Happy Holidays

I'm trying to not be political here, but I just can't stop myself from pointing out irony.

Certain conservatives (who claim to be Christian, but do little to deserve the title) are apparently upset yet again this year that those of other faiths might not like the greeting "Merry Christmas."

To crystalize their cause, they have launched a war on the greeting "Happy Holidays."

So, a group that believes that other groups should suck it up and accept their holiday greeting (because this is America!) are very upset that other people would use a different holiday greeting. How rude to try to impose your holiday greeting on others! Hmmm....

Can't we just pick our own holiday greetings? I thought it was fun in college to wish my Jewish boss a Happy Hanukkah and my Wikkan coworker a Happy Winter Solstice. They responded in kind, wishing me a Merry Christmas.

But then, I don't think religion is the right issue to treat peoply poorly over. And my best friend from high school (a Muslim) was the person who started our Christmas gift exchange (her family celebrates Christmas as both a secular American holiday and a day to remember Jesus, who is, for them, a prophet of Islam).

What the dog did

Toby, now nearly 7 months old is/has:

• Peed on my bathroom rug three times. He is now not allowed in the bathroom while unattended.
• Rolled off the couch while chewing on his treat ball. He loves that thing. It makes him almost happy to go into the laundry room when I'm leaving for work, since he gets a full ball-o-treats each day.
  
• Formed a relationship with my couch pillow. And he's fixed!
  
• Chased & tackled my shoes in an odd game of puppy-on-shoe football. Fortunately, the shoes were unharmed.
  

Work is rolling along. Only 11 more work days until Christmas vacation! My sister Laurie will be here for 9 days & we will have lots of fun (so long as it's free). And my parents will be here for 3-4 days, where they will take us to a play & dinner. And Laurie & I will cook a very fancy dinner.

I've been crazy cooking lately. On Sunday, I made Butternut Squash soup, with red potatoes, parsley, and curry powder. The only tricky part was getting the skin off the squash after I finished baking it. But, I got four meals out of one 1.99 squash.

Tuesday I made carrot soup. Similar ingredients to the Squash one, but the carrots never quite cooked down, so I had to run it through the blender. After that, it was very tasty & creamy, though not as good as the Squash.

Today, I turned a slightly brown pear into a sauteed pear desert, with dried cranberries ans walnuts. Healthy, if you don't count the butter!

I think I'm going to try to cook squash ravioli over Christmas, since my mom got me a pasta maker a few years ago (manual, so lovely & old school). All my recipes are from the super awesome book, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, which I highly recommend :)