Took a hike today to a shared secret spot. Scattered some ashes and remembered. If you can't be nostalgic on Christmas, then when else?

RIP, String. Thanks for all the miles.

source: https://bsky.app/profile...

"Christmas advice for ladies courtesy of the Dundee Courier (1930-1934)"

Ages ago, I used to blow glass and made a bunch of these ornaments for my friends and a set for myself. Finally, the kids are old enough and we are without jumpy pets, so I can finally put them up on our tree!

I mostly do Solstice and Hanukkah lately but I've been enjoying our local newspaper's Kid Holiday Art. There's a special section in the newspaper where local businesses (Mass Mutual Aid is one, so thank you all) support a drawing. Kids get to see their stuff in the paper. Businesses get to support kids and the paper. It's win/win/win. See for yourself, there's some fun stuff in there.

https://www.ourherald.com/articles...

Some more detail and greatest hits at these Bluesky posts of mine.

https://bsky.app/profile...

Source: https://jakubmarian.com/christma...

Merry Christmas MLTSHP Fam! This clip popped up on my Insta feed. I'm a fan of Magic Eye, so naturally I did the trick with this and, well, mind blown.

With all sincerity, I love you all. MLTSHP has helped me through some tough times this year. The holiday season is a rough time for me. It's my 31st December with the post office, and like Jason Isabel says, it gets easier but it never gets easy. This one has been particularly rough. My dad is 88 years old. With the exception of a few years he spent fresh out of college in the big city, he's lived in small towns all his life. He had a big five bedroom home on five acres in a town of maybe 300. It has been too much for him to take care of for a few years, so he finally sold his home and moved to Utah County in a much smaller townhome so my sisters could be closer to him and help him out. When I saw him at Thanksgiving, I could see how hard this necessary choice has hit him. He looked like - I don't know. He's always been this guy who's always going, always has some home improvement project going, had a huge shop where he could turn a pile of lumber into magic. It was devastating to me to see him like this, and it really tore at me for some reason. Pile that on with all the other holiday madness postal workers deal with, and you get one Lockjaw who almost had a nervous breakdown. Like my SO and I came close to parting ways.
When I felt at my lowest, MLTSHP was there with its quirky sideways trees, killer music, and all the rest of the insanity to pull me out of the funk. So thank you my friends. Thank you for being here.
Now you'll have to excuse me. It seems the pollen count is unusually high for this time of the year.

Have a very merry Christmas!

Ludwig is worn out from too many guests.

A Pair of Catmas Trees

continuing the “take a tired assed selfie” trend once again. this time it was in the mirrored backboard of an antique bureau/cabinet in the spare bedroom where i’ve been sleeping this visit.

my dad had a procedure done earlier in the week. he has made significant progress since he had a stroke earlier in the year, being able to walk a bit and do some things, but his doctors suggested a line of therapy using implanted magnets to stimulate nerves and muscles in his still-paralyzed left arm.

they had to travel down to my town to get the procedure done, and my mom and i spent a long day in the waiting room, followed by a long drive back to their home.

as with every year, trying to clean up my mother’s hoarding, my dad’s “nest” junk, trying to do things for them while i’m here. i’m always trying to offer my help regularly to keep them above water but it’s so hard to negotiate the stubbornness.

anyway, boy oh boy, happy holidays.

My doctoral thesis is due for submission on 9th January 2026. Potato and I are learning to work together under time pressure as he proofs each chapter and then works with me to fill in the remaining blanks. We agreed to celebrate shit only after a draft of the whole manuscript is ready for my supervisor's review on the 30th, this month.

I will return.

source: https://bsky.app/profile...

little ongoing project where i photograph something every time i visit my dismal hometown. (my parents are so so sedentary that i go batshit crazy just sitting on the couch in silence with them, so i take a walk or two a day around town.)

this installment: a “drive thru” liquor store (AND storage service?) down the way from my parents’ house. yes, the blue is THAT blue.

fujifilm x100f | velvia | ISO 1600
color corrected in pixelmator for iPad
on my flickr:
https://www.flickr.com/photos...

some other entries in the project in this album:
https://www.flickr.com/photos...

via https://www.instagram.com/p...

Knitting adventures continue. This isn't super ambitious technically, other than two colors its all very basic stitching, but I'm very pleased with it as an art object.

source: https://www.reddit.com/r...

The weather here in Georgia is bright and sunny, the wind warm, and pleasant, the children are out on their powersports gifts: bikes, and carts, and scoots and things that bark and whirr. They laugh and zoom to and fro. I am here for it. A beautiful day is always a gift. I may awaken one of my ancient rumbling toys and join them... because to the young, even when you have no where to be, speed is holy, and I like feeling young now and then...

Just happened to be visiting family in Maryland and came into town to sightsee for the day, and couldn’t let the holiday pass without taking care of business.

And no, I don’t think he’s home right now.

Merry Christmas, my friends. Keep fighting.

Lots of candles still around following the SF blackout. Glad Yule Tidings!

Sunset Cook Book of Breads
1974
p29

source: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod...

// Explanation: Yes, but could you get to work on time if the Moon looked like this? As the photographer was preparing to drive to work, refraction, reflection, and even diffraction of moonlight from millions of falling ice crystals turned the familiar icon of our Moon into a menagerie of other-worldly halos and arcs. The featured scene was captured with three combined exposures two weeks ago on a cold winter morning in Manitoba, Canada. The colorful rings are a corona caused by quantum diffraction by small drops of water or ice near the direction of the Moon. Outside of that, a 22-degree halo was created by moonlight refracting through six-sided cylindrical ice crystals. To the sides are moon dogs, caused by light refracting through thin, flat, six-sided ice platelets as they flittered toward the ground. Visible at the top and bottom of the 22-degree halo are upper and lower tangent arcs, created by moonlight refracting through nearly horizontal hexagonal ice cylinders. A few minutes later, from a field just off the road to work, the halo and arcs had disappeared, the sky had returned to normal -- with the exception of a single faint moon dog. //

Seen on blue sky.

Happy holidays friends

Peace for all of us. Christmas dinner was cozy and delicious. The day was blue sky and the central valley rimmed with clouds. Hooray!