A Holiday Update

Hello Sweet Things,

I would have posted sooner but as with everything the holidays have caught up to me and I have just enough time to post this before I'm off again.

Thanksgiving with the family was wonderful, I'll post that more in full later, but it was so good to be with them and their friends. Traveling by train is the only way to go, you just have to add a little more time that's all.

And the season has started, where I work staff is encouraged to put up Christmas decorations, we have one person who also celebrates Kwanzaa and she puts that up as well, and even though we also have several staff who are Jewish they also get into the Christmas festivities as well, for it is a season of celebration and to bring goodness and light into the world.

But we were also hit with a firestorm of illness last week, last Friday several staffers came down ill with high fever and they were vomiting, then more of them total 16 all together, right through Tuesday, even I was hit by whatever it was, I had a temp of 102, fortunately it broke but I didn't go to work until Tuesday. No one was sure if it had been a form of food poisoning or if it was the flu, management had the entire work place sanitized and we did much of our work from home during that day.

I'm fine now and I called my family to see if anyone had come down ill but nothing, fortunately they were able to get their flu shots and I had been unable to get mine, but nothing is being ruled out. Lillian was able to help me but I was frighten that she would come down ill as well, but so far she is just fine.

I had been planning on going to my country place last weekend for some Christmas events but being ill just upset those plans, but I managed to contact my caretakers and my renters at my other house to see how they are doing all is well with them, My caretakers were disappointed that I couldn't come up but they promised to send pictures to me. Next year I am going to get that flu shot early. I'm not missing out on a thing.

But I am going to see how the place looks in January. Get an idea of weather conditions.

So Lillian and I are still getting into the Christmas season, today we are going to the Dickens Fair and tomorrow to Christmas at Dunsmuir House, I've also been enjoying (while I wasn't ill) shopping, and getting gifts for the family, nothing drastic but something special. And Koit Radio has been playing throughout the office with it's Christmas Music, I have to confess I prefer Ertha Kit's version of "Santa Baby" much better than Madonna's. But Mariah Carey's rendition of "Joy to the World" makes one want to get up and shout.

I'm going to be taking the train down to the family again just a few days before Christmas and come back a few days after, Dad and Mom want to go to Midnight Mass and I think that will be wonderful and very special, then returning to the Bay Area so I'll be here for New Years.

I've also been busy getting toys for Toys for Tots and I'm dropping them off at the collection office before we go to the Dickens Fair, Lillian wants me to come and help her out at the Food Kitchen for New Years Day and join her family later for dinner, Frank and Joe will be coming by her place as well. Yoshi is being swarmed by family for the next few weeks, but she and I are planning to see the Chinese New Years Parade next year.

2010 is almost here, where has 2009 gone to? When I look over my blog I have a feeling of what I have been doing for 2009, I'm another year older, and I hope another year wiser. And so far we have been weathering the economic situation better than I had hoped. I just wish it were so with many other people, many of my co-workers think that the current administration is not going about this the right way. Jobs need to be brought back to the United States, people need to learn to live on less, and the prices for houses in California are not in sync with the rest of the nation.

One of my co-workers was saying we should go back on the gold and silver standard and get away from the credit standard, that would make the value of things more in balance and in line with the way the economy should be. I'm not sure, this is something that should be looked into very carefully, because the first nation that would switch to that standard would have very serious adjustments and it could cause either greater recession/depression or inflation, but would it really bring about a balance of things or make them too costly? This would need to be looked at more closely, but not now, this is not the season for it, this is the season for celebrating and helping.

And speaking of weather, there has been snow all the way down to the 500 foot level, snow on Mt Diablo, Mt. Tam and Mt. Hamilton, and cold, cold, cold for the Bay Area. Now it's wet, very wet, but we need the rain and water and snow, I hope that it breaks the drought conditions, of course it will mean floods and mudslides, and other disasters. I love the Bay Area but there are times.....

Well must go, Lillian is here looking like an Eskimo and ready to go.

If I don't post before Christmas, Sweet Things, all of you have a Merry Christmas, Happy Holiday, Happy Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and other Winter Celebrations.

Until later Sweet Things, Kisses.