Semisimian

Ho ho ho, future Santa checking in. Mrs Claus is a hair stylist, so we have some insight into what I’m going to need when the days grow short and the beard (hopefully) grows long.

The biggest thing is: full beards take time. And not just time to grow the length, but time (years) for your face to mature and get those hair follicles in the Christmas spirit. There’s really not much you can do if the fullness isn’t coming in yet but wait. I’m in this phase now. It’s hormones. What are we going to do? Not drugs, not Rogaine: not going to help. Take care of what you got.

But you mentioned you DO have a beard, so maybe you have the stellar volume you need to be St Nick, just not the length. Short answer, skin care IS beard care. Get a good skin care regimen that works for your face and your beard will fall in line. You’ve signed up for an everyday commitment to becoming a touchable beard, and they WILL ALL touch it. Toddlers to Grannies, especially, Grannies.

You have the beard! Now you need the color. This depends on your hair color and how your hair accepts color, so you really should go to a professional. If you want to be a paid, real-beard Santa, a good color job will be the LEAST of your expenses and it will pay off on day one.

Being a good Santa is being a good person. It really is just that. But there is a physical barrier that is conforming to the Coca-Cola ideal of Santa, which is the tutorial I just provided for the BEARD ONLY!

I wish you well and I hope you enjoy bringing hope, magic and love into the hearts of children.

I envy you, but only because you have so much fresh Trek to watch.

Well, that’s one area you definitely don’t want dandelions growing.

This is a total flip of the intention of the source material, but in this moment (in the film) it reads in the character’s voice. I think this is a good message buried in a questionable meme, unless I’m missing something. I’m old, so i used to be meta, but then they changed what meta was, and now what is meta is strange and scary to me.

They’re related, those incestuous, chinless WASPs. Brother takes sister to a formal dance and stops by the pharmacy to get a malt and let Dad get a whiff of sister’s corsage. Keep it in the family!

They do, and as a Canadian, they should know that fellow Canadian John Hopps invented the 1st pacemaker. He’s even considered the father of biomedical engineering. I dug through trying to find out if he coined the term “heartpacer,” no such luck. It sounds like a Dutch translation to me.

I am outside of the loop and I appreciate your break-down. I am all for paying for useful services, but I have such a backlog of media that I need to watch, I don’t benefit from Trakt. I like a paid business model, though

We should all question a “free” app that lets us spend 1 or 2 or 8 hours a day on their platform. We’ve gotten greedy, thinking that everything should be personal data or advertiser supported. It stinks that Trakt is cutting features while raising prices, all for a pretty simple service, but I think subscription services that protect your privacy are worth funding.

Of course he did.

That’s the part of The Hulk we are all just told to ignore.

Sir, this is a Wendy’s.

Why not 6660 soldiers? Or just one up Revelations and go with 6666 soldiers. The revolution may not be televised, but the end times will.

Pets help us understand our own mortality in ways that continue to surprise me. When I was young, the first pet I lost was a young cat, just a few years old. I raised her from a kitten that was probably too young to ween so we had a close bond. She was indoor/outdoor and was attacked by a neighbor’s dog during the day when I was gone. Holding her and watching her die broke me, like she waited all day to die in my arms. She was mine and I felt like I let her down. Woof, it hurt. Still does.

But while I was holding her, our family dog (Allison) was next to me. She was older than I was, a feisty Lhasa Apso that had lost her ability to hold her bladder. We diapered her: we’d cut a hole in human diapers to pull her tail through to keep the hardwoods from getting ruined. She died a year later, after living a full life.

I buried both of them in the front yard, under a couple of pines that bordered our neighbor’s pet cemetery. Both times, digging those holes gave me the time I needed to be able to return them to the earth and say goodbye. I learned so much from their passing. It is the last gift our pets give us, their final act of love.

Now, older, with kids of my own, we have Sadie, who I am looking at as I write this. She’s a rescue, probably a golden mixed with some border collie, at least 16 years old. Her sister died last year and it was the first close death my kids experienced. Her passing taught my kids the alchemy of aging gracefully, the privilege of old age. Now, they find charm in Sadie’s rickety hips and excuse her incontinence. Getting old is okay; we are lucky to be able to do it. Watching your loved ones get old is a privilege we should cherish.

Edit: I wanted to thank OP for posting this. Reading your observations of your aging cat brought It all forward.