I’m sitting with my lovely cats. I just had brunch, in a couple of hours. I will have dinner. I’m going to watch the end of the first Season of Bosch on my tablet and see if there are anything but Christmas movies on TV. 😹😀

I’ll probably binge my way through a few more seasons in the next couple of days. My floofy cat does not understand why I have to get up so frequently- he thinks he can sit on my arm or my lap for several hours without me having to move at all. My cats are very excited about Christmas/solstice/Hanukkah, etc.. They already know I bought them a lot of presents, new toys… The best. I’m already at work trying to return a gift someone sent me lol. 😹

My adult kitties got treated to some primo catnip/silvervine this morning.
Their toy box is already overflowing.

Sounds great 😁 We opened some presents but still two to go yet...

Because I am pretty sure everyone is weird. Have you met people?

But no, I don't think it's weird to like many diverse things and people.

I don't think you're weird at all. There's something about watching the midnight mass. I was brought up Catholic, been a non believer for a long time ... For some odd reason I will watch it if I'm awake. I don't feel any spiritual connection, I just like watching it. I think I smell the incense too. I'm with you on the humanity vote. I want to hope, I now have a grandchild. We need to capture some of the sixties vibe.. come on people, let's get together... I'm in my 70's and what ever happens probably will mean little to me. But, I have gigantic hopes for the future. For the young people with high hopes. It's their planet now. It's their life to have.

I don't think you're weird, but if so, we can be weird together.

I'm always optimistic that these alleged Christians will strive to be more like Christ.

Stephen Colbert was preempted by local programming here. And it takes me back. When I was 11 or 12 my family drove a few hours away to pick up my maternal grandmother on Christmas Eve. I was give the choice whether to go since I was old enough and we had a new puppy who I loved. But I went and the fog was so bad that my Dad drove up on the lawn of a motel and we ended up staying there on Christmas Eve - with no change of clothes and a puppy left alone at home in the kitchen. And Midnight Mass from the Vatican was what we ended up watching that night on the motel TV. BTW, the puppy was fine despite my mother's worries about the turkey that she'd left out on the kitchen counter to thaw.

I still remember my parents in the front driving/riding with their doors open so they could see the lines in the road. And the puppy was fine, I ended up training her myself and we had her for 15 years.

The basic message is awesome...

The details cause all the controversy.

No matter my own beliefs... I've spent MANY hours in historic cathedrals... love the vibes.

and a basic connection with the world.

not at all.

What if you were guided to hear that message
because you needed to hear the message of hope?

I'm sure there are very good reasons that you became an Atheist, however, try suspending
that for a moment and imagine that the God of us all agrees with you regarding the economic injustice we are dealing with.

You get the message.

Last edited Wed Dec 25, 2024, 02:30 AM - Edit history (1)

I hope I can find at least a replay here on the west coast.

I did find it. It starts in 2 minutes. Perfect!

Its such a grand ritual. I used to watch it every year just for that reason.

Last edited Wed Dec 25, 2024, 04:33 AM - Edit history (1)

The movie was written by Jean Shepherd.
He graduated from Hammond High in Hammond, Indiana.
I graduated from the same High School.
The story is about my hometown.

I tell people, I grew up in A Christmas Story

Christmas mass at the Vatican is one of the highest-budget drag shows out there! Enjoy!

but still an authoritarian.

...very evocative.

Mostly because 1) we wound up skipping St. Peter's Basilica when we were in Rome because a lot of it was undergoing renovations and I was having heatstroke; and 2) I wanted to see if the Holy Door opened to another dimension, a temporal rift, or a wormhole. Unfortunately, it did not.

I’m a Secular Humanist, I put people above gods. But love the study of religion. Favorite course in college was The Anthropology of Religion.
I try to never argue religion, but always ask great questions. Hope that’s not too passive aggressive.
I do find Taoism interesting and the concept of language. How we confuse the word or symbol for the thing and the mutual interdependence of polar opposites.

Rome was having a heat wave. Hubs and I were both raised Catholic, but neither of us are now. (I'm Pagan, he's Episcopalian). I wanted to see the Vatican Museum to see all of the stuff they stole from the Pagans. Plus, we had gone to an exhibition about the Sistine Chapel a few years ago, and wanted to see it in person. Between the heat, the stairs, and the crowds, I was having a horrible day. I almost passed out in the middle of St. Peter's Square. I just couldn't go anymore to see the inside of the Basilica. Plus, our guide said that a lot of stuff was behind scaffolding because it was being cleaned for the upcoming Jubilee.

We've decided to go back, probably in a year or two. In the off-season, when it's cooler. And when my walking gets better.

My favorite spot. Beautiful and less crowded.
Enjoy the coffee and great food.

A few days past the heatwave. I was in Calabria for that.

Much of Rome was covered in scaffolding as they were getting ready for the Papal Jubilee. Most people in Britain and America have never heard of it but it's a big deal in Italy!

Me and my wife didn't go inside St Peter's Basilica on account of the enormous queue to get in but I brought a few things from a Vatican bookshop and we went into a smaller Church on the way out of the Vatican and stayed while they had a little service.

The Basilica we did visit in Rome was St Paul's Outside The Walls and that is astounding.

Which is one of the bigger cathedrals in Rome. It was Sunday, so we sat in on Mass. It was beautiful. Unfortunately, we didn't get to some of the other churches that I wanted to see - mainly the one with Michelangelo's Moses, and the one with Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa. And, yes, we'll have to visit Assisi, too. We're thinking of doing an Italy-intensive tour in a year or two. We need to be able to walk better.

The amount of history there is insane.

I could easily spend a lot of time revisiting places that I've already visited taking in different sites in those places.

Although I'm glad we've visited Rome in 2024 instead of 2025 as the Jubilee this year promises to bring in even more crowds than normal.

One couldn’t survive without the other.

A "deplorable" practice, including it in his list of threats to global peace and human dignity, right along side the wars in Ukraine & Gaza, and climate change. So I really don't think he is worth paying any attention to.

And this is supposed to be the good/moderate pope. Honestly, at this point being extremely anti-woman and anti-LGBT is so core to the church's identity, that I can't see how anyone can be both a Democrat and a Catholic.