“And all the hilltops soft and glowing

With winter’s brilliant rug of snow—

The world all fresh and white below.”

Alexander Pushkin (James E. Falen, translator) Eugene Onegin

A friend floated the theory that a male always wears a style of underwear different from that of his father. Raised with a boxer-wearing father, the son wears jockeys. If the father wears tighty-whities, the son wears boxer briefs. And so on. There is a lot of merit in this theory. This is another reason that a fatherless family has problems. They boys don’t know what underwear to put on.

She was part of Celtic Woman, which I am only aware of from PBS fundraising programming. Attractive, strapless dress, playing the violin, sort of dancing but certainly moving as she played, with beautiful, flowing red tresses. And I thought, “Does anyone ever say ‘tress’?”

I am of the belief that many Irish songs consist of but a few bars that are incessantly repeated. The song only ends when the musicians need a break.

Several corporations announced one-time $1,000 bonuses for their workers after the tax cut bill. This gave the corporations good publicity and gained them credit with the President. But the tax cut had not yet taken effect, so, apparently these companies had this money just lying around even before the tax cut. So why weren’t the bonuses given before? And the corporate tax cuts, unlike the individual ones, are permanent. Why, then, just a one-time bonus? If that corporate tax cut is going to be so good for workers, why haven’t the wages been raised permanently?

If it is unpatriotic to take a knee during the national anthem to bring attention to police violence against others (a selfless act), isn’t it unpatriotic for the President, promoting his own self-interest, to bash the FBI, a law enforcement agency?

Has the TV been on too long when you find yourself watching pickleball on an obscure sports channel?

At 6PM on Christmas day, the daughter and I were walking home from a movie when a woman stopped and asked us if she was walking in the right direction for the supermarket. We said, “Yes.” I asked her what she was looking for and she replied, “Oatmeal.” Both the daughter and I pointed across the street to a neighborhood store that was open and said, “They must have oatmeal.” “Not the kind I want,” she said. Even though she knew that the supermarket may not have been open, she headed off for it. It seemed like an unlikely search for a Christmas night.