~RUSSIANS~

Have I mentioned how much I hate the holidays? Yeah... I know. Every year about this time. Well, my kid hit me up for money to buy presents, including my own, yesterday. Well... here we go again. I'm not a skinflint, but I don't want to buy presents for anybody who thinks that I owe a gift to them. If I want to give one of my relatives a present I'll just buy it... I don't have to have a holiday obligation to nudge me into the purchase.

Most families are as screwed up as the one that I'm reading about right now: The Brothers Karamazov. Yeah... it's that bad. My family is the poster child for the Karamazov look alike contest. Nobody is close, everybody is highly opinionated, everybody thinks they know exactly what is wrong with you and are quick to let you know what to do about it. This three ring freakshow used to be kept under control by the wimmins of the family, but my mother and my grandmother died a few months from each of other a few years ago and noone has taken charge the disorder and probably never will.

As a consequence, this time of year I start listening to Wagner's Rings. I have the whole thing on DVD.... the whole thing... and I read gloomy Russian novels (last weekend I did in Ford's "The Good Soldier", now I'm plowing through some Dostoevsky. Next I thought I'd do Heterotodos. Yeah... Merry XMas.

I'm thinking that maybe it might be nice to go over to the Cuban shoals just to the north of the Gulf Stream and anchor up where I would be in sight of absolutely nothing and stay there until it occurs to me to come back to the land of the Big Mac. Maybe go fishing.

I always knew that there was some reason that I liked Kramer.

Bob