Hubby was always a fan of Bill the Cat with his “Arrrrgh..” exclamation for various situations. I am definitely having an “Arrrrgh..” situation. Back on Christmas Eve I discovered my computer was failing. We did some workarounds and bought a new computer. Just as I was getting mostly used to the differences in it, my main printer died. Really? I mean really? Fine, replaced that the other day with the usual transition woes. I’m not even going to get into Monday’s frustration when we tried to run a hybrid Zoom meeting using my new computer. Let’s say there were multiple problems which we think have been resolved.

This morning – and at least this is the one day this week I could deal with this – my new, spiffy computer would not come on. I tried the usual before bothering Hubby who did have morning boat which meant he couldn’t help any more it if he couldn’t get it going. He had no luck either and I had a Chamber of Commerce breakfast. So pack up the computer and go see the Geeks after the meeting. Fortunately, a tech was available and even thought for about 20 minutes there was an easy fix. Not happening as it turned out, and worse, it could take 2 or 3 days. As with lots of people, I have become so dependent on the computer that 2 or 3 days is going to be really hard to deal with. Now, if Hubby can fix me up with his laptop again and if he didn’t erase my files from the external hard drive he set up for me a few weeks ago, that will be mostly workable.

While I have my small travel computer, for some odd reason, I can’t connect to wireless on it upstairs. That of course makes no sense, but it doesn’t much matter. He gets in a little earlier today than if he had afternoon boat and I will do my best to let him catch his breath a bit when he gets home before he tackles trying to get me a temporary fix. I also really hope the Geeks come through with.

One morning while the kids were here, daughter-in-law spotted a hummingbird. I though she was mistaken at first because we hadn’t seen one yet. We don’t have the feeder as out it became rather nasty sitting out over the summer and I’m not sure it’s properly cleaned or if it needs to be replaced. Anyway, she was correct and we all saw it (less Hubby who was teaching). The thing is though, that was the only time. We are still somewhat puzzled as to why the neighborhood barely a mile away has hummingbirds year-round and at least up until now, we have only the migratory ones Nov-April. Last year, the two we had actually spent as much time in the front yard as in back so we didn’t see them very often.

We do have lots of butterflies and bees as the flowering shrubs in back are densely planted and now do overlap with each other to make pretty much a continuing stretch along the back fence. I still don’t know the name of all of them, but we have the Chocolate Raspberry which are kind of a trumpet type blossom, the giant milkweed which has grown very large, then some kind of red blossom – there may actually be two different kinds, and a yellow one. There will be times when we have as many as half-a dozen butterflies flitting about and always a few. They are predominantly the zebras, monarchs, a small yellow I don’t know the name of, and three or four other varieties. The bees are constant throughout much of the day. Granddaughter was a little concerned and we explained they were just there to gather pollen and wouldn’t try to sting.

We will keep close watch for the humming bird and we do still have the flock of green parrots that come over about once a day as they roam between neighborhoods. We usually have two or three at a time and occasionally as many as a dozen. Even if we don’t happen to see them because of the angle they are at, they are easy to hear.

The area for the tree is almost clear and we’ll probably decorate Saturday. We’ve had the tree a couple of weeks in the stand keeping it watered until we could get things rearranged. In watching a TV ad this morning, I was reminded of something from growing up. I don’t know who all had this and remembers. We had a special nut bowl made of wood with a center round piece where the nutcracker and six picks fit into. The grocery store carried bags of almonds, Brazil nuts, pecans, and walnuts in shells and the bowl stayed in use from Thanksgiving through Christmas. (New Year’s was not really a thing for us.) Even though we did often have pecans during the year (lots of orchards around us), this particular blend was only available during the holidays.

I may have posted before that Christmas Eve was always at my maternal grandparents with the gift exchange of having drawn someone’s name at Thanksgiving. It was more a “grazing event” than meal with extra sweets. Papaw gave each grandchild a stocking filled with fireworks and that was the climax of the evening. (Lots of room in the backyard for the roman candles.) Then it was back there for Christmas noon meal. It seems to me Christmas morning was cinnamon rolls after opening presents, although I may be mis-remembering that one.

When I began to work parttime at a department store I would arrive for Christmas Eve later due to closing time and the drive over, but the store was not open in the days where basically nothing was as there were no 7-11 type places then.

Since the kids don’t come down now until after Christmas, our tradition is quiet morning and usually day if the friends who do the dinner have everyone in at 6:00. If it’s a noon meal, that gets us home around 4:00 for a quiet evening. The New Year’s Eve party we do will be small this year as two of the couples have moved away.

Turns out our granddaughter won’t be in Nutcracker this year. She’s decided to try tap and apparently is liking it more than ballet. I’ve always been curious to see if she will stick with dance as she is literally growing up in the studio. She began to mimic movements about as soon as she could walk and quickly took to things as she could actually understand what they were. Even though three was the official age for kinder ballet, she was “playing at it” even before. With that said, her advantage won’t necessarily translate into a continued interest. Any parent who is realistic understands this although there is often a fine line between acknowledging a child should move on from an interest versus “don’t be a quitter”.

Our son was not a team sport player other than a couple of years in Little League. He was an okay player and it just wasn’t a good fit for him. Soccer was never much of an interest.Karate was where he did well from when we moved to Virginia all the way through high school. He did achieve his second degree brown belt, has a batch of trophies from tournaments and wasn’t far from black belt when he went to college (for that period), discovered dance, and utterly embraced that as I have discussed in numerous posts. I think the kids are philosophically prepared for granddaughter to not continue with dance if that is her choice, but it’s too early to try and project if that will be the case. I don’t know much about tap   even though they do always include it in the Spring and Fall shows.

As with many fans of “Game of Thrones”, (not one who follows the blogs or whatever though), I’d heard there was to be either a prequel or a sequel featuring the character of Arya Stark, who at the end of the series was sailing away to discover what lay beyond the well-known lands. The last of the dragons had disappeared with thoughts he would never be seen again.

It turned out they decided to go with a prequel instead, “The House of Dragon”, to show House Targaryen, the primary house with dragons, in power and set 200 years before the events that began in Game of Thrones when everyone thought the dragons were no more. Notwithstanding this series definitely has more dragons and we have seen them from egg hatching to training to mighty beasts and some interesting bits about how riders are selected. However, there are two specific issues most of us are commenting on. No one knows how many seasons are planned (Game of Thrones went for eight I think) and okay, 200 years have to be covered. They keep skipping chunks of years between episodes with no lead-in narrative to explain what has happened. There’s usually something in the written description, but as the episode opens you suddenly see things that have apparently occurred and in conversation a character might say, “Well, it’s been three years since you were here”. Ah okay, a lot can happen in three years. One episode had a ten-year gap and that one took a while to work through. The other point for a lot of us is the characters don’t seem to be as developed. Granted, characters in “Game of Thrones” were generally complex, yet several were more good than flawed and so far, there’s only really one that can be said of in “The House of Dragon”. Of course, as in “Thrones”, it’s not wise to get attached to a character as he or she may very well get killed. Anyway, Season 1 has ended with a couple of bloody deaths and the question as to if war for the true succession of the throne is inevitable. We shall see what the future brings.