Guinness observes the tree. Mrs. Fort did her annual wonderful job decorating the living room and kitchen with all manner of warmth for the season. (Speaking of Mrs. Fort, she doesn't much like the way I doctored this image in Photoshop, and you might agree with her if you look at this comparison of the pre- and post-alteration versions.)
Like last year, this year's big gathering was on Christmas Eve at Adrianne and Grace's (and now Adrianne's new fella Ryan's) home. Many more photos from that fete will show up in the album, but I particularly like this one (taken by Adam) because it shows her dad Pat and her brother Corey in the background. Wish you could taste the hors d'oeuvres on the tray.
Grace (left) and her friend Danielle serenaded us with Christmas carols...
... and Grace unintentionally channeled her father, who was also known to do the hair thing while performing:
Doug, performing with Defiance about a quarter of a century ago, complete with flying V and flying hair. (Photos of Grace and Danielle by Adam; photos of Doug courtesy of Jim Adams and Defiance.)
Adams: Jim A. at left, A. Harrington at right. Jim, Mike Kaufmann, and a renewed Defiance recently released their first new album in a while, The Prophecy, which includes a number of tracks written by Doug in his last months.
Diane and I had a leisurely Christmas morning to ourselves -- or as "to ourselves" as anyone ever is in a house with five cats and three dogs. Old Kelsey, a veteran now of a dozen Christmases, waited patiently by the tree for us to use our opposable thumbs to liberate the colorful paper and bows from whatever boring things they were wrapped around.
Fonzie and Cooper spy a brand-new cat-teaser being opened.
Sometimes you play with the toy...
...and sometimes the toy plays with you. Cooper's big, but not especially quick.
Emma asks us to please notice that the floor next to her has no toys or snacks on it because...
... her bratty brother stole them all. Notice that he has also filched a catnip mouse, even. There's a reason he's called "The Prince of All-Mine" around here. (It's actually not such a wonderful personality trait, resource hoarding, and one we have to continually discourage.)
Cooper, in the process of recovering his dignity.Hope you had a marvelous few days, too! See you in 2010.
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5 comments:
Doug's little brother (and his buddy Mo's arm) can be seen to Doug's left in the A's jersey photo.
The Defiance link isn't linking, for me at least.
Cool! I hadn't noticed that.
The link is fixed now. However, McAfee security has red-flagged the Defiance site for some reason, but it's really odd: when I query McAfee about it, there is nothing in the details that is at all worrisome: no activity spurred on a visiting computer, no links to malicious sites, etc.
I should alert Jim to it, but I'm sure it's just some sort of mistake. Any other McAfee red flag I've ever seen gives some reason for the alert.
These are wonderful pictures!
I'm utterly embarrassed that I can't figure out the difference between the "before" and "after" pictures of the tree. I always was lousy at those "spot the changes" games...
Thanks, ronnie. As for the altered picture: think of it as a picture of a cat, not of a tree.
Yeah, that was my usual spot. Mostly I would stand there wondering why I didn't take guitar lessons too. Then I would say "oh well" and take a running stage dive.
The guy to Doug's right is Ace, Defiance's manager.
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