Totally Tinsel

 Madison took this picture on the bus ride home, part of her "sun" picture series of late.  It was a basic sort of day in November, one that featured taekwondo.  Nana and Mom were there too, all of us watching Madison land forceful headshots using her high kicks on lower belted minions.  There's a super weird reaction from the parent of a fourteen-year old girl, as he watches his daughter land a vicious headshot like that.  It's sort of a mix between, "Holy cow!"  and "Oh, that's too much, don't hurt him!" and "Wow, you go girl!"  Frequently, you can hear me in the parent area as I'm watching, and you can hear me audibly going saying the sorts of things a standard person would say at a sporting event, with that sort of energy.  Fortunately, I'm sitting by Mom and Nana, so it's not too annoying for others.

Anyway, Mom had shrimp for us tonight, and it was perfect as always.  Madison was balancing formulas in chemistry today, which is something she'd better get used to.  Not that she's going to become a chemist or anything, but I do remember that being a dominant part of science and chemistry.  And that makes sense, as chemical composition and changes are primarily the things we study with chemistry.  Nevertheless, she's good at it after getting the hang of it, and it might even be a little more fun and/or challenging.

We watched "Prep and Landing" with the small amount of time we had afterwards, and I'm astonished to know some of my co-workers have not seen these masterpieces.  Okay, "masterpiece" might be a little strong, but they're both really good Christmas specials.  

Tonight we continued with Mara Jade's quest for a meaningful destiny as the Emperor's Hand.  This book we're reading features her and Thrawn in it, so it feels like old times again, back when we were reading the entire "Heir to the Empire" series.  The stormtroopers in this are the favorite characters though, and it'll be sad saying goodbye to them for now.  I say for now, because there seems to be a movement within the Star Wars fandom to restore quite a bit of the "Legends" material.  Some time ago, it was decided to take everything written and make it not true anymore, calling it "legends."  Then, there was new material written to go with the books, and despite the fact that much of this was less than stellar, it is canon, where as the other much better material like "Heir to the Empire" is not canon anymore.  Meaning, there's no such thing as Mara Jade currently.  Or the stormtroopers Larone, Marcross, Brightwater, Quiller and Grave.  This hasn't set well with a lot of the Star Wars fandom, including Madison and myself.  In fact, we still kind of consider it is actually true, and not the stuff of "legends."

Anyway, we said our prayers tonight and went to bed shortly after that.  Nana has been sad, periodically going into moments of grief that take quite a bit of effort to climb out of.  We're not entirely sure how long this can go on for, or should go on for.  It's new territory, as you just can't tell someone to move on, having lost all they know for the last sixty-five years.  But it has been a lot of effort on us, and stress too.  I have a doctor's appointment next week, and it is somewhat related.  We prayed for everyone's health tonight, and for our nation too.  It's also gravely sick, and seemingly without much hope.  There is a vaccine for this virus that is coming, and that's good news.  But it seems rather easy for a sequel to the original pandemic to arise, and all of the resulting misery afterwards.  We crossed a threshold, and hope is one of those things we're  don't have much of.  But... we know where our hope comes from, and perhaps we will see more of that soon enough.