Oh There's No Place Like Home

for the holidays.

This is the sight that will greet me tomorrow - yay!

Since I will be gone for awhile, here is my Christmas present to you all. Click here and enjoy. At first you're going to be all, "huh?" But just keep listening. You'll understand. I promise.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

IM Excerpt:

K-flix and Bea.

Kristen: so, wanna read something funny?
oooof course you do
[email from my dad]
Hi Girls,
Any clue what Mom might want for Christmas? Someone said that's coming up real soon... Maybe we can go on Saturday morning, or even Monday to do some looking......assuming you know what she might like. I had thought about a new snow shovel, you know, the one that's ergonomically designed especially for women, but then I got to thinking...that would be showing off to the neighbors to have her out there with the latest and greatest technology.
Counting the days...
Pops

Patrick: wow.
that's...
wow.
K: I love my dad. :-)
P: he's kidding.
right?
K: well of course
P: well, you don't know
K: where do you think my sarcasm CAME from?
P: the LORD?
K: [giggling uncontrollably in her office]

Awesome.

"Are You Two Sisters?"

"Are you twins?"

My sister and I get asked these two questions on pretty much a weekly basis. We always reply with "Yeah." and then "No. We get that a lot, though." It gets a little old because, yes, I suppose we do look kind of alike, but not nearly enough to be constantly mistaken for twins. Well, we were talking about all this with Annemarie and Carlos tonight and they said we should just start saying "No." As in "Nope. We're not related. We've never even met before." and see what people say.

I've decided we should take this one step further. I am going to buy a large medallion and split it in two. I will take one half and htd will take the other and we will carry them with us wherever we go. Then, the next time someone asks the inevitable question, we will play it off like we've never met. I will look over at htd, rapturous hope dawning on my face. I will pull my medallion half out of my pocket and ask with tremulous voice "...s-sister? Is...is it...you?" She will slowly draw her own medallion half out of her pocket and we will fit them together. When the two halves meet, a golden light will shine down from above, an otherworldly chorus will sound and we will fall, sobbing, into each others embrace as the original asker of the question looks on in wonder and/or annoyance.

End scene.

El Tigre

You were a good cat.

My dad just sent me a message saying our family's cat had to be put down today. Poor little guy. He'd been our cat for 16 years, ever since we found him up in a tree one day after coming home from elementary school. He lived on our screened in porch and had his very own kitty door so he could come and go as he pleased. He couldn't meow properly - he made this raspy, airy noise when he wanted your attention. He ruled the neighborhood cats.

My parents live on a little lake, and each summer Tiger would get sand burrs caught in his long gray hair. So we started getting him sheared each summer. He would be free of the matted sand burrs and his coat would grow back, long and fluffy, by the time winter rolled around. We called it our "Yearly Cat-Shearing," only half-joking that it made us sound preeeetty redneck. "You might be a redneck if you shave your cat every 4th of July." We did.

Whenever I visit home, I always go sit on the end of the dock and just look at the lake for awhile. Tiger would always saunter down from the porch and sit by me for a bit. I'm going to miss that.

"I Had Christmas Down In Africa"

This is great!