terrible, rotten, unethical, monstrous pig

Coronation Fact Check, Live Update
response: Bernie Sanders Goes Scorched Earth on President Bone Spur's Inaugural Speech

the valley of the smokes, a glass jaw, the cinque terre

LA is on fire!! the santa anas are not just speaking, but roaring. james sez the LA basin is water on one side, mountains on the other, & the people of old called the area the valley of the smokes! i know the biggest one of all is on the west side. lots of wealth, LOTS. hope every one of the people affected by these fires has insurance that pays, & that the rest of us are able to absorb the blow when it affects our own premiums. bc you know it's gonna be rich to replace those mansions, restaurants, yachts, six-figure rides, & etc.

my cousins all are brilliant, but one in particular also got up to the 3rd rung working for elon musk, & he lives in the fires. he took his wife & child to safety. "we're not worried," he told his dad, my brilliant, kind uncle. "we're in a hotel." he could buy the hotel, james quipped.

i hope most people burned out of their lives have similar resources. but i think that's not the case.

have heard some of the blazes could be arson. humans are always the problem. always.

been having these bad pains, earaches & stabs in the skull & jaw, missed work, & being a hypochondriac, went wild on webmd & convinced myself i was a step from the grave. visited the young medico up here & he said it was tmj. it can happen when you talk a lot, he explained. i'm a teacher & a performer & i do a lot of singing, i said, & he said, that's it. i got a shot in the keester & meds & was on my way.

looked at my paperwork. he had diagnosed me as having a dislocated jaw.

turns out you can get one if you do the above, but also 3) eat crunchy or difficult-to-gnaw foods; or 4) yawn or sneeze with too-wide-a-mouth.

so beware..... of the snapping glass jaw!!

feeling much better now, stopped the meds, been doing these jaw exercises, & we happily spent the day working on our abode. it's january, but we've had the house open all day. the weather's that balmy. somehow that seems it could be related to the fires, but i dunno. climate seems wackier than when i was a kid, but maybe it's just that now i pay attention to it.

this picture is us at a stop on our vacation trip to palm springs. we ended up at the spaghetteria (bc it was next to a junk store), run by the rossis of florence. the waitress seemed brusque, so i went to the can with an attitude, spying walls lined with pix of movie stars & gangsters. on the way back to our table, an old woman who looked so familiar grinned at me from the kitchen with friendly snaggly teeth & sparkly downturned eyes. i used to see such faces when dad's italian family would assemble. i felt comforted, warm, even. the food came & the plain pasta was so much better than i could've dreamed, & james said his pizza was the best he'd ever had. as we left, a video show that had been going displayed the cinque terre, which is where grandpa gia came from. look look! i exclaimed. the gias are from there! la spezia. i was there lifetimes ago, but all i remember is seeing the pope on tv on sunday morning.

"wow, it's so beautiful," james said. "i wanna go there. let's go there."

i felt so happy bc now, with the changes james's made in his life & consequently ours, we might be able to do that. we'll just see.

a long life well-led

you can sign the condolence guest book and or donate here: jimmy carter center

santa claus is coming in a big black cadillac!!!!

we had the chango jam where we got to see little micky, her amazing 80 yr old roadie mama isabelle, ruben, jaime & daria, & others. at the school christmas show the next eve, we got to see my new boss mr m dancing & candy cane twirling like a parade majorette, dressed in high christmas dorky fun as mr gingerbread man. the guy will do anything to make the kids happy. james crouched in the sound area w/the great soundguy dwight as the 2nd-4th graders performed. mine came out & did their two elvis numbers. here is an awesome pic of two of my elvises (there were four).

how it worked out was we studied elvis's moves, his facial expressions, how he sang, how everyone either wanted to go out with or be elvis, then we had "elvis auditions" in class. every third grader that completed the audition (two ran off "the stage," which was simply the middle of the classroom) got to be part of the elvii show crew. as you can see, these two excelled in the costume department, & one, the jailhouse rock elvis, in the poses. the other, vegas elvis, did the mike & arm swing moves at showtime. all was cool, a bit strange mebbe, but great fun tho james reported some in the back row looked petrified w/stage fright. we'd had several sessions about how to overcome that, but i guess if you're only 8 yrs young & haven't been much on a stage, it's gonna happen... vacation has started & all is swell. happy holidays. :)

don't think the magic's gone

i got the best possible news & decided to make a video: https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipOUDlV0j1ji_0FOvKjS935mkatqw-jlFg0F6jaP

let's get ready to jingle & rock! "rockin' around the christmas tree at the christmas chango jam..."

here's the updated flyer. if you are nearby, please come to the show! manuel's (big manny's) high school's music program appreciates the support, plus it will be a great eve to pre-celebrate the holidays!

my sweet baboo, & sister, too

thanks to the u.s. gov (and childhood, teenagedom, & adulthood), my sweet baboo has had struggles. realization of these led to his decision last month to seek assistance. 24 days later, thanks to my sister, driver angie, i was able to travel to the nevada desert to visit my sweet baboo. we had such a nice time. here are pix: james & i times many, james posing on his balcony, then sister angie & i at omega mart las vegas & calico ghost town, & finally, back home with the mammal children. this was the first time my sister & i had a trip together, just the two of us. this made the whole adventure doubly special. may your holidays be gentle.