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Kitties

I was amazed by how well behaved the cats were around the Christmas tree. Buster removed a few items and placed them in the food bowl and Tommy knocked off some fake branches when he would stand after having slept under the tree. All three of them knocked over the tree once during group kitty crazies -- and that was all. We didn't put any breakable ornaments on the tree this year. Safety first.

Buster and Charlie with their
Christmas stockings 		Buster and Tommy Charlie and tree
Tommy and Buster Tommy dismantling the Christmas tree Christmas was a very rainy day.
Charlie spends a lot of time looking
at the ceiling lights every day. 		Playing the laser light game. Buster's not sure what to make of Christmas.
Charlie and his toys.





Holiday events

Christmas Village

We're staying safe for the most part but I really wanted to see the holiday parades and other events this year.

We went to one of the Christmas markets and John got me a marvelous scarf with a Gustav Klimpt-ish design of big cats on one side and little cats on the other. It's beautiful and warm. The market had booths with amazing toys, games, food, drinks and other very interesting items appropriate for cool presents. BTW they pronounce Klimpt as Clem.

We saw the beautiful giant polar bears but got stuck in a crowd that moved at a snails pace and about 1/3 of the people weren't wearing masks. That was scary.

The giant polar bears were terrific but later I contacted the mayor to suggest that they could improve social distancing if they "could put the performance on a moving elevated platform such as a large truck or a large cart on wheels pulled by horses or people. It would resemble a parade float." I also told her that "it was concerning that the crowd was large and packed and many people did not wear masks. The elevated plaform should help with all those concerns. Another thing that could help ease the crowd congestion is for the performers to turn 360 degrees to face the entire crowd so the people behind the presentation don't try to move to be in front of the presentation and increase the crowd size there."

On the way to see the polar bears we saw Christmas tree gnomes, carved log standing reindeer and some horse drawn wagons. A couple of weeks earlier, when we got our boosters at our doctor's office, we saw a horse drawn cart with a Santa in it.

We went to an outdoor arts and crafts fair and saw holiday lights on the Opera House and Parliament and Republic Squares.

Later we saw the projection mapping lights display on the city hall building. The one this year was a tribute to women in opera and it was very cool. It was titled Reinnes (Queens). The company that puts on the shows in Rennes is named Spectaculares. You can see a few of their other works here. and many others here. I love those shows. Lyon has great lights and projection mapping displays during the first week of December. Many other cities around the world do these presentations too.

Recently sports and other shows have been doing something more sophisticated - real-time tracking projection mapping animations onto soccer balls. Here are a couple of tech docs related to that Real-Time Soccer Player Tracking Method and Ballumiere: real-time tracking and projection system for high-speed flying balls. Here are some videos of tracking and projection of animations onto high speed targets. Sometime in the future I expect to see real time tracking and projection mapping during these European holiday events. That will be cool.

Recently it snowed a lot in Oregon including several inches in Eugene where we used to live. Here are some beautiful images of that snow. We haven't yet received any snow but it only comes every couple of years and usually in January or February. It has been getting colder in the winter here.

The entrance to the Christmas Village. Christmas Carousel One of the many chalets selling tasty goodies.
Giant Pretzels! Sausages! This little guy was smelling the sausages.
Hot chocolate! The Ferris Wheel at
Place de François Mitterrand 		Nativity scene
Roasted chestnuts! Ruth with her new Christmas scarf. This shop had a 60's theme in books and posters.
Very ingenious wooden toys. Hand made wooden games More hand made wooden toys and games.





Christmas Parade

Santa horse drawn cart. Everywhere you look in Rennes,
there's interesting architecture. 		This is self-service car rental
run by the city of Rennes.
We took the foot bridge across the canal to see the parade. The 16th Century church of
St. Germain is in the background. 		Pine tree reindeer Pine tree gnomes
Two very kind horses were there. A stilt dancer was part of the parade. Giant polar bear puppets.
They came. They danced. And they left. An arts and crafts fair was set up
near the Opera House. 		Lots of people at the parade.
It was hard to keep social distancing.
The tallest Christmas tree in Rennes
was at Parliment Square. 		The Opera House at night. Looking towards Republic Square.





Christmas Light Show

Curtains rise on the light show projected
against the 17th Century City Hall. 		This year's light show was based
upon an operatic theme. 		In each segment a different overture played.
This segment was in the style of Renoir.





Covid

This link is to an article about the best masks to use, written by the mask nerd. Here's a video about how to knot and tuck your surgical mask to make it more effective. Don't use cloth masks.

Also, you should share this info with friends: The US government is offering $9,000 for Covid funeral expenses, Here's another link about FEMA and the $9,000 Covid funeral payments.

We got our Pfizer boosters in early December. We're following announcements about the virus but it seems to be good news and bad news and confusing news.

As far as Covid infections are concerned France isn't doing so well but Brittany has been one of the least infected region of France all along and it still is. It is currently the most vaxxed region of France.

If you get a chance, watch the new movie "Don't Look Up".

Have a great New Year! A friend of mine, Betty, posted this cartoon a few days ago and I just love it, so I decided to include it in our blog, Keep planting flowers - of all kinds - and watch as the world becomes more beautiful.

Cartoon