Christmas 2019 in the Rear View Mirror

Christmas 2019 at the Mother Ship in Queens.

Before more time passes, some images to record the day ... a mish mash of Mother Hen hobbies (that’s right, the plants have taken over the upstairs bathroom), Papa Rooster eccentricities (juxtaposition of scale model of house and erratic holiday lighting of actual house), and my hobbies/just being...

Wooden Snoopy, painted at a classmate's party sometime during the latter half of elementary school.

Santa socks, snow globe pajamas.

Mama's African violets.

Papa's model of the Mothership.

Papa's lights for the coming year.

Burlap wrapped gift with recycled ribbon and card tag.

Haphazard tree lights.

A lot lamp post.

Mama's amaryllis.

Bathroom jungle, by the only southern exposure upstairs.

Christmas cactus, blooming on schedule.

More African violets...

... in different shades.

Classic poinsettia.

What’s to be drawn from this?  Interestingly, my interests seem to be a mix of theirs.  The green thumb is definitely Mother Hen.  The shelter interest would seem more Papa Rooster, though, truth be told, he hasn’t a particularly strong interest in home improvement - his has more to do with blingy-ness of whatever is on hand or has caught his eye at that moment.  And the overarching theme?  A high tolerance for some messiness and coziness and relaxed, non-neat, non-minimal, non-streamlined existence.

[Edited February 8, 2025 to add photo captions and delete "compromised" tag.]

That Man Woman Work Thing

We think we're enlightened, but men and women still revert to traditional roles when making use of workplace leave policies.

So, we've come a long way, but not far enough.  Women are still supposed to be nurturers and men are still supposed to be breadwinners....  So employers offer all these great policies that are supposed to support families, and then corporate America thinks it has done all it can do.  But men don't actually utilize the benefits.  And women do; more like, women are stuck utilizing the benefits.  So then women get dinged, and men don't.  And so the cycle continues - women make less, so then it makes more sense for them to step away from the workforce.

Argh!!  It's a giant hamster wheel, gentlemen - jump the heck off it once in a while!  Help out the ladies, won't you?  Take your full paternity leave, for heaven's sake!