she's on the “getting better” side. She's got a nasty cough every time she has a cold, and this time is no exception. I hate hearing her hacking, but there's not a thing I can do...
My brother Scott is getting along fabulously well with his neighbors. He's only been in the house a couple of weeks, and he's already had dinner with two (or more?) of his neighbors, met loads more, and has every expectation of more of the same. I expected him to find the neighbors a good bunch of folks, but I didn't expect it to happen so fast!
I'm puttering and taking care of Debbie today. I ran one of our cats (Koa, our oldest guy) up to the vet for a checkup, as he was exhibiting some strange symptoms. Turns out he's got another urinary tract infection (UTI), something male cats are prone to. She took blood for a workup, too. Also gave him some fluids, as he was a bit dehydrated. Now he's home, and on antibiotics to get rid of the UTI...
For the past two days we've had a roaring fire going in our living room fireplace. I brought in some wood that we cut when the Mormon horde helped me clean up along the irrigation canal last summer. It's a mix of wet and dry, and box elder and black willow. It's all burning very well, making the room (where Debbie is holed up) a much homier place...
My brother Scott is getting along fabulously well with his neighbors. He's only been in the house a couple of weeks, and he's already had dinner with two (or more?) of his neighbors, met loads more, and has every expectation of more of the same. I expected him to find the neighbors a good bunch of folks, but I didn't expect it to happen so fast!
I'm puttering and taking care of Debbie today. I ran one of our cats (Koa, our oldest guy) up to the vet for a checkup, as he was exhibiting some strange symptoms. Turns out he's got another urinary tract infection (UTI), something male cats are prone to. She took blood for a workup, too. Also gave him some fluids, as he was a bit dehydrated. Now he's home, and on antibiotics to get rid of the UTI...
For the past two days we've had a roaring fire going in our living room fireplace. I brought in some wood that we cut when the Mormon horde helped me clean up along the irrigation canal last summer. It's a mix of wet and dry, and box elder and black willow. It's all burning very well, making the room (where Debbie is holed up) a much homier place...
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Fail: conventional investing wisdom...
Fail: conventional investing wisdom... In an email from the Wall Street Journal (the “10-Point”), I read this with interest:
The reason is a direct result of my work in the electronic trading industry. One of my bosses was very interested in what the industry calls “algorithmic trading”. Basically that's stock picking (choosing what to buy or sell) by a computer program, and often doing so at very high speeds that a human could not do. That boss asked me to undertake a study using publicly available (though expensive!) data. He wanted me to figure out which human traders had the best, consistent trading record. Then he wanted to build an algorithmic trading system that duplicated what that human trader did (assuming we could figure it out).
Well, that project never got past the first stage. You see, when I completed the data analysis part (using 25 years of trading data, and looking only at traders with at least a 10 year record), we found zero human traders who consistently beat the Standard and Poors index. Not one. Nada. Zip. Nobody. This was inconsistent with the widely believed lore in the business, but completely consistent with previous academic studies.
My boss didn't believe my results, so he had me do a second study: this time of “analysts”: those people who spend their entire working life trying to predict the future price of stocks. Generally these analysts work within a small segment of the market (say, mining stocks, or auto makers); sometimes they work with only a single (large) company, like Apple or GM. These results were even more interesting: the analysts did significantly worse than simple exponential growth models. For instance, if we took 5 years of Apple stock prices, figured out what the annual percentage growth was, on average, and then projected that forward for the next 10 years – we got a more accurate result than any analyst. The analysts had a significant bias to the upside – that is, their predictions were, on average, rosier by a good margin than the actual results. You can supply your own reasons for why that might be so. I don't actually care, myself, because the one piece of useful information in there for an individual investor is that none of these analysts were better than the simplest mathematical model one can make. That is also completely consistent with the academic studies showing that you're best off investing in an index (or equivalent) fund...
Contrary Wins the RaceLongtime readers may remember that many moons ago I helped build electronic trading software (for three different companies), trading in stocks, bonds, and stock options for hedge funds. I learned a lot about how those investments worked in the process; more, really, than I ever wanted to know :) What I learned that applied to an individual investor can be summarized as follows:
It wasn’t easy to make money in most markets in 2015. The investors who did the best are the ones who defied conventional wisdom. While many star traders had a rocky year as consensus predictions persistently came up short, those who did well employed strategies including betting against already downtrodden energy stocks and taking a contrarian stance on that most golden of stocks, Apple.
- Invest in equities (stocks) only through index funds or similarly diversified algorithmic strategies.
- Don't listen to anyone advising you to choose particular single stocks (not even Warren Buffet, and certainly not some idiot reported in the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, or USA Today).
- Don't touch bonds, most especially don't touch municipal bonds. Their credit ratings are faked.
- Find other investment vehicles, even if unconventional, so that you don't have all your investments in stocks. For us, that's currently real estate, though I'm still looking for other attractive alternatives.
The reason is a direct result of my work in the electronic trading industry. One of my bosses was very interested in what the industry calls “algorithmic trading”. Basically that's stock picking (choosing what to buy or sell) by a computer program, and often doing so at very high speeds that a human could not do. That boss asked me to undertake a study using publicly available (though expensive!) data. He wanted me to figure out which human traders had the best, consistent trading record. Then he wanted to build an algorithmic trading system that duplicated what that human trader did (assuming we could figure it out).
Well, that project never got past the first stage. You see, when I completed the data analysis part (using 25 years of trading data, and looking only at traders with at least a 10 year record), we found zero human traders who consistently beat the Standard and Poors index. Not one. Nada. Zip. Nobody. This was inconsistent with the widely believed lore in the business, but completely consistent with previous academic studies.
My boss didn't believe my results, so he had me do a second study: this time of “analysts”: those people who spend their entire working life trying to predict the future price of stocks. Generally these analysts work within a small segment of the market (say, mining stocks, or auto makers); sometimes they work with only a single (large) company, like Apple or GM. These results were even more interesting: the analysts did significantly worse than simple exponential growth models. For instance, if we took 5 years of Apple stock prices, figured out what the annual percentage growth was, on average, and then projected that forward for the next 10 years – we got a more accurate result than any analyst. The analysts had a significant bias to the upside – that is, their predictions were, on average, rosier by a good margin than the actual results. You can supply your own reasons for why that might be so. I don't actually care, myself, because the one piece of useful information in there for an individual investor is that none of these analysts were better than the simplest mathematical model one can make. That is also completely consistent with the academic studies showing that you're best off investing in an index (or equivalent) fund...
Paradise ponders...
Paradise ponders... Yesterday was the “day of running around” for me; did lots of errands. The most interesting one was meeting with Lane S. and his sidekick Pasquale, two general construction guys who did a lot of the interior work on our house in Paradise. I met them up at my brother Scott's cabin in Newton, to talk over the first few fix-it tasks I've got for them there.
The highest priority: replacing the two exterior doors. Currently these are solid wood, single-pane glass models with no weather stripping. They've warped so badly that one of them can no longer be opened by people of normal human strength (Scott has no problem, though, of course). Lane recommended fiberglass-over-foam doors for their structural stability and high R-factor, in pre-hung frames. Lane can't start on this for a couple of weeks, though.
Second priority: fixing the crummy, leaking shower in the second floor bathroom. We're going to replace the existing plastic shower stall with a much nicer one made of cultured marble. The new one will also be about 60% larger than the current one, making more effective use of the space. At the same time, we're going to re-plumb the water supply and septic connections to the shower, which currently are visible on the ceiling of the laundry room. These will be moved to much closer to the ceiling, and covered with a simple pine box that we can then finish to blend in more nicely with the log cabin's interior look. Much better than a piece of 3" black ABS septic pipe on strap hangers :)
It was really nice just to see Lane and Pasquale again. They were a lot of fun to work with on our home projects, and they were fun yesterday, too.
The highest priority: replacing the two exterior doors. Currently these are solid wood, single-pane glass models with no weather stripping. They've warped so badly that one of them can no longer be opened by people of normal human strength (Scott has no problem, though, of course). Lane recommended fiberglass-over-foam doors for their structural stability and high R-factor, in pre-hung frames. Lane can't start on this for a couple of weeks, though.
Second priority: fixing the crummy, leaking shower in the second floor bathroom. We're going to replace the existing plastic shower stall with a much nicer one made of cultured marble. The new one will also be about 60% larger than the current one, making more effective use of the space. At the same time, we're going to re-plumb the water supply and septic connections to the shower, which currently are visible on the ceiling of the laundry room. These will be moved to much closer to the ceiling, and covered with a simple pine box that we can then finish to blend in more nicely with the log cabin's interior look. Much better than a piece of 3" black ABS septic pipe on strap hangers :)
It was really nice just to see Lane and Pasquale again. They were a lot of fun to work with on our home projects, and they were fun yesterday, too.
The dunes of Mars...
It's interesting to see how different the Martian dunes look – (relatively) tiny ripples, steep angle of repose, and what's up with that flat “foot” toward the left of this photo?
Monday, December 28, 2015
You just can't...
You just can't ... make this shit up. Our State Department issued a year-in-review statement on Christmas Eve that included this gem of a paragraph:
Doesn't it bring you great comfort to know that experts of this caliber are running the State Department?
State Department bureaucrats.
Rope.
Tree.
Some assembly required.
Bringing Peace, Security to Syria.If you think that's The Onion I'm quoting there, just follow the link: it's not parody. These people really are tooting their own horns about success in Syria. One struggles for words in the face of such absolute poppycock. The good folks at Reason found some words, though.
Syria: The conflict in Syria has continued to unfold in tragic ways over the course of 2015. From the humanitarian crisis endured by refugees fleeing violence, to the reprehensible human rights violations and violence carried out by the Asad regime, the Syrian people have borne a heavy load. The United States and many members of the international community have stepped up to aid the Syrian people during their time of need – the United States has led the world in humanitarian aid contributions since the crisis began in 2011. Led by Secretary Kerry, the United States also continues to push for a political transition in Syria, and under his stewardship, in December, the UN Security Council passed a U.S.-sponsored resolution that puts forward a roadmap that will facilitate a transition within Syria to a credible, inclusive, nonsectarian government that is responsive to the needs of the Syrian people.
Doesn't it bring you great comfort to know that experts of this caliber are running the State Department?
State Department bureaucrats.
Rope.
Tree.
Some assembly required.
California's kids...
California's kids ... are being mistreated by their government, again. This time, Governor Moonbeam has decided that it's no longer important that California's high school students pass their final exam in order to get a high school diploma. Nope, now you can fail that final exam and get your diploma anyway.
If that sounds terrible to you, don't worry – it doesn't make as much difference as you might think. California's high school programs were already dumbed down so much that eliminating the final exam is but a minor change. It's emblematic, though, of the educational lunacies perpetrated by the state's CTA-controlled government.
If I were a California employer who hired “high school graduates”, what would I think of this latest move? I can only think of one rational response: to completely ignore whether an applicant has a high school diploma. That certification now means utterly nothing. Other means of evaluation will have to be found. Since most kinds of testing are illegal now, that leaves some sort of provisional hiring (try-before-you-buy) is likely going to become the norm. I'm not sure that's actually bad, mind you – certifications never tell the whole story anyway. Even a worthwhile high school diploma tells you next to nothing about an individual's honesty, work ethic, etc. In California, it used to tell you something about academic achievement (though in the past couple of decades that's been severely compromised). Now it quite overtly tells you nothing at all about that, either!
If that sounds terrible to you, don't worry – it doesn't make as much difference as you might think. California's high school programs were already dumbed down so much that eliminating the final exam is but a minor change. It's emblematic, though, of the educational lunacies perpetrated by the state's CTA-controlled government.
If I were a California employer who hired “high school graduates”, what would I think of this latest move? I can only think of one rational response: to completely ignore whether an applicant has a high school diploma. That certification now means utterly nothing. Other means of evaluation will have to be found. Since most kinds of testing are illegal now, that leaves some sort of provisional hiring (try-before-you-buy) is likely going to become the norm. I'm not sure that's actually bad, mind you – certifications never tell the whole story anyway. Even a worthwhile high school diploma tells you next to nothing about an individual's honesty, work ethic, etc. In California, it used to tell you something about academic achievement (though in the past couple of decades that's been severely compromised). Now it quite overtly tells you nothing at all about that, either!
Trump filter...
Trump filter... Passed along by friend, former colleague, and very determined blog reader Simon M.
I haven't actually installed this Chrome extension, but I love the idea. I wish it was more general, though – there are more people I'd love to delete from the Internet besides Donald Trump. Obama, for instance. Pelosi, Reid, Boehner, Jeb Bush, ... you get the idea...
The FAQ at the link is quite entertaining. Here's one entry, as an example:
I haven't actually installed this Chrome extension, but I love the idea. I wish it was more general, though – there are more people I'd love to delete from the Internet besides Donald Trump. Obama, for instance. Pelosi, Reid, Boehner, Jeb Bush, ... you get the idea...
The FAQ at the link is quite entertaining. Here's one entry, as an example:
Are you making money off this?That's a rationale that could be applied to just about any elected or appointed official in Washington...
No, nor was I put up to this by the Republican or Democratic Parties, the Obama Administration, my mother or any other possible sphere of influence. I am doing this out of a profound sense of annoyance and patriotic duty.
Paradise ponders...
In the evening we watched the last (probably) of our Christmas movies this year: The Shop Around the Corner, with Jimmy Stewart, Margaret Sullavan, and about ten actors we just saw in It's a Wonderful Life :)
No deer bothered our bird feeders yesterday. We're not sure if that's just by chance, or because raising the one feeder actually helped.
The forecast now calls for a gradual warming over the next week, with one day having a high above freezing (January 5th). That would seem positively balmy at this point :)
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Holy single digits, batman!
Pleasure centers...
Pleasure centers... So far as I can tell, humans have just four sources of pleasure: food, sex, beauty, and showers. I got to pondering about that this morning, and realized that nearly all of them can be paired with positive effect. There are six possibilities, and the only one I can't immediately conjure up a good pairing for is a shower plus food. That's a bit of a logistics challenge. The rest of the pairings? Oh, yeah, definitely pleasurable!
Well, then, what about the four possible triples? Two of them include both food and showers, and for those two I really can't conjure up any viable examples.
Maybe my imagination just isn't up to the task :)
Well, then, what about the four possible triples? Two of them include both food and showers, and for those two I really can't conjure up any viable examples.
Maybe my imagination just isn't up to the task :)
Paradise ponders...
We watched a couple of movies (The Bishop's Wife, in addition to The Miracle on 34th Street that I mentioned yesterday), and really didn't do much of anything else yesterday (other than continue gorging on good food!). Toward evening I started to feel a little off, and I went to bed quite early. This morning I feel fine, and rested after nearly 12 hours of sleep (that's a near-miracle for me all by itself!).
Saturday, December 26, 2015
Paradise ponders...
Paradise ponders... Debbie and I had a lovely day yesterday. In the morning we made a new recipe for us, a chicken casserole with biscuits on top. It came out sort of like chicken pot pie filling (a favorite of mine!) with biscuits on top instead of a crust all around. It was a big win! When we figured how much we wanted to make, we took my brother Scott into consideration, as he was joining us for the day. Scott is an eating machine, despite his lean physique; he eats roughly four times as much as any other human I know. The recipe said it made 8 servings, so given Scott's presence we doubled it. The result was delicious, so we all stuffed ourselves – and now we have less than half of it left :)
After gorging ourselves, we took a drive into Logan where we left some nice canned food for the feral cats we've been taking care of (near Crumb Brothers bakery). Then we drove around on the back roads near our house, drinking in the winter scenery. Afterwards we came back home for some wine and a rousing card game. There was much merriment! After the card game the sun was about to disappear, so Scott headed back north to his cabin. Debbie and I cracked the bottle of nice champagne we'd bought for the occasion, and watched Home Alone 2. That's a silly little movie, full of physical humor and sappy bits, but between the movie and the champagne we laughed until we hurt. Debbie, for some reason, found it necessary to pound on me while she was laughing. I don't think there was any permanent injury, but I do have some black-and-blue as a result :)
This morning when we awoke, the temperature was 5.7°F and everything outside was crunchy. We watched Miracle on 34th Street (the 1947 version), another of our traditional Christmas-time movies. I believe!
At daybreak we could see that the bird feeders were less than half full, so I went out to fill them. Cold, it was. Very cold! I tried out my electrically-warmed gloves for the first time – and they worked great until the batteries died, about 30 seconds after turning them on. That's my own fault, though – I haven't charged the batteries since last winter.
Today is just the two of us, a quiet day together is the only plan we have...
After gorging ourselves, we took a drive into Logan where we left some nice canned food for the feral cats we've been taking care of (near Crumb Brothers bakery). Then we drove around on the back roads near our house, drinking in the winter scenery. Afterwards we came back home for some wine and a rousing card game. There was much merriment! After the card game the sun was about to disappear, so Scott headed back north to his cabin. Debbie and I cracked the bottle of nice champagne we'd bought for the occasion, and watched Home Alone 2. That's a silly little movie, full of physical humor and sappy bits, but between the movie and the champagne we laughed until we hurt. Debbie, for some reason, found it necessary to pound on me while she was laughing. I don't think there was any permanent injury, but I do have some black-and-blue as a result :)
This morning when we awoke, the temperature was 5.7°F and everything outside was crunchy. We watched Miracle on 34th Street (the 1947 version), another of our traditional Christmas-time movies. I believe!
At daybreak we could see that the bird feeders were less than half full, so I went out to fill them. Cold, it was. Very cold! I tried out my electrically-warmed gloves for the first time – and they worked great until the batteries died, about 30 seconds after turning them on. That's my own fault, though – I haven't charged the batteries since last winter.
Today is just the two of us, a quiet day together is the only plan we have...
Friday, December 25, 2015
Merry Christmas, everyone!
Merry Christmas, everyone! And now anybody reading this blog: go be with your friends and family!
Christmas in Paradise...
Christmas in Paradise... We went to sleep last night with our heads full of beautiful memories...
In the late afternoon we set off to visit with our closest neighbors (Alan and Nikki L, with their brood of six kids) carrying two bags full of Debbie's homemade chocolate chip cookies. One of the bags we marked “For Alan” and the other “For everyone else” – because the last time we gave them cookies Alan didn't get very many :) We had a happy, friendly visit with them, as they were madly preparing for Christmas. One of those preparations happened to be a plate of sugar cookies for us; Gracie (their oldest daughter) madly finished them as we were all talking. We left with cookies and a bag full of oranges (they had a surplus!).
Then we left for our second-closest neighbor's house: Nick and Maria S., with their six kids. They have three daughters and one son, plus two little ones that they recently fostered. A couple of weeks ago Maria invited us to spend Christmas Eve with them, for a light meal of soup and bread, Christmas music, and a nativity scene reenactment by their kids. Maria, in particular, is locally famous for her musical talents and most especially for her singing voice. She offered to have the family sing our favorite Christmas music! How could we turn that down?
Never having participated in such an event in this community, we really didn't know what to expect. Debbie was worried about how to dress, but since nobody said anything about dressing up, we went in our usual casual clothes (for me, that's darned near everything piece of clothing I own!). Luckily for Debbie's equanimity, that was the right choice :)
From the moment we walked in, we felt right at home with the family. While the kids (especially the two little ones) were whirling around dispensing chaos and noise in every direction, the rest of us talked and fussed about getting the meal put down. Maria had made Italian wedding soup, cream of potato soup, and some nice sourdough rolls. Debbie had made an orange cake for dessert. The meal was full of good conversation, along with the occasional minor disaster perpetrated by the little ones (fortunately none of them caused permanent damage, though a great deal of water was sopped up with towels).
After that most pleasant meal, we all repaired to their living room for the musical segment. Maria played piano and sang softly while various other family members alternately participated with the songs they new. Their son (Nick) often accompanied her on his cello – sometimes with some challenges for both of them to get in the same key :) Their four children all have lovely singing voices, and quite obviously know a lot about music, and they have a great deal of fun making it. The highlight for me, though, was a solo piano-and-singing performance by Maria: Ave Maria, in Latin. The link goes to a YouTube performance of the same version – not by Maria, of course, but very similar. It was most beautiful to hear such music performed live right next door to us. I snapped the first four photos below while the family was singing.
After Ave Maria, the family did their traditional reenactment of the Nativity (the last two photos below). Maria read the script from an iPhone, while their kids acted the various parts. The cradle was actually made by Nick, for their two oldest kids. I was struck by how much fun the kids had doing this – making some improvised costumes, fussing over who got to play which parts (their were more parts than kids :), and acting out the script. There were lots of laughs and even more good cheer, and all the while the kids were getting their religious beliefs reinforced.
As I hope you can imagine, we parted with warm feelings and big smiles...
This morning we awoke late (for us): almost 5 am. The moon lit the snow-covered landscape quite brightly. Debbie spotted Jahar (our Savannah cat) watching something outside the window very intently – deer, six does wandering slowly across our yard. They investigated our bird feeders, even smelling the suet feeder, before heading for our little pine forest. That was a very nice way to wake up on Christmas morning!
We had our morning tea and coffee with a panettone that Debbie had found on Amazon. This was a variation we'd never had before: pear and chocolate. I don't know how the Italians make the fruit they put in a panettone, but however they do it, it's the best I've ever had in a bread: no sweeter than the real fruit, not dried out but still soft and full of flavor. The bread part of this one was hands-down the best I've ever had. We ate nearly half that panettone – somehow I'm not hungry any more :)
Later today we'll be making a new recipe Debbie wants to try out: a casserole of roast chicken and lots of veggie goodness, with biscuits on top a bit like dumplings. It looks good in the recipe! My brother Scott will be coming down to join us, so we're expecting there will be no leftovers, despite the recipe being for 8 servings. If Scott needs even more sustenance, we have plenty in the freezer :)
In the late afternoon we set off to visit with our closest neighbors (Alan and Nikki L, with their brood of six kids) carrying two bags full of Debbie's homemade chocolate chip cookies. One of the bags we marked “For Alan” and the other “For everyone else” – because the last time we gave them cookies Alan didn't get very many :) We had a happy, friendly visit with them, as they were madly preparing for Christmas. One of those preparations happened to be a plate of sugar cookies for us; Gracie (their oldest daughter) madly finished them as we were all talking. We left with cookies and a bag full of oranges (they had a surplus!).
Then we left for our second-closest neighbor's house: Nick and Maria S., with their six kids. They have three daughters and one son, plus two little ones that they recently fostered. A couple of weeks ago Maria invited us to spend Christmas Eve with them, for a light meal of soup and bread, Christmas music, and a nativity scene reenactment by their kids. Maria, in particular, is locally famous for her musical talents and most especially for her singing voice. She offered to have the family sing our favorite Christmas music! How could we turn that down?
Never having participated in such an event in this community, we really didn't know what to expect. Debbie was worried about how to dress, but since nobody said anything about dressing up, we went in our usual casual clothes (for me, that's darned near everything piece of clothing I own!). Luckily for Debbie's equanimity, that was the right choice :)
From the moment we walked in, we felt right at home with the family. While the kids (especially the two little ones) were whirling around dispensing chaos and noise in every direction, the rest of us talked and fussed about getting the meal put down. Maria had made Italian wedding soup, cream of potato soup, and some nice sourdough rolls. Debbie had made an orange cake for dessert. The meal was full of good conversation, along with the occasional minor disaster perpetrated by the little ones (fortunately none of them caused permanent damage, though a great deal of water was sopped up with towels).
After that most pleasant meal, we all repaired to their living room for the musical segment. Maria played piano and sang softly while various other family members alternately participated with the songs they new. Their son (Nick) often accompanied her on his cello – sometimes with some challenges for both of them to get in the same key :) Their four children all have lovely singing voices, and quite obviously know a lot about music, and they have a great deal of fun making it. The highlight for me, though, was a solo piano-and-singing performance by Maria: Ave Maria, in Latin. The link goes to a YouTube performance of the same version – not by Maria, of course, but very similar. It was most beautiful to hear such music performed live right next door to us. I snapped the first four photos below while the family was singing.
After Ave Maria, the family did their traditional reenactment of the Nativity (the last two photos below). Maria read the script from an iPhone, while their kids acted the various parts. The cradle was actually made by Nick, for their two oldest kids. I was struck by how much fun the kids had doing this – making some improvised costumes, fussing over who got to play which parts (their were more parts than kids :), and acting out the script. There were lots of laughs and even more good cheer, and all the while the kids were getting their religious beliefs reinforced.
As I hope you can imagine, we parted with warm feelings and big smiles...
This morning we awoke late (for us): almost 5 am. The moon lit the snow-covered landscape quite brightly. Debbie spotted Jahar (our Savannah cat) watching something outside the window very intently – deer, six does wandering slowly across our yard. They investigated our bird feeders, even smelling the suet feeder, before heading for our little pine forest. That was a very nice way to wake up on Christmas morning!
We had our morning tea and coffee with a panettone that Debbie had found on Amazon. This was a variation we'd never had before: pear and chocolate. I don't know how the Italians make the fruit they put in a panettone, but however they do it, it's the best I've ever had in a bread: no sweeter than the real fruit, not dried out but still soft and full of flavor. The bread part of this one was hands-down the best I've ever had. We ate nearly half that panettone – somehow I'm not hungry any more :)
Later today we'll be making a new recipe Debbie wants to try out: a casserole of roast chicken and lots of veggie goodness, with biscuits on top a bit like dumplings. It looks good in the recipe! My brother Scott will be coming down to join us, so we're expecting there will be no leftovers, despite the recipe being for 8 servings. If Scott needs even more sustenance, we have plenty in the freezer :)
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