Karl, good to see your pixels!

So who else has to work tomorrow?

Me! It should be fairly quiet, though, and I should be able to plow through a couple of big projects.

My Christmas was busier than it should have been, what with three different back-to-back events. I also went into the day seriously sleep deprived, thanks to a late (for me) bedtime of eleven-thirty followed by the cat waking me up at three, and a further wakeup call because I neglected to turn off my alarm and was re-blasted out of sleep at 4:50.

BTW, has anyone seen Gadget Girl around lately?

I had to skip.

The nephew (and his parents and my other brother) is gone. Sad now. But we had a fantastic time. I hope everyone is having a fabulous holiday season.

Happy boxing day! Not that I plan on any role reversals or anything.

Why must my mother read over my shoulder and poke through my things on my desk? My desk is sacrosanct. I don't allow anyone to mess with the things on my desk. It makes me unbearably twitchy.

Well, Barb, that's a pain. I'd offer suggestions, but none of them really work on people who believe they are in the utter right to give you neither personal space nor privacy, and also that you don't want to insult enough they never come back.

Well, uh...Merry Day After Xmas, y'all!

The day was fairly awesome, I must say. We got Emeline a toy kitchen set...hey, she asked for one...and it talks and has recipes and seventeen gazillion little plastic food items and it tells you how to make faux-cake or whatever.

Now, this is how supremely great my little four-year-old daughter is...I must to set the scene:

Aimee and I have the "master bedroom" upstairs...it's the attic. It's converted and super as a bedroom, but it's the whole of the top floor. Emeline sleeps in her room one floor below. To get to the stairs to our room, Da Punk *must* pass by the living room.

Naturally, after "Santa" had assembled and placed the kitchen set, there were speculations that upon awakening at Six Nanoseconds Into Christmas O' Clock, Emeline would not bother to awaken Mommy and Daddy and, after a nice restful several hours of sleep Aims and I would descend to find that Emeline had opened *every* present, regardless of who it was for, and we would be left to unearth the dog from beneath mounds of torn wrapping paper. "C'est la vie," we decided, and crashed out at five nanoseconds into Christmas.

Naturally, we were awakened at Six Nanoseconds Into Christmas. We all went downstairs and we got to smile delightedly as Emeline *gasped* in amazement at what Santa had left for her...a shiny kitchen playset that talks and etc. "Oh. My. GOSH!" she whispered in awe and *sprinted* across the room to embrace it.

She hadn't paused to so much as glance into the living room on the way up to get us. She had touched nary a ribbon before fetching us for Christmas.

Even after Santa had rewarded her for a year of *fairly* good behavior, she kept the good up.

My daughter is awesome.

Musta been some magic in the air, MM.

No, we have one of those air cleaner things.

Fuckin' fairy dust sets off my sinuses like a sumbitch.

There is FROZEN WATER on the GROUND in BURBANK!

Also, S is doing better. She may even get released today or tomorrow.

Sean, I'm glad S is doing better. How are you doing?