fufaraw

(gods smite me, but someone recently posted art for a J2 fic--their Jensen could be the Ghost General.)

I don't know if the dentist noticed or not, but Timiny was clutched in my hand the whole time I was in the chair last Thursday. The dentist is very good, but Timiny helped keep me calm, despite the fact he's only three inches tall.

My PCP prescribes OTC supplements for me, for various and sundry ailments and things my body does wrong, or doesn't do right, whatever.

Among those supplements are fish oil, in gel caps truly the size of horse pills, and those two-part gelatin capsules they put dry ingredients in and then fit together, one holds turmeric, one holds cinnamon. There are also various vitamins, plus a couple of actual prescription drugs. Yes, I do tend to rattle when I walk, in case you were wondering.

All these pills are oversized, and I have to take them a few at a time, rather than all the handful at once, because sometimes I have trouble getting them down. The cinnamon, for example, seems to get lodged halfway down, the capsule slips apart, and then I have a large, embarrassing burp. Ground cinnamon powder on bare mucus membrane, such as the esophagus? Burns. OH used to laugh and disbelieve me, until the day I had a huge cinnamon burp, and a small cloud of cinnamon powder puffed out of my mouth. Such fun.

I used to take flaxseed oil in the big gelcaps, but we couldn't get that for some reason, so I got switched to the fish oil, which is not bad, but I can smell it before I put it in my mouth, and taste it before I get it swallowed.

You know what's coming, right? The other day I'd dutifully swallowed all the pills, and then had a huge cinnamon-fish oil belch. So bad I choked, thought I was gonna yak, choked it all back down and chugged some water, then walked around in circles half bent over, cursing for a few minutes. GAH.

So, I'm not taking the fish oil caps any more. Whatever they were preventing, or promoting, can just blow me. Can't make me! Neener.

OH does not truck with "that witchy stuff," although he completely supports my participation. This is the night for the binding ritual, which includes a stub of an orange candle as an avatar for 45. The ritual concludes with disposing of the spent candle at a crossroads, in running water, or by burying it. OH is respectfully quiet, often in another room while I follow the ritual. But when it's done, he *leaps* to dispose of the candle stub.

Avatar, indeed. *g*

Rabbit, rabbit!

This is the first sunny day it's been light enough indoors that I could take pics without flash! So, late, but still cheerful Christmas pics!  Moose medal! Thank you, hon!



An evergreen cone that weighs as much as an egg, and feels like a solid surface. The giver says that when it opens to drop its seeds, it will *explode*! I think when I de-decorate after the 7th, the cone will be relegated to a porch, so it can 'splode there ,and not all on the carpet. OH painted the tarot Hermit Father Christmas



Shenannigans under the flatscreen, from a German pyramid to an Ohio Art top, c. 1950-ish, Steiff bears and a Hermann chimp, lion and lamb Engelbreit tin, Father Christmas, elf and Santa stocking hooks, Beldar and Primate conehead Santas all painted by OH, a watch cap, a toque, and a beanie, gifts in the past, to the Pinewood Derby car OH made for me when the boys were in Cub Scouts. All good fun.



Observing Old Christmas is a wonderful way to relax and enjoy the decorations before they all get stowed again till next year.

about the use of souls as fuel for the Darkness-bomb, a thing that has bothered me before about the use and treatment of souls. It's likely a product of my Christian Protestant upbringing, but isn't the soul a person's *being*, and after death, that person's afterlife--whether in heaven, hell, or some other destination revealed and supported by that person's religion or faith?

So you live a good life, kind to your fellow beings, and doing what you can on earth to ease suffering, and you die in the expectation that your afterlife will be at least pleasant, hopeful meetings with your beloved ones who've gone on before you and will come after you. That the pain you endured in life will be repaid in peace and earned..."happiness," for lack of a better word at the moment.

So that's the deal you accept, and work toward earning, in life. And in death, you've achieved it. Then suddenly, your soul is one of thousands, millions, siphoned off to fuel some plan or other of beings vaster than your understanding, and their plans. "You," your essence, your soul, become nothing but a unit of measure, easily sacrificed and undone forever in some scheme you had no say in.

And my thought is, how can these forces be "for good" if they deal in people's *souls* like toothpicks in a card game?

Thrift shop china, the pot was $2.00, unmarked early 20th century American redware. The cream jug was a gift. Cream cheese and homemade raspberry-pomegranite preserves on half the rice cake, homemade lemon curd on the other.



Books, bears, tarot–Dreaming Way, Deviant Moon, Sun and Moon decks–and tea. The Peanut Gallery: Naomi Laight’s Georgiana, Steiff’s Snap-apart bear, assorted Steiff 10cm bears, one tiny artist’s bear, and Ralph, who started life as a keychain fob. Ralph and Timiny (Steiff, blue sweater) travel wherever I go, in a special pouch in my purse. The bears don’t care about tea, but they’re very fond of honey toast.

This is Hippocrates (first, do no harm), one of my artists' bears, and Virgil (named after the chimp in an old Matthew Broderick movie), the 1970s vintage Hermann chimpanzee. Devoted friends.