L'aventure américaine

Why did crazy Libertarians and Republicans and the odd Democrat have to take the benign "tea party" for their party name? It means that when a liberal Dem wants to actually have a real tea party, her friends get all worried that she's gone all right-wing on them. I'm taking the tea party back. I also wanted to include a picture of my Christmas cookies. I have been a cookie apprentice to the cookies masters for the past few years (that is my mother and her friend, Sandra Tokarski). A few days ago, I branched out on my own and produced 5 different kinds of sweet in one day. I was beat and sugared out. And I missed having a cookie apprentice who has to do the dishes at the end of the day...

I thought that I was a connoisseur of Christmas trees after years of diligently urging my parents and brother outside to chop down a tree while we sang, "O' Christmas Tree" and my dad recited "A Tree" by Joyce Kilmer . We would then drag it back to the house, my dad would fill a bucket with sand or gravel and Charles and I would hold the tree straight while he shoveled the filler in to hold it there. Afterwards, we would decorate it with cocktails and Christmas carols and Dad would subsequently take care of the watering. This was my first urban Christmas tree this year (last year I didn't have one), so I went with all good city and suburb folk to the nearest Home Depot and picked out my tree. People had had their trees trimmed so there were fir branches lying around, which I picked up and threw in my trunk in lieu of going out the white pine in the backyard to cut some greenery for the house (as I do at home). I was ambitious for my first tree and got a

I had the bright idea that Odie and I should do a Christmas card together this year because I know that we both love the holiday season so much. So, one afternoon this week, I attempted to get a picture with my self-timer. I included the attempts below. Know that many are left out due to redundancy. And the camera was only knocked over one time! I chose this last one, although Odie didn't want me to. He said that he looked to mean and I told him, "Sometimes you are mean, Odie!" But he insisted that that wasn't in the holiday spirit. However, since he refused to cough up any money for the cards, his vote didn't count. I told him that he could pick the picture next time... but only if he pays.