I'm in Las Vegas where the weather is nice. It's not tropical hot as some people might think, but no snow and ice. My husband and I are not going to be together this Christmas - he is driving to Colorado to spend it with his family, and I am staying here because of cat juggling. Long story short, I need to let the Las Vegas cat in and out of the house. He has a cat door, but the Colorado cat figured out how to use it, so we have to lock it off. The Colorado cat could stay here on her own for a few days, but it would be unfair to shut the local cat out of the house all that time.



Meanwhile, I keep an eye on what is going on back home in Colorado because I manage a couple of Facebook pages that are about what's going on there. One of them is called Ready! Estes Park and the mission is preparedness. I started it for tourists and visitors because the other Facebook groups in the area are restricted to locals only. The main message is that when they are in our area, they can sign up for reverse 911 calls and texts for two weeks at a time. Not every jurisdiction in the United States has this service, so not everyone knows to ask if it's available. In between reminding people about it every month or so, I have to keep it entertaining so people stay in touch.

A lot of local people also joined the group because they like that I spend a lot of time looking for interesting articles about wildlife and forests and so on. One of my favorites was that the lichen on mossy rocks, like some people have on their fireplaces or interior walls, provides more houseplant type benefits to the environment of our homes than houseplants. It may or may not be significant, but it gave people something to think about.

I also maintain a Facebook group for our community, which is a 20 mile long river canyon. A year ago there was a lot to talk about because the highway was closed to non-construction traffic 17 hours of the day, and the residents struggled to live their lives with all that restriction.

There again, I have to look for interesting things to post about, and they are slightly different from that first group because it's more about living in our part of the county/state than visiting the area. One example of a recent hot topic was people were not receiving reminder post cards to renew their license plates due to a state-wide change in the computer system that manages those things. It had to do with they needed to go in to the county office and confirm their address so it could be determined if they are in the mandatory emissions testing area. It especially affected our canyon, and the county didn't do a good job of letting us know about it. At least 20 people said their plates almost lapsed, and they were grateful for the info.

Finding content occupies a lot of my day, and in the process I read a lot of articles about wildfires and flooding. NO politics, but sometimes it's hard to separate federal government forest management practices from politics.

So that's my Christmas this year - I've had stranger ones.