{"id":3363,"date":"2025-12-29T00:52:27","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T05:52:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/?p=3363"},"modified":"2026-01-03T01:06:42","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T06:06:42","slug":"tinseltown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/?p=3363","title":{"rendered":"tinseltown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>From a drama\/stress perspective, Christmas was better than Thanksgiving.  D came over Christmas morning, and the gifting proceeded much as it has in years past.  P and D seem to have buried the hatchet, just like I knew they would and said as much to D when was in the throes of it and thought she had &#8220;lost&#8221; her daughter.  There certainly didn&#8217;t seem to be any bad blood between them as they oohed and aahed over each others&#8217; gifts, and a couple of days later, D swung by to take P out shopping and they had lunch at Olive Garden, so I&#8217;m bullish on their prospects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>L received a smattering of sports apparel, some books, and a voucher for a majority contribution to his new bike fund, but truth be told, his real gift this holiday has been his truck.  He loves it, and he&#8217;s relishing his newfound autonomy, driving it up and down Hixson Pike every chance he gets.  We went to the bank, and he drove, and while he&#8217;s an excellent driver, if I&#8217;m honest, he still does need to grow into the truck a bit.  I think it will help when I show him how to clean it out, change its oil, the location of all the mechanical bits, etc.  Then he&#8217;ll feel like he&#8217;s more in command of all its faculties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As for me, the kids collaborated and finally bought me my Lego Concorde, several years in the pipeline.  I assembled it like a man possessed in about 5 straight hours Christmas afternoon, and it&#8217;s sitting on my dresser next to my bedroom&#8217;s other Lego monument, the phallic symbol a.k.a. Saturn V rocket.  Given that the Concorde is predominantly horizontal, they make a good pair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From a drama\/stress perspective, Christmas was better than Thanksgiving. D came over Christmas morning, and the gifting proceeded much as it has in years past. P and D seem to have buried the hatchet, just like I knew they would and said as much to D when was in the throes of it and thought [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3363"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3363"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3364,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3363\/revisions\/3364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}