floundersgreatadventure

It’s the end of the year and you know what that means. Its time for the annual post about stuff. This is possibly the least read of all my post because for one thing its stuff and the other its the holiday season. Ok her we go. At this time of year right after Christmas our going to open a closet and find out you got more stuff than you thought. There are several solutions to this problem. 1 Completely ignore the problem. 2 Order a dumpster, 3 Wait until the spring and have a garage sale. This problem arises because we want our kids to have what they want and because we want what the media say we should want in order to prove our success. Well fo me I get stuff because my family will hear me talking about something and they think great we’ll get it for his birthday or Christmas. Of course by that time I know longer want it and it goes in the closet because it was a gift and I don’t want to insult the give by throwing it out. Americans are referred to as a disposable society. I think that means that we buy thing on whims and then just discard them. Well I think more people are like me they are given things people think they want or need and they end up in a closet. Our grandson was given presents some clothes, some games and some toy trucks. He will play with one toy until he loses interest and then it goes in the closet. Well you say they could always clean it up and give it to charity. Well kids have to be taught charity and it’s easier to just put it in the closet. So what happens next birthday or Christmas more stuff. Now women are just as bad because they’ll have dresses that are a year old and they will now be “out of style”. So they will remain in the closet. Men will want the latest Tech toy until the next one comes along then the old goes in a drawer or the closet. We listen to or watch ads on radio and TV telling us we need the next I phone or the 75 inch flat screen TV is so much better than the 65 inch no matter you have no room for it. We are addicted to having the newest and thats great for the economy because if we never went out and bought the next great thing manufacturing would come to a stop. But we waste stuff be not recycling it or maybe a slight upgrade. I’m a trained computer repair person and shortly after I finished my course the price’s of PCs dropped greatly making people believe it was easier and cheaper to just throw away (or put in the closet) the old one and buy the new, and you know what you end up with. More and more stuff. Well I have to go and move some stuff around to make room for new stuff so I’ll just say this is Fats and Antonia along with the ghost of Flounder saying CIAO from Medellin, Colombia.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL Short Story
A Short Christmas Story by Charles Dickens

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Master Peter, and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.

Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of course, and in truth it was something very like it in that house. Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah!

There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn’t believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by the apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn’t ate it all at last! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone, too nervous to bear witnesses, to take the pudding up and bring it in.

Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning out. Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back-yard and stolen it, while they were merry with the goose, a supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were supposed.

Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook’s next door to each other, with a laundress’s next door to that! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered, -flushed, but smiling proudly, with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been, flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovel-full of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob Cratchit’s elbow stood the family display of glasses. Two tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle.

These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:

“A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!”

Which all the family re-echoed.

“God bless us every one!” said Tiny Tim, the last of all.

A Visit from St. Nicholas
By Clement Clarke Moore
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds;
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave a lustre of midday to objects below,
When what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer,
With a little old driver so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:
“Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”
As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the housetop the coursers they flew
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too—
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly
That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight—
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
Papa says, ‘If you see it in THE SUN it’s so.’
Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

VIRGINIA O’HANLON.
115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

I must apologize for the lack of a post last week and the brevity of this week. Last week my dog Antonia was attacked by a Pit Bull and received damage to her eye so I was busy taking care of her. Todays post will be short because my father in law is in the hospital. Hopefully he will be home by tomorrow. There will be no political posts till next year but there will be plenty of holiday stuff in the mean time. This is Fats and the Spirit of Flounder and his girl friend Antonia saying CIAO from Medellin, Colombia.

Well I guess I have to talk impeachment this week whether I want to or not. You all know I have extreme dislike for the Trumpster only because I know him. People say look he filed bankruptcy 5 times he’ll do it to the country. Well to be fair he personally never filed bankruptcy his companies did he never lost a dime of his own money. I’m pretty sure he still has the first dime he ever inherited. Unfortunately for those of us that want him out I don’t see that happening. The Trumpster as of this writing will not be impeached by the Senate and removed. It will take some smoking gun type of new evidence of criminal behavior that get the general public hyped up so they force the Republican majority to vote to impeach with out that your looking at possibly more than 4 more years. Without that smoking gun a vote for impeachment risks civil war or worse yet a race war. The economy is thriving right now and based on history will decline in the next 4 or 5 years making it look like he was a genius and we were all wrong to remove him. His reelection will doom democracy and things like heath care, education, social security and others policies that protect the average American. You will be looking at the beginning of the end. that’s not what scares me the most about him what scares me the most is that he’s just not that smart. I don’t believe hes capable of making the right decision in time of a real crisis. He walk into a room and believes he’s the smartest person in the room. If you look at his negotiations with North Korea you soon realize that hes out of his depth. These are the people that invented brain washing and the art of manipulation. The Trumpster invented the art of conceit and greed. The Trumpster doesn’t understand the world, he believes there no difference in dealing with a dictator than a chairman of the board. Well if he tries to out manipulate little Rocket Man he’s going to get a nuke up his(our) ass. Threating to nuke them into oblivion won’t work. The whole world knows the consequences of a nuclear attack. There was even a US policy that stated that if we could reach a guaranteed survival of I believe 21% of the population we would strike first, but advancement in weaponry have guaranteed the end of the world if a nuclear war was to happen. The ardent hawks in government understand this. They also understand that Kim doesn’t care. He would rather see the world die than give up is power. So where does all this leave us. Are we really looking at Agamemnon. The end of the world as we know it. That would depend on there being a real hero out there, good luck with that. This is Fats saying CIAO from Medellin Colombia and that maybe Flounder was the lucky one.

Soo we have another Sunday and the beginning of the Christmas shopping time, well at least in America. Down here fireworks last night began the drink till you drop party time in Colombia. This is surprising because Colombia is a very Catholic country, you would think it would be more about religion than alcohol. That isn’t the case as I have written about before this country takes a much more religious approach to Easter than it does to Christmas. Which to me not being religious is strange seeing that Christmas is about birth and Easter is more about death and stuff. When I say drink till you drop I’m not kidding it’s like watching myself in a mirror back in the day. Parties will start to get loud around 10 or 11 and go till 2pm the next day unless they decide to keep going. I have no idea how much beer and Aguardiente a overly sweet alcohol drink containing between 30 and 60% alcohol. It’s done in shots with water chasers. I would also say a few hundred pounds of Cocaine is consumed from now until after New Years. Alcoholism is large problem down here as I don’t see any real enforcement of any age requirement to be stupid. By Dec 10 there will be no Christmas Decorations for sale anywhere down here except a couple of specifically Christmas stores which are very very expensive. They don’t want shopping to get in the way of partying. Every year they say no more fireworks you’ll be arrested well that worked until New Years eve last year and so far it hasn’t worked at all this year. They tell you that the economy is not great here but based on last night I think it’s pretty dam good. There were some major displays going on and there not just little ones. Well as I say every Sunday this time of year it’s football Sunday. Say did any of you get to catch the Alabama Auburn game yesterday? It was by far the best game pro or college that I had seen this year. Ok we’re all going to the couch s we can nap if the games suck today. This is Fats and Flounder friend Antonia saying CIAO from Medellin, Colombia.