Frank, he now has an amazing amount of metal in his leg (he e-mailed the x-rays), but is supposed to have graduated from a walker to crutches. The crutches will be around for a while. The last I heard, he was going to try to get to trivia tonight.

Last Tuesday, there was a runoff election in which one of the candidates was a particularly loathsome person. I e-mailed that I managed to get to the polls to vote against Vernon Jones despite my terrible stomach flu and he e-mailed back that he'd convinced his wife to get him into a wheelchair and to the polls for the same reason.

eta: I think we should all take to calling it the wiggly worm sign. My difficulty with the @ sign was that I was trying to come up with a photo of an @ key and @ is impossible to google.

Ginger, I'm not Frank, but still - thanks for the update. It's very good to read that things are improving, even though there's still quite a road to go.

I'm definitely going to start calling it monkey.

In the Netherlands he is accompanied by "Six to Eight Black Men" which is the title of the piece.

Oh, yes! And if you're bad, he beats you and steals your shoes? Or something?

If you're bad he stuffs you in a sack and takes you back to Spain (which is where the Dutch Santa lives the rest of the year). Or possibly just pretends to kick you.

I'm definitely going to start calling it monkey.

Wait, I thought we were supposed to pet things and call them George?

4 hours of meetings. Almost as long monkeying with a damned pc.

Tired now.

Wait, I thought we were supposed to pet things and call them George?

A shocking confession: Honestly, I don't even know what that means.

I just listened to the whole "Six to Eight Black Men" thing, that was awesome, thanks for linking to it!!

Other random trivia: Did y'all know that the equestrian events for the Olympics are NOT happening in China?!?! They're in Hong Kong, thousands of miles away, because of Chinese quarantine restrictions on the horses being too much of a pain to deal with?? How weird is that?!?

Hong Kong IS China.

When we were in the Netherlands a coupel of years ago, we were there in early December, wwhich is when Sinter Klaas and Black Peter (Yeah, that's his name) have their Day. There were wonderful costumed versions of them everywhere. Like this: [link]

Not my picture, but we saw many random versions of this parade. My fave was seeing Black Peters in full satiny regalia and adidas shoes.