Marching Orders

1. Assembling the Marching Band.
They are going to parade on the Stone Arch Bridge across the Mississippi River tomorrow, Christmas Day! 

I am making sure their instruments & SHOES are firmly attached, because it might be windy out. For the first time ever, besides tiny rubber bands I am using a touch of Elmer's glue for security.

It will be a big production:
only about a third of the band members have assembled so far:

2. I'll be making curtains for Playground House, hopefully before New Year's.
BELOW: 1970s fabric from the thrift store (w/ my bear ear muffs that were "free" not "three" dollars at work).

 

3. Thank you, you who sent Christmas cards. 
Funny that my blog-friends DO send paper mail. Or, not so funny--despite blogging online, we on Blogger tend to be pretty analog. 

I keep in touch lightly with Darwi, a friend from a long-ago blog about her experience in the Bosnian War. She lives in the US now, but she was a teenager in Bosnia during the 1990s. 

We'd bonded over loving Star Trek, and this Christmas she wrote me a poem: 

To amazing friend, a Trekkie true and kind,
With hope for all and others on your mind
May Christmas light your course through space and time
Live long, prosper, and may your stars align!

I got kinda choked up about this. 
As I just was saying, city life (or any life) can be wearying and ugly. Darwi's poem calls up the BEST PART of me that is a Trekkie.

 Star Trek always posited that Earth went [will go] through a near-apocalyptic war (wearying and ugly) before we get to the other side, where Kirk and Spock and Picard, et al. live--a world (if not a universe) of peace and cooperation.

We may not see the other side, 
we are only called upon to hold the faith.
This cheers me up. Just...

March on! 

Hold on! Maybe use some glue.