This was the plan: To celebrate Christmas with my family in Columbus on Saturday, head for Defiance on Sunday and celebrate with Alan’s family then. It was all going according to plan and we were en route to northern Ohio Sunday when Alan’s sister called with the news that his mother had fallen and was being taken to the ER with a goose egg rising rapidly on her forehead.

This was no surprise, in that Alan’s mom is 89, has had a series of strokes and was generally weak as a kitten. Also not surprising, though upsetting, was that the blow to the head was now a “significant” subdural hematoma, bleeding in the brain, the only treatment for which was invasive surgery. What was more surprising were the preposterous hassles all this touched off, even after her children made the difficult decision that this injury was not survivable in any meaningful way and that she be given comfort care only in the final days of her life, but, well, life begins in pain and ends the same way.

Alan’s mom, Marian Derringer, died Thursday afternoon in a hospice in Defiance. As you can imagine, this will preoccupy us for a while. We thank you in advance for your condolences, and we’re doing fine. Once all the hoops had been jumped early in the week — did you know you have to be in a facility where you can have brain surgery before you can refuse brain surgery? Visit beautiful Toledo! — the last few days were about as peaceful as can be expected. The hospice movement has been a great comfort to many families going through a difficult time. I expect that’s because after a long interaction with the medical profession, it’s pleasant to interact with nurses who speak plain English, move at a leisurely pace and let you have a dog in the room.

That’s what we did Wednesday — had our family Christmas at the hospice, with the dog. It was a nice afternoon.

There’s a lot going on in the world this week, and I’ve been jotting notes everywhere. (Heard there was a big to-do in Pakistan; you might want to check the papers.) But for now, I’m laying that stuff aside, closing the laptop and stepping out for a bit. Be back…let’s say New Year’s Day. You’ve been a great audience, and we’ll see you then.

I swear to God, if I’m stupid enough to pay $37 for another year of the Grosse Pointe News, please shoot me in the head. The paper, craptastic to begin with, changed hands earlier in the year and, if anything, has gotten worse. The editorial page now belongs to canned op-eds, the government coverage is phoned in and even the man-on-the-street interviews are ridiculous. (Before Christmas, a polar bear said he really wanted Santa to bring an end to global warming.)

And now this:

I’m a writer and editor; I know typos happen. But when they happen in 96-point type, it calls for public horsewhipping. I wonder if anyone has actually noticed yet.

Because the true lesson of middle age is to never say, “Things couldn’t get any worse” — because there’s always a way for anything to get worse — a warning that my presence may be scarce around here the next couple days. We’re preoccupied with a family situation. Nothing for you folks to worry about; we’re all healthy and safe. But others aren’t, and we’ll be traveling today, and out of touch.

But that’s OK, because we have a truly fabulous photo from Julie Robinson, who writes: For the holdiays at the Robinson household, we like to encourage our children to engage in cross-dressing. This is our son in his Madrigals tunic and tights. He doesn’t understand how girls can wear such short skirts. Carefully, said Mom, very carefully.

She doesn’t tell us the young man’s name. Let’s call him…Ashley.

On day one of Kwanzaa, I wish you all umoja. Let’s try this again tomorrow.

…for the Stouder kids, standing in front of the city’s best-known holiday decoration, the Wolf & Dessauer Santa. It once adorned the side of the city’s largest and best-loved downtown department store. It was where kids from the whole region came to sit on Santa’s lap while their parents did their holiday shopping. It closed decades ago, but the sign was rescued from storage and restored by volunteers, a story that’s retold about every five minutes by one media outlet or another — look, here’s one now. Anyway, it’s a charming display. Here’s a wider shot.

The chilluns belong to Brian Stouder, one of our most loyal readers and commenters. From left, Grant (named for the Civil War hero, not the drunken president), Chloe and Shelby. Merry Christmas!

As Christmas parties go, the Up on the Housetop Party was pretty basic: newspapermen (and women) + massive amounts of alcohol = Christmas cheer.

This was in Columbus. The name came from the Christmas carol, which was composed by a local, Benjamin Hanby. For a long time, I’d hear people mention W.C. Handy, aka the Father of the Blues, and I’d think, “Yes, and no one ever mentions he also wrote ‘Up on the Housetop’, the B-list Christmas song.” It’s a good thing I never said this aloud, because if you follow the links above, you realize that not only are they different people, one is a white Methodist from Ohio and the other a black son of an A.M.E. preacher from Alabama, and their lives only intersected for six years. That would be embarrassing, but what can I say? At every Up on the Housetop party I ever attended, I was shitfaced.

The Up on the Housetop party was an unofficial Christmas party, hosted by a few of the older staffers. The official one was a buffet in the newsroom with an open bar. It was served by the staff at the company’s country retreat, where they entertained bigshots and advertisers. The bartenders had been well-trained to put guests in an ad-buying mood by pouring heavy, and they didn’t change their habits when serving at the Christmas party. This was at midday, and even in that different time most people knew enough not to get hammered when they still had half a shift to go and a paper to put out. Not all people. I remember walking through the hallway between the city room and the sports/features departments and seeing a young librarian on her knees, about to hurl. Merry Christmas, darlin’! Those bartenders know their stuff, don’t they?

Although we aren’t supposed to party like that anymore — I certainly don’t — those people knew something we didn’t: That there’s nothing wrong with letting your hair down a bit, as long as someone else drives you home. Most company Christmas parties these days are pretty joyless affairs, crippled by liability concerns and corporate skinflints. I can no more imagine my employer buying me a drink these days than I can — wait. I don’t have an employer anymore. Rather, I’m my own employer. Let me buy me a drink.

Wait. It’s 9:07 a.m.

Tell me the stories of your best/worst Christmas parties. Spare no details. Because there’s nothing that says “our savior is born” quite like stirring your martini with a candy cane, is there?

Holiday weekend bloggage:

Take Eric Zorn’s So You Think You Know Carols? quiz. I got 80 percent, but I? Wuz robbed. Hint: Beware of trick questions. UPDATE: Don’t miss the Scared of Santa photo gallery, either.

Good to see pranksters haven’t lost their sense of humor: A rash of baby-Jesus thefts ends in mass amnesty. If you read any part of this at all, see the last quote.

OID (or River Rouge, in this case): The world’s worst, and dumbest, babysitter helps toddler smoke a joint. And videotapes it.

Happy holidays, all! The holiday photos start next week. As of today, I have but two. So if you’re of a mind to, mail ’em in. Still plenty of time to get your mug up there.

Friends, in one hour I have to be standing in front of Dr. Larry, DVM, for a follow-up check on the Sprigster. At the end of the day, I have the well-child pediatrician appointment. In between, one final present to buy and, oh yeah, work.

So I’ll be leaving you with not much today, although I could be back to sprinkle a little magic around the room. For starters, why don’t we kick off with today’s O.I.D. (only in Detroit) story?

A 30-year-old bus driver transporting Detroit Public Schools special needs students was arrested Wednesday after allegedly pulling his bus alongside an undercover officer, propositioning her for sex from his window, and promising to return after he dropped the children off at school.

Every day in this town, reading the newspaper is like getting a little show for 50 cents.

Say what you will about Ashley Morris, but she sure made some cute kids.

Do you have Gmail? Then you can do virtually instantaneous translation. J.C. checks it out with a few test phrases.

Later, pals.

As you all know, I’m a Midwesterner, and nothing in the world warms a Midwesterner’s heart like using up leftovers. Last night, I opened the fridge and noticed we had a) lots of eggs; b) a box of Pillsbury ready-made pie crusts, a.k.a. mommy’s dirty little secret; c) some broccoli that was about to go around the bend; and d) an odd lot of cheddar. Fifteen minutes later, I had quiche in the oven. That’s the sort of meal that feeds you twice — in your stomach, and in your frugal little spirit, too.

Then I hit the New York magazine website and said, revolucion!:

…even though year-end bonuses are expected to be (relatively) small across Wall Street, Goldman employees are expected to rake in an average of $600,000 each.

We’re living in a new Gilded Age, which is not news. I’m just wondering how to make a little fairy dust trickle down on me. The reason Goldman Sachs is riding so high, we’re told, is they “bet against the subprime market and won.” Well, hey, I could have give them that advice. “Those people who are getting enormous mortgages based on oral declarations that they make $6,000 a week with no verification? Those are a bad bet. Get out now.” Maybe I could have sold them that information for, say, $50 million. But what is my tiny, non-entrepreneurial mind concerned with? Using up 75 cents worth of broccoli. I just don’t dream big enough.

Elsewhere in the news, I see that Britney Spears’ heretofore-believed-to-be-somewhat-smarter younger sister, 16-year-old Jamie Lynn, is expecting a little bundle of out-of-wedlock joy. Terrific. This is what happens when you let your child watch supposedly wholesome tween-targeted TV shows like “Zoey 101.” You duck the Vanessa what’s-her-name nude-picture missile and get smacked between the eyes by a teen pregnancy. I wonder how long before Kate hears about it, and whether she’ll ask me about it, and what I should say. Might as well start rehearsing a speech now. Would it be wrong to introduce an 11-year-old to the concept of trailer trash, or should I go with Lance Mannion’s oft-stated opinion that all actresses are promiscuous? One seems overly judgmental, the other too much adult-stained reality for a pre-teen. And yet, the naked truth — “Mrs. Spears lived out her dream of showbiz success through her daughters, who now stand before the world, 26 and 16, old before their years and destined for a long, slow slide into a sort of purgatory that will end in drug addiction, early death and where-are-they-now features on VH1” — seems even worse.

Note that “Zoey 101” is a Nickelodeon show. I’d like to think Disney keeps their young moneymakers on a tighter leash, or at least locked in chastity belts, but naked Vanessa proved otherwise. I guess the stupid show is history. Mom Lynne’s “parenting” book has been back-burnered, too. Do we still run people out of town on a rail? Can it be done to this nest of skanks? Bring back the studio system, with its morals clauses, and its pleasing tissue of lies!

(As it relates to our discussion of names below, here are a few character names on “Zoey 101:” Dustin, Quinn, Logan, Chase. Boy, girl, boy, boy.)

OK, bloggage:

Micki Maynard and Nick Bunkley at the NYT examine a local paradox — the flowering of downtown Detroit at the same time the auto industry continues to decline, statewide unemployment stands just short of 8 percent and finding a deeply discounted house to buy is as easy as walking out your front door.

I don’t know why, either. My instinct is to say: What the hell, let’s party. Most amusing passage:

And in the eyes of some, the new casinos, which include the 17-story Motor City Hotel and Casino that opened on Nov. 28, may be doing as much harm as good.

Some of the casino’s patrons include Detroit’s homeless. They used to buy food with the nickels and dimes they received for collecting returnable beverage containers, said Chad Audi, director of the rescue mission, which sits on a side street a few blocks from the Motor City.

Instead, these gamblers are spending their change in slot machines. “It’s turning into a very bad, negative impact on us,” he said.

I wonder if they have this problem in Vegas.

Off to work. Great days for all.

Sometimes, here, we talk about Ashley, our valued reader and commenter. That’s Ashley Morris, Warren Zevon fan, New Orleans radical. Professor of computer science at DePaul University. (Yes, in Chicago. It’s a very long commute.)

When we talk about Ashley here, sometimes someone will say, “Who does this Ashley Morris think she is?”

It happened again this week, in a private e-mail. I already straightened my correspondent out, but just to state for the record…

This is Ashley Morris, the NN.C reader:

He’s the one in the Devils jersey. The woman in the picture is Mrs. Ashley Morris, whom you don’t want to mess with, either, as she’s six feet tall six feet two and currently on the Big Easy Rollergirls’ DL.

This is Ashley Morris, the actress:

(As you might expect, Our Ashley says of his namesake, “I’d hit it.”)

As to how Ashley got a girl’s name, all I can say is, haven’t any of you people seen “Gone With the Wind?”

That is all. Carry on.

Such a strange artifact I found today: A letter from an old lawyer to a new one. Published in the American Lawyer, found via New York magazine’s website, getta loada this:

Dear Sarah,

Your father tells me you started a job at Cravath, Swaine & Moore earlier this fall. Perhaps you are aware that I spent some of my formative years at that firm.

I’m sure you will learn a lot at present-day Cravath. I, certainly, learned a lot when I went to work at the firm in the fall of 1952, just after graduating from law school. The firm was then located at 15 Broad St., directly opposite the New York Stock Exchange, the facade of which, outside my window, was not yet covered by a gigantic American flag.

Actually, the window was the province of E. Gabriel Perle, a more senior associate who got the desk nearest the window in the office we shared. “Gabby” took me out to lunch and dinner and introduced me to the many stanzas of “The Partners’ John,” a song telling the story of the rise of a young associate to the long-anticipated moment when he receives a key to the partners’ john.

I use the pronoun “he” because there were only men at the Cravath of 1952. No women lawyers, no women secretaries or stenographers, no women in any capacity at all were allowed in the hallways of Cravath, Swaine & Moore. “We are a place of business,” it was explained to me. Ladies would be a “distraction.” Even the messengers, who carried documents from one office to another and sharpened our stacks of pencils every morning, were elderly men in gray office jackets, reputedly recruited from among the ranks of retired runners at the exchange. If I needed to dictate, a buzz quickly brought a male “steno” who was older than I was. There was a special midnight shift of stenos who would have any late-night work freshly typed and ready on a partner’s desk first thing in the morning. “Women wouldn’t be safe in downtown New York during these night hours,” it was explained.

It could be difficult to tell a male secretary or steno from an associate, but clothes made the difference. Lawyers wore suits from Brooks Brothers. Stenos did not. Moreover, lawyers wore hats, something I completely failed to understand, despite frequent admonitions to “take your hat and come to lunch.” I never acquired a hat, nor, as you can imagine, did I ever see the inside of the partners’ john.

Every few days I get something in the e-mail about Hillary Clinton — what a bitch she is, what a ball-breaker, needless to say a dyke, an asshole, you can take your pick. And then I think about an interview I did last year, with a woman lawyer of Hillary’s age. Here’s the entry from my notes: When I decided to apply (to law school), was accepted and spoke to the dean of admissions. “Will I be employable?” Dean said, “Of course you will be, we need women to take low-paying legal work that men won’t take.” Representing juveniles, etc.

This was at the University of Michigan, by the way, not exactly Bob’s College of Law and Bartending. Then, as now, a tough nut to crack. And this was the dean of admissions talking, no doubt already pissed that he had to give one of his 450 precious seats to someone destined to work in juvie legal aid. (Two word coda to her story: She didn’t.)

Obviously, things have changed. But if, in 1952, women were considered so toxic to the legal mind that they couldn’t even be seen in the background of the office landscape at this particular white-shoe firm, that was still recent history in 1972, when Hillary graduated. I’m not going to belabor this point; I can’t imagine what I would bring to the discussion that hasn’t already been said. Just: Follow that link up there to the whole piece. It’s fascinating reading. And then think about it a while. That’s all.

You are also allowed a snicker or three at the homoerotic overtones of it all. I mean — all those jokes about the partners’ john. Please. A large infusion of estrogen must have been a downer in more ways than one. At least for some of them.

Bloggage:

This arrived a little late to do any good — it’s the entry for a YouTube/Home Depot contest to win a major cash infusion for renovating your home, and entries are closed. But you Hoosiers in particular are urged to watch. It’s funny, and it’s about a town in your orbit (Huntington). What did old buildings do before gay men were invented? Wait for the inevitable blow from the wrecking ball, I guess.

Also: This project has a blog. I really hope they win.

The Free Press, like all newspapers, is series-heavy this time of year; gotta get ’em published before year’s end, to qualify for awards. Columnist Bill McGraw’s assignment — drive every street in Detroit, then write about it — started strong on Sunday, faltered a bit Monday, and is back today with an entertaining piece about art, guerilla and otherwise, in the city.

Off to drive around the city in a panic finish my shopping. Strength and honor!

First snow of the season = first pot of split-pea soup. I’ve been planning this for a couple of weeks, so the timing is strictly a coincidence. I bought the ham but kept forgetting the split peas, then remembered when I was getting hummus from the gourmet-y market down the street. I found not the plain, unadorned bag of split peas that Kroger sells, but an everything-you-need soup-assembly kit, which translated to two cups of split peas plus a seasoning bundle.

Price: $5.99. No, I am not kidding.

I think I did one of those cough-explosions you do when someone tells you the thing you thought would cost a dime is actually $20,000. That’s roughly the disproportion here, as split peas are among the humblest and cheapest foods on the planet. For a long time I’d pay 69 cents a pound, but lately it’s around 84 cents, which I figure is skyrocketing energy prices asserting themselves. Or perhaps that six-buck soup kit reflected the true cost of what I’ve long believed is the truth about split peas — that they’re painstakingly split on a long, Tim Burton-style assembly line:

An army of workers arrives and take their seats on the line, hammer and chisel in hand. As the factory whistle blows, a single pea is released down a chute to land in front of each worker. A small vise is tightened, the worker places the chisel, taps it once, and the pea separates into equal hemispheres, each rolling down to a collection bin. A tap of a foot lever releases the next pea, and the process starts all over again.

Well, that’s how it should go.

More likely, the peas were “organic,” a designation that requires a lot of faith in the purchaser. I buy organic food when the price differential isn’t insulting, but figure the designation is a crapshoot and, perhaps, a fairy tale. (Also, at the midcentury mark, I figure all my filtering organs have already been poisoned by the chemicals of half a lifetime, so why lose sleep over it now?) Organic is hot, “green” is hot, and the marketplace is cashing in. The $5.15 difference in what I pay for split peas at Kroger and what I’d pay for the soup kit at Fancypants Market isn’t for the extra tablespoon of dried herbs; it’s for a complicated mix of overhead, packaging, advertising, distribution and a harder-to-quantify factor I guess you could call specialness. (This is the sort of thing I think about on bike rides. If only I could make it pay somehow.)

I realize discussion of what things cost is about as interesting to some of you as shoveling snow, but it seems to be a theme of late. My health-care news farming last night harvested a lengthy NYT report on how global “free trade zones” abet prescription-drug counterfeiters. (There’s money in heroin, but there’s also money — and fewer automatic weapons — in fake and otherwise squirrelly erectile-dysfunction drugs. Even Tony Soprano was getting in on it in the last season. Remember his meeting with Bobby and the Canadian gangsters? They were discussing bulk pricing on expired Fosamax.) It’s an interesting story, because it illustrates what happens when one country — that would be us — makes health care so complicated for people living at the margins of affordability. If it were just a bunch of boner drugs being faked and sold on the black and grey markets, it would be a problem for the patent holders and the people who gamble on swallowing them. But alas, it’s more complicated than that:

…An examination of the case reveals its link to a complex supply chain of fake drugs that ran from China through Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates, Britain and the Bahamas, ultimately leading to an Internet pharmacy whose American customers believed they were buying medicine from Canada, according to interviews with regulators and drug company investigators in six countries. …These were not just lifestyle drugs; this medicine was supposed to treat high blood pressure, high cholesterol, osteoporosis and acid reflux, among other ailments.

…In the Bahamas, investigators had also made an important discovery. The computers at Personal Touch Pharmacy were connected to a server hosting a Canadian Internet pharmacy Web site.

The site belonged to RxNorth, described by one trade association as the world’s first major online pharmacy.

A founder, Andrew Strempler, had been the subject of numerous profiles, including one in The New York Times in 2005 that described how at the age of 30 he had two Dodge Vipers, a Jaguar and a yellow Lamborghini with a license plate that reads “RX Boss.”

The article reported that Mr. Strempler’s innovation “created a whole new Canadian industry that has plugged a niche in America’s troubled health care system almost overnight, providing about $800 million worth of low-cost drugs a year to two million uninsured and underinsured Americans, many elderly.” Drugs have traditionally been cheaper in Canada because of its health care system.

One of the counterfeits of a name-brand blood thinner was found to contain cement powder. And that’s what some geezer was taking to head off a stroke. Ah, free enterprise.

But I don’t want to bring you down on what promises to be a lovely day. We got another dusting of fresh snow overnight, and the world is white and beautiful. We’re promised enough sunshine to make glacier glasses a necessity today, so I’m bucking up. Besides, we have a special sub-category of bloggage today: NN.C Readers in the News!

First, John Ritter — who I think comments here as just plain John — writes an op-ed in his hometown paper, The Day. The headline is typical of op-ed pages everywhere, in that it states an obvious, inoffensive truth with a lot of capital letters:

An Understanding Of American History makes Us Better Appreciate Who We Are

That’s too bad, because John was reacting to a previous letter to the editor, in which the writer stated Daniel Boone died at the Alamo, a rather major fact-boner that either skated under the editors’ noses, or was thought harmless enough to pass unchallenged. I think John gets at, but does not explicitly state, the reason for the confusion here:

Yes, Daniel Boone was a big man and yes, he did fight for America to make it free. He did quite a few things in his life but one thing he didn’t do was die at the Alamo. He had died a peaceful death on Sept. 20, 1820, only 15 1/2 years before Davy Crockett perished at the Alamo. Davy Crockett is another larger than life American legend. But he was not Daniel Boone, although the actor Fess Parker did portray both of them very well.

Fess Parker played them both! You can see why we get these things mixed up.

On the other side of the world, communist bomb-throwing college professor Ashley Morris does his best to bolster jihad on his way home from a two-week teaching stint in the Persian Gulf:

I have been in Bahrain for two weeks and I am quite happy to report that as a New Orleanian, I feel vindicated. I travel around the world, and people ask where I am from. I do not say, “America”, I say “New Orleans”. After the complete and utter abandonment of the city and people of New Orleans by the American government, I do not feel like an “American” anymore. Being in the Arabian Gulf has made me realise that most people here understand the feeling.

As I commented on Ashley’s own blog: Enjoy your next strip search, professor.

Less personal bloggage:

You’ve heard of a turducken? Or a tofucken? Meet the…turdugoosquapartsquab…en. Or something. Make up your own name. It sounds vile, but then, I’ve always considered goose to be the white-people version of chitlins. Sure, it has a long history — very Dickens and all — but you don’t have to live in the past, and anyone who would eat one of those greasy beasts when a nice tender chicken or turkey was available is simply nuts. Of course, the percentage of goose in this thing is pretty low. Still.

Off to find my glacier glasses (although the sun is still behind a cloud bank somewhere). Have a swell day, all.