Every once in awhile I peek into the spam comments pile on wordpress to see what’s hanging around in there. It’s very rare to find anything that isn’t spam but it’s often amusing.

Tonight though I found this and I thought briefly that a real comment had been snatched up by the spam filter. Turns out, probably not, because looking closer, the address info was totally bogus. I’m going to put the message here as a quote though because it seems so humanly-written:

If fairies are closely entwined with nature, how can we interact with them? We have been apart from them for so long, that it’s not going to happen tomorrow. It is going to take a generation or more before they to begin to trust us and start to become part of our lives again, and then only in small groups. We have a group here. If everybody here began to consciously try to make contact with them, it could be the day after tomorrow, it could be many years before you could say “I actually saw a Faerie today”. But if you have children and you bring them up to believe, not in the ‘Fairy’ Faeries, but in Faeries as we are now talking about them, as beings of another area of being, another place of being, then they will grow up with a natural affinity that will make them aware.

ok. Maybe a human who’s a little borg’d.

I’m just going to say this once more. Rant mode ON

If I click on a link to something of interest – classes, workshops, whatever – and a PDF or .doc file pops up, I’m not going there. Let me say that again. I’m not going to download it and open it. Done. And I have a mac and am not so worried about viruses and all but most of your customers might be WIN users.

So let’s review: Things on the web should be in web-format files. You may include a link somewhere, “print-friendly PDF version here!” to be helpful but links on your website should lead to webpages, not files.

While I have your attention here’s part two of my rant. C’mon people, the web is not new anymore, nor is it hard to keep your info updated. October workshops; done. November sales; done.

PS. When you email me regularly, I sort of wonder why you don’t put your location and hours clearly in every single email. Yeah, that’s a good idea.

And finally, if I look at your website and it says you’re going to open every day at ten, I really DO expect your shop to be open at 10:15, especially when I get there at 10:15 and the sign on your door says 10:00 too. Do I know things happen, sure. Do I know this isn’t uncommon? Yes I do; people talk. I took my money elsewhere in good conscience.

Rant mode off. Went looking for two different things and ran into PDF/doc walls today.

It was a bit too cold to go forth and hunt wrens, so I stayed in and rummaged through the presents, worked on the photos (many taken by my brother Mike because my camera was across the room by him) and cleaned up the last of the veggie prep pans. Remembered that I had quite a bit of cider that I’d planned to mull with some spices and ginger. Threw that in the biggest stockpot, threw in all the spices and got it up to temp and let it do its thing.

Ordered something that I’ve had on my wishlist for quite awhile. Blam. Done. Then to celebrate, I poured myself a bit of cider with a shot of peach applejack in it. Yummy!

Now I’m going to find a bag for the wrapping papers and get this table cleared off again.

Here are some photos from the day. You can click on the individual photos or choose slideshow etc.

A great time was had by all. I failed in the photo taking department at dinner but we dined well on steak, carrots, green beans, roasted squash, caesar salad and wine with ice cream and cookies for dessert. Thanks everyone for a great day!

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Worked today and even though it was steadily busy with a few waves of almost-crazy busy, it was mostly fun and went pretty quickly. We started prepping to close when things settled down in late afternoon, re-stocking shelves and straightening up. I got to share a little happy dance with a co-worker over a moment of justice that one only dreams about! And then we were all heading home and the bulk of holiday was officially over.

Stopped to see Mom and Dad and had a nice sandwich and chat. Then it was home to prep veggies. I got quite a lot done (nothing like the jolt of really powerful caesar salad dressing!) – got squash cubes done and carrots and beans prepped so I think I’m pretty good.

Wrapped the last few presents, resorted everything and then – yes the moment everyone’s been waiting for – had the annual chistmas eve catnip party with the cats. They loved the new catnip mousies and now they’re all sleeping it off.