Open thread: the Strange Tales edition

December 25, 2014 • 9:00 am

This is the ghost of Professor Ceiling Cat, summoned forth by his minions to create a forum for discussion.  In the thread below you can talk about whatever you want.

emsh_1953_12_galaxy

Some of us are with family today, some of us not, some of us are at work. Welcome to those of you who drop by today. Pull up a chair and share a story with the rest of us, tales from the past, or present or future. True tales, or merely good tales.

Don’t forget that Coyneza reaches its zenith on Tuesday next week, so do drop him a note to mark the day of celebration.

121 thoughts on “Open thread: the Strange Tales edition”

  1. On WEIT, I’d halfway expect that the headline would have been “…the Strange Tails edition”.

  2. “Caution ! Check atmosphere and temperature”

    An apt warning for a Canadian winter, although this one, at least in SW Ontario, has been fairly mild.

    The weather channel is calling for methane storms and highly ionized radiation.

    Good day to stay indoors.

    1. We actually had thunder and lightning last night in sw Ontario. I thought someone’s Xmas lights were flashing and then BAM! Very strange.

      1. We also had thunder and lightning last evening, along with a rainy downpour. But in southern Florida, not so strange. With a mostly cloudy day, temperature is expected to be a cool 72 degrees F.

        Happy Holidays to PCC and all.

  4. happy holidays. The sun is staying longer here in the nh and summer heat will be waining down south we all have reasons to be happy and eat

  7. Love that pulp cover – happy holidays to everyone!

    Going to be a snowy one in CO, USA – up to a foot of snow here in Boulder. I can already see the weather coming over the mountains.

  8. Yesterday it rained all day. This morning when I pulled up my bedroom blind I was greeted with a picture perfect white Christmas; my crab apple trees’ branches covered in snow. Winter here in Sudbury, Ontario is certainly warmer than when I came here in 1966. Global warming is not a myth. Christmas, of course, is. Best wishes to PCC and everyone.

    2. Putting on my pedant’s hat…

      Christmas isn’t a myth! It’s going on right now.

      (But I take your point.)

    3. Here in Minneapolis, Minnesota there is zero snow and it’s been above freezing for several days. We had a streak of 50F a couple of weeks ago.

      But as surely as day follows night, the next time we have a single digit day my mom will barf up the tea-partier’s favorite trope: so much for global warming, huh?

      1. Same weather here in Michigan. Rained all day yesterday, gradually turning to snow. Maybe a quarter inch of snow on the ground late last nite so we were thinking ‘white Christmas?’ But no, it all melted as soon as the sun came up this morning.

          1. It’s been mild but windy here. Temps all above freezing until next week. That’s how the winter gods trick you – they give you a mild December then hit you with the hard stuff in January!

          3. Alas, a fellow birder has reported that today the swells were too high to go out on the piers, and tomorrow’s supposed to be the same. The ducks don’t like it either.

          6. Hey, I have a work friend who has a weekend house in Grand Haven. That is one pretty little town!
            So, have you seen the ‘magic fountain’?

  9. Speaking of strange tales – enjoy a few appropriate H. P. Lovecraft poems:

    Christmas

    The cottage hearth beams warm and bright,
    The candles gaily glow;
    The stars emit a kinder light
    Above the drifted snow.

    Down from the sky a magic steals
    To glad the passing year,
    And belfries sing with joyous peals,
    For Christmastide is here!

    Saturnalia

    From Morven’s Mead to Arcady
    Let bays the temple columns twine,
    Whilst wreathed throngs relax in glee,
    And tapers thro’ the darkness shine:

    For ev’ry frosty star above
    Prophetick spreads its twinkling beams,
    To cheer the dismal wintry grove
    With golden show’rs of vernal dreams.

    1. I was looking for some charming sample of Lovecraft writing about Cthulhu, but I found this first and thought it appropriate:

      “If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences.”

  10. Merry Christmas to all!

    I knew a fellow about twelve years ago, who was from India. He had two young daughters, and I asked him if they celebrated Christmas. He said, “Sure, you have to, it’s American.” Then he leaned in, conspiratorially, and said, “Besides, I read a lot about it, and it really doesn’t have anything to do with Jesus.”

  12. In keeping with the theme which some persons put to the papal – ly gregorian calendar – construct known to them as 25 December, here is a .t r u e. ( fetal ) presentation — — (and instead of that “virgin – y” parturition which quite likely / quite scientifically would have had Mama Mia – Mary, herself bleeding out all over inside a barnyard – y cowshed, succumbing to postpartum hemorrhage and / or puerperal / childbed fever) — — of the Returning of The Sun, er I mean, of the Rebirthing of The Son.

    I gave birth 35 years ago:
    “simple as that,” “my little doll” — Baby, Baby … … Baby !

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCW3P19t3tg#t=4

    Two other, very, very wee kiddos of mine, only 13 months old and 37 months old at the time on this date, 28 September 1979, needed to be looked after when, alone with only them beside me, I went in to labor with my and my belly’s third baby boy — then grown by me to bulldozing – maturity.

    I telephoned my daddy. His line was busy. I tried again; the line was still busy. This was 1979, around noontime: lunch time for the two with the weer one longingly and so, so sorrowfully stating up in to my eyes, “Mommy, I hungry.” At this plaintive plea of Jacob Thomas’ his two tiny hands gripping both of my kneecaps, I recall, at that time of the next pain, thinking how many women everywhere every hour registered in their ears and up in to their brains this same three – words’ mewling: the World over, “Mommy, I hungry.”

    Contractions were five minutes apart; membranes intact, but I was allegedly exactly three weeks past Dr Hesse’s oft – stated ‘due’ date so this was it: the real deal. O, and my father by the back road, the one that led right in to the university housing complex’s parking lot, was over 30 miles away. At least and fortunately, the blacktop wasn’t iced over; it was September in Iowa, not February. Again … Daddy’s telephone line was still busy.

    I pressed the ‘ 0 ‘ on my telephone’s pad; and when an actual voice came back in to my ear, stated to it thus, “I don’t know if this is an emergency enough, ya’ know, enough of a reason to try to break in to my daddy’s line, Operator, I truly don’t. I am having labor pains every five minutes; I’m overdue, ‘nd it’s my third baby, and aaah, ah, well, my daddy needs to come to look after my other two little ones. No one else is here. He has to come, well, quite a ways actually. Um, it’s over a 30 – mile drive at least. Do ya’ think … … ? ”

    “HELL YES, Woman ! Now ! I’ll do THAT right now ! What’s his phone number ? Now ! And you, you Woman, call your doctor right away. Do it now. Hang up and do it now ! I am breaking in to your father’s conversation right now. I’ll get ‘im there. Call your doctor. ”

    Willard Albert William Maas drove, I know he did, around that blacktop’s four S – curves and the rest of its length upwards the entire stretch of mileage at over 90 miles per hour, screamed his “baby” – blue Seville to a halt into the lot’s parking space at nearly a 45 – degree, askewed angle; and we three watched Daddy on those O – so spindly tibial pins of his and with that already thrice – attacked ( at least once by that poliomyelitis virus of 1939 through 1941 ) heart – muscle actually .run. himself over to our itty – bitty apartment’s front door.

    Knowing precisely two things: i) that Jacob Thomas and Zachary Adam would now not only both be heartily fed but also well looked after and ii) at where inside that building its labor and delivery suite was located, I did not wait for any wheelchair nor elevator – lift but, instead, climbed the four flights of back stairsteps from the hospital’s entrance to it.

    The crown of the head of Micah Abraham Zebulon was exiting as I listened to Dr Hesse’s wingtips clamoring down the hallway. He burst in to the delivery room, grabbed off of the equipment table a sterilized towel, turned around from it to me; and, exhaling that last Lamaze – laboring breath of mine at 2:16pm, I finished … … this particular matter.

    Blue

    4. Great story, Blue.

      Reminds me–I always love it when the woman spends ten or more hours in labor, the doctor arrives for the last five, then says he delivered the baby.

      1. I am reminded that my wife, even with the help of epidural meds, had some hard labor with all three of our daughters: she is all of 5’4″ and not much over 100 lbs when not pregnant; all three girls were over 8 lbs (the last was 8 lbs 13 oz) at birth and had, as wifey put it, my “gigantic” head.

        The ob who “delivered” the second baby had to take a phone call and said we’d be having a c-section if baby wasn’t out very soon. While the doctor was in the hallway talking on her cellphone, wife and baby were ready for the final push so then the nurses were urging her to hold off until the doctor came back – turns out it doesn’t work that way, and our daughter flopped right out onto the bed.

        If we’d had complications or required the c-section obviously the ob’s presence would have been crucial, but “delivering” in this case involved watching a nurse hold the baby while I cut the cord and then observing the initial weigh-in, evaluation and cleanup by two nurses. It’s just funny to me how unnecessary, almost in-the-way, the physician seems when everything goes well – and obviously I’m glad our deliveries were uneventful. And I hoped at the time things were just as uneventful for whoever was on the other end of that doctor’s call!

        1. “…how unnecessary, almost in-the-way, the physician seems…”

          Exactly. That ol’ uterus takes over and we just cooperate. (Actually, it will proceed whether we do or don’t.)

          Sometimes we wish it would hurry-the-hell up, though.

          Nice story! I don’t think much of a physician taking a phone call at that moment. I had a “modern” nurse-midwife for all three of my deliveries…for the first, a doctor “stood by” after 18 hrs of labor, “just in case”…but ultimately Linda (RN-midwife), Niels (new son) & I did it “by ourselves.” 🙂 (I played a starring role.)

          (Note to ZPG-ers…which includes me…the middle one died; and the third was born when I was 41, so almost a next-next generation kid.)

        2. Oops, ManOutOfTime, I didn’t mean to disparage you! We actually need rationalists to reproduce more than they do!

  13. Here in the Okanagan valley of British Columbia we are snow free. Merry Christmas to all here, even to a certain Red Sox fan 🙂

    1. WEIT Keyholder Ms Spingies:

      System weird.
      Please altogether delete the second of same posts.

      Thank you.
      Blue

          1. I mean So Happy. I was on a real keyboard that time I think. I must be losing my marbles.

  17. I have spent over half my life in the Middle East and when I first came over here Christmas was a non event for the most part. Was very rare to find anything related to it in the stores unless you went to the expat compounds etc. which I never did as I was married to an Arab. Over the years I grew accustomed to not celebrating it (all alone etc) and eventually I stopped missing it all together. The past few years have seen a huge influx of Christmas and now it looks just like any American store with trees and decorations etc. yet the habit or desire to celebrate it hasn’t returned.

    I’m an atheist now and the “reason for the season” no longer matters to me but I always liked the lights and good fellowship the season brought with it. I do still enjoy those parts.

    2. Haven’t much felt like “going to the trouble” here either, since the kids left. Wouldn’t mind if someone baked me some cookies, though.

    1. Oh, yeah! I saw this (on Colbert?, cannot recall). Its from this plumber in Texas, and he really has no idea how one of his trucks turned up in Syria. He has been getting a lot of unwanted attention b/c of this.

      1. He’s from Texas City, the “mainland” part of Galveston County. I grew up near there. everyone should be aware that if you sell a vehicle anywhere in the Houston/Galveston area it could end up in Mexico within five days after being auctioned three times, or it could be far out to sea to anywhere in the world in a week. It really can happen just that fast.

        I notice that the truck has its Texas registration tag and its pollution control tag. I’d say that was careless, but there were probably multiple middlemen involved.

        If you have a car that’s in high demand on the international market, you’ll never see it again if it’s stolen. Don’t buy a Buick. The Chinese love them.

    3. I think the joke I heard about it was something like: “Don’t call us if you want to start a war of jihad; but if all you want is a couple ‘o pipe bombs, then we can meet you half way’!

  19. When I was a little kid, my family was the poor family in the parish. (An Episcopal parish – there weren’t many poor families) Every holiday season children would walk up the aisle to put food into food collection boxes during offering. Then on Thanksgiving our pastor would show up at the house with a grocery bag full of all we’d need for the holiday meal. Including canned yams. We hated yams. So then for Christmas, not wanting people to know we couldn’t afford to give food away, I’d go up the aisle with the can of yams and put it into the box.

    …and then we’d get it back on Christmas.

    To this day I still won’t eat yams.

    1. Try baking one (or even better, if you have a woodburning stove, split it and cook on the griddle) and eating with just salt and butter. It’s the only way they do anything for me.

      1. Baked they are excellent, IMO. But I can understand how canned yams might put off them for life.

  20. Anyone counting birds? My single Christmas activity is helping coordinate a CBC – Christmas Bird Count. This was the 9th year for our count circle, on the Maine coast. We had 58 species. My own favorite sighting was a barrows goldeneye, also happy to see purple sandpipers. The birds are great, but so are the people who participate, and we have fun getting together at dusk.

  21. For years, my husband and I have had a Winter Solstice feast. For many weeks, we enjoy searching for recipes we’ve never had that sound delicious and make up the ultimate menu. When we were younger, we tried to cook it all and eat it on the holiday. Now we spread it out over a week or two. The first recipe we’ll try this season is “Spicy Lacquered Duck”. Last year we had a wonderful “Mediterranean Leg of Lamb” that was fantastic.

    Any special recipes you’d care to share would be much appreciated. May whatever you celebrate in this season bring you joy.

    1. Yummy! With what is the duck lacquered?

      I’m going to cook a shoulder of lamb for 24 hours at I believe 160F for New Year’s Eve guests. Made it last year and it was truly Agnus Dei. You add some potatoes the last 6 hrs or so. Also a bit of garlic and rosemary and s&p. The house smells divine, and the poor poochie droooools.

          2. Agnus dei, qui tollis peccata mundi…

            I would try to take away (tollis) your sins for some of that dish.

            Of course, Yahweh may not recognize my authority to do so.

      1. I don’t want to alarm you, but it appears to be snowing on your web site. 🙂

        Thanks for the cookbook link!

    3. For Xmas day I cooked duck on the charcoal bbq. The day before, I brushed it with a marinade made from dark soy sauce, coconut oil, garlic and sugar then left it in the fridge uncovered to let the skin dry out. It was fantastic.

    4. A friend who runs an inner city meat market bought a case of fresh cranberries, which of course nobody was buyubg. So just to help him out, I bought a few pounds, despite not ever having cared for them that much.

      So then, a dilemma. What to do with the damn things. I hit upon a pie, and it seemed like apples would be needed. A quick net search confirmed that people do things like that, so without further input another pal and I made a first attempt, which was only just OK. But by culinary imagination it seemed that using more apples, diced dried figs & raisins, plus cardamom and cinnamon would do it. And it did! It would go wonderfully with your duck, or a good ham.

      So, cook up the cranberries and apples together to a nice thickness, then add sugar figs & raisins. Add the spices. Pour into a pie shell and bake.

    5. About the cookbook. I don’t know which package you put it together in before saving it as a pdf. I use LibreOffice. Its export to pdf function works and using heading levels to make hierarchical bookmarks (= index) and inserting cross-references (if you want to direct users from one recipe to another) are easy with it. Doing all this is a little work, would make your cookbook easier to use.

  22. Someone turned around my TP. I think it was my mother as revenge for doing it at her house.

        1. No, she’s not helpful. She spent most of her time whining with excitement because she saw presents & several were for her. I videoed her desperately trying not to be bad & steal the presents to rip open.

          3. Here it is – this should work (from my Box account).

            I didn’t bother editing it, just made it smaller. I have other videos where she opens a present & runs happily through the house with it as well. She is a real character.

          4. So, how long have you specialized in torturing d*gs?

            😀

            What a sweetheart–and such a good girl!

          5. I know – poor thing. She was a very good girl keeping in all that excitement. I think I like Xmas mostly for the dog. I kept saying that I couldn’t wait for her to open her gifts & I wrap them in a way that is fun for her to rip them open.

          7. My former pooch , a real chowhound, on 2 separate occasions ate a whole fruitcake and a bunch of very fancy venison jerky from under the tree. We had no idea there was food in the packages, but the nose knew. ( knowed?)

          8. Same here, also with a fruitcake. Foil and all.

            On another occasion she stole and ate a complete bag of M & M’s from one of the kids’ stockings. Worried about theobromine, we called a vet hotline. Them: “How much did she eat?” Us: “Dunno. She ate the wrapper too.”

          9. Yup…just a few tiny pieces of foil left. Had to call my pre-mother-in-law and thank her for the gift and ask, by the way, what was it? Fortunately she loves dogs.

          10. I had a dog that ate a most of a garbage can sized amount of kibble. We were worried about bloat & her tummy was tight as a drum. She recovered okay though – that was my own dog when I was 10.

          12. Ouch! My dog ate a pebble that was almost the size of my palm. We heard her wretch then the sound of a clunk as the pebble came out.

            About a month ago, I gave her a small beet about twice the size of a grape. She didn’t chew it then threw it up a couple of days later looking exactly the same as it did when she swallowed it.

            You’d think her tummy would really hurt but she didn’t seem to complain.

          14. I’m actually proud of my high-stim dog. I worked with her a lot so she wouldn’t counter surf & she’s very good that way though she did get caught tonight stealing a piece of stollen cake from the table. She was chastised & felt bad for about 30 seconds.

  24. Thanks for the old Galaxy cover. I don’t remember this issue but I’m pretty sure I was subscribing to Galaxy (the all time best SF magazine!) that year.

    It’s cool here in southern Los Angleles county with a cold Santa Ana blowing in from the desert. Driving back from Riverside this morning the tumbleweeds were blowing across the freeway.

  26. No tales to tell, so I’ll just throw in some quotes:

    “If you don’t like my opinion of you, you can always improve”
    –Ashleigh Brilliant

    I thought about being born again, but my mother refused.
    — lapel button

    I have opinions of my own – strong opinions – but I don’t always agree with them.
    –George Bush #41

    When 2 strange creatures meet, the likely outcome is 1 of what we biologists call the 4 “F”s: fighting, fleeing, feeding, or romance.
    — Jack Cohen

  27. What should I read next?

    My Kindle is full of books I’ve read. What should I load onto it next?

    1. One species of megapode (velociraptor-sized, mound-nesting galliform bird) that used to be considered at risk of extinction through overhunting and habitat destruction is becoming very abundant along parts of Australia’s east coast including cities. In Sydney they’ll join the similar-sized white ibis, which has been a city bird since the late 70’s or early 80’s when the streets and parks stopped being controlled by wandering domestic dogs. Probably dependent on control of foxes as well.

      1. Sorry, that wasn’t meant to be a reply!

        But this was: books you haven’t read yet.

  28. Happy Newton’s birthday (Dec 25) to all who frequent this site. Newton gave us the greatest gift of all, gravity, without which we’d all be spaced out (maybe we are anyway). Go easy on the eggnog.

  30. Christmyth present from Francesca Stavrakopoulou
    on BBC radio 4, “The Infinite monkey cage”
    saying that she thinks the Jesus nativity story is myth.

    Brian Cox and Robin Ince are joined by Brian Blessed, astronaut Chris Hadfield, bible scholar Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou and the Reverend Richard Coles (instrumentalist for Jimmy Somerville / Communards) for a very special festive edition of the show. They’ll be taking their own unique look at the Christmas story and the history of the bible and asking whether the christmas story and your view of humanity changes once you’ve look back at earth from the heavens themselves
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04vjb5y
    or
    http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/timc/timc_20141225-2330a.mp3?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

  31. Just came across (wife brought it to my attention) one of Professor Ceiling Cat’s best quotes.

    “In religion, faith is a virtue. In science, faith is a vice.”

    It’s quickly become one of my favourites.

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