Vegas.
Originally uploaded by Kellianna

Before the glow is off me: James Cameron, I hate to say it. But I fucking liked Avatar. Indigenous blunders and half-baked environmentalism aside... even the weird thing with the braid--I was entirely entertained like I don't remember being entertained in a while. Walking out of the theater, I felt post-roller-coaster giddy. Mind you though that I also cried the first time I saw Titanic (only to view the dubbed black-market DVD version in Tehran the following summer and noticing for the first time that they never air-brushed Kate Winslet in the nude scene and that altogether I was kind of embarrassed that I liked the movie so much the first time I saw it). So maybe I'll regret this in the morning, but for now I need to tell myself in the future: Shut up, it was good the first time!

I am so homesick right now! I guess it's good that I'm going the Philadelphia way in a matter of days. I hate it when Nor'easters happen without me! I have super special memories of every blizzard that ever hit the home coast during my lifetime, and always smart to think of the ones that somehow happened without my help and delight.

I always felt that the two best times to be in NYC are during the first rash of spring fever, and during any blizzard. Nothing like a bit of joyful weather to inspire great community happiness! Ah, and home in good old Delaware during a snow! The kids! The snow forts! The sledding! Icicle Alley! The best.

Ultrasound! #20weeks
Originally uploaded by Buster Benson

For your viewing pleasure: The first video footage of Baby Benson!

We put up our tree this weekend!

While we were doing boring errands, Jon asked if we should get a tree while we were out. This put me in a bad mood. Running boring errands always makes me a little grouchy, but suddenly the idea of going to the tree-store, picking out a tree, paying for it, trying to locate the tree-stand we bought two years ago, then properly securing the tree in said tree stand all seemed overwhelmingly unfun and made me even grouchier than usual.

Yet I didn't want to be a total grinch, an "Oh, I don't celebrate Christmas because it's too commercial and it's just a meaningless excuse to force people to buy presents." kind of person. That's just zero fun. Of course we needed a tree.

So I made a tree that took up very little space and didn't require an extension of the "boring errands" portion of the day.



Then we decorated it with all our standard tree ornaments and crooned "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" when we were done.


Look at all the presents! Now it looks great- and when we're done we can just flip it back to the big mural of various gods of the world that's on the other side.

This is a much nicer post than the one I wrote in my head today about the tail-ectomy at work that didn't end up actually happening. Maybe more on that tomorrow but tonight I just want to look at 2D Christmas trees and 3D presents. Happy things.