UnO's demogame holiday challenge

[Aidun]

Holidays are always slow
When lands are covered in snow

Or when the summer sun shines
The speed of the game declines

No plant or medicine known
Can treat this problem alone

It has been questioned indeed
Whether at all such a weed

Exists, the one that can treat
This trouble with the speed

However, let us now hope
That with these poems we can cope

With this yearly holiday
Whilst we ride our jolly sleighs

Or whatever we deem fun
No boredom in the winter sun!



Read carefully and you might notice the little joke.

I've always liked the poems of UnO, even though I have always somehow been in a team other than his. I hope we can keep it a bit neutal and fun for everyone though. In these demogames many things are often sensitive and one word can be sufficient to start a flame war. So let's please be kind for each other during this Christmas time.

[Beta]

Originally posted by UnOrthOdOx
The only problem with that being my mother in law seriously sucks in teh cooking department.

Well. Unless you want a chocolate cake or brownie recipe.

Quite literally, she asked why on earth I wanted a spice rack back when we were getting married. She uses salt and pepper, pretty exclusively.

And virtually everything I cook is 'too spicey' for that side of the family.

Hell, they buy MILD salsa. May as well be using ketchup.

It took a few years, but my wife has come around to not only accepting, but enjoying more spices in foods, and even experimenting with the spice rack herself.

She'll even eat Indian food now.

Understood. Same with my mother-in-law in terms of cooking. However, she is a great baker. And as to the spicy food, I think that is also a generational thing. Even our spaghetti sauce - which as lots of garlic and chili peppers in it - amongst a pile of other goodies - is too much for our parents.

Anyways - I made her hermit cookies yesterday during the snow storm. A very simple recipe - and reasonably healthy. Makes excellent cookies.

[Beta]

Norma's Hermit Cookies

Start with:
1¾ cups flour, sifted

Mix with flour:
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
½ tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp allspice
1/8 tsp nutmeg

Then mix in:
1 cup raisins
1 cup chopped dates
1 cup chopped walnuts

In a separate bowl, beat together:
½ cup shortening
1 cup lightly packed brown sugar
2 eggs
½ tsp vanilla

Add dry ingredients to wet. Mix well.

Drop by a tsp to lightly greased cookie sheet.

Bake 10-12 minutes in a 350 degree oven

Makes 3 to 4 dozen cookies.

[Beta]

Originally posted by Aidun
I hope we can keep it a bit neutal and fun for everyone though. In these demogames many things are often sensitive and one word can be sufficient to start a flame war. So let's please be kind for each other during this Christmas time.

Grog is a girly man!

(good point Aidun ... ... and nice poem too. )

[UnOrthOdOx]

Well, sorry to say it folks...

But looking like I'm going to be unable to finish the poem before christmas. Likely not till next year if I'm still in the mood by then.

Work has me staying late this week. REAL late. And I don't really plan to be around all that much between Christmas and New Years.

[conmcb25]

:sniffles:

[binTravkin]

Same here UnO, good luck with your work stuff, so you can get to buy presents timely!

[Beta]

Understood, UnO. btw - I have lots of time and if needed could play the Merc turn for you. Just send the password and all your worries will be over. Promise.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Well, some know, I'm in a special situation at work right now. (not really having a contract and all)

So, I've been offered some cross training this week that can only improve my position once the layoffs start after first of the year.

[UnOrthOdOx]

I know!

Instead of a poem, have a look at Jack here.

Cause truth be told, had I spent a little less time working on him and a little more writing, it would have been done by now.

[Aidun]

Nice, very nice!

[UnOrthOdOx]

So....

A little Holidays story from the dOx household.

Christmas eve...

Party at the in-laws I have to go to. Wife working.

They changed it all up this year, didn't like it at all, as they decided it would be 'fun' for everyone to decorate sugar cookies. I bake literally hundreds of them prior to Christmas (look at some of the tabejin links), and had no desire to get involved with more. Especially as I was trying to feed the baby and get her to go to sleep in the car seat at that point, being her bedtime.

Despite my telling her 'no thanks', my mother-in-law tells me that I WILL be decorating a cookie.

Normally, she and I get along better than I do with my own mom. Don't know what this was about.

Fine, whatever. I cut a tree in half and make it a bloody dagger, getting the strawberry jelly out of the fridge to emphasize my point. She's not speaking to me right now...

Anyhow, it starts snowing during this party, and as usual when my wife is working, we take her dinner up at the hospital. Christmas, snow plows not running. Roads terrible. Still, nothing I've never seen before.

Get home and get the kids to bed by 11:00. However, due to work schedules, etc, I had to wrap everything from 'santa' that night, and get it all out.

I get it all done by about 5 AM, and the baby wakes, having not eaten all that great the night before due to the distractions at the party. The kids wake up by the time I'm done feeding the baby. But, I have to keep them occupied till 7:30, the agreed upon start time to give my wife a chance to sleep a bit after working through the night.

Christmas morning was about normal as it could be. Boys excited to get their stuff. But no real time to play with anything as we rush off to the inlaws by 10:30 to open presents there, then off to grandparents-in-law by 11:30 for dinner (huge family), and later more presents there, then off to my parents for dinner by 3:00

It was about 5:00 at my parents, we noticed my oldest walking funny. He refused to tell us why. Knowing something was wrong, we kept pressing. When he started crying, I took him aside to a different room...

He was in PAIN. His right testical was swollen and red, and he was too embarrased to say anything. We rushed him to the doctor, where they immediately took him away for analysis, telling us, they essentially thought it had tied itself into a knot and we'ld be heading off to a specialist in another hospital in another city.

So...I went home to pack, call for babysitters, allow our younger son some play time, get the baby in bed, and posted here not to worry about seeing me again any time soon.

Drive off for 1.5 hours through the damn snow, which being christmas, someone decided no plows needed to run, still, and get to this specialist only to find out it's not that problem at all.

Essentially, he took a shot to the groin a few days prior, and instead of the bruise healing properly, he got an infection. Just a pill twice a day for a week and some pain meds to go with it.

At this point, it was already midnight. The drive home took 5 hours, still no plows on the roads, and the snow coming down harder. Get home, drive the babysitter home, takes 2 hours (normally a 20 minute round trip). Wife going back to work that night, so she needed the sleep.


She ended up getting called off, and I got to bed around 3 PM as a result. Definately a rough few days there.

Fortunately, it's all worked out in the end, though.

[ChrisiusMaximus]

Hope the lad is not in too much pain Uno, you prioritise your family .

My wifes a nurse, says that terribly painful .

[Krill]

Yeah, hope your son starts to feel better soon and everything is OK.

[binTravkin]

Crazy Xmas for you