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| My friend Cheryl and her daughters ordered nine boxes of cookies from Fox. Fox, Anjanette, Lala, and Papa Jay delivered the cookies to me (and later I did to Cheryl) on Sunday, on their way to take Fox to Amon. |
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| Fox included a thank you note for Cheryl. She loves to sign her name in cursive writing. |
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| Anjanette and Fox |
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| Zephyr's idea of hiding under the bed from me when I'm calling for her. Love the rings on her tail. |
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| I left the back door open and confirmed-feral-cat Einar sneaked in for a bite. He puffed up when he heard the camera click. |
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| We celebrated Dad's 91st with an assortment of three kinds of king cake from New Orleans. (Thanks for the great photos, Donna!) |
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| No need to find the baby in this one. |
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| Martha, Craig, Martin, Tom, Donna, Dad and Charles. Emma was in New Orleans with the Centenary choir. Next year, Emma! |
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| Martha, me, Martin, Tom, Donna, Charles, and Dad |
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| We rented a hybrid vehicle, a Ford Fusion, for the first time for our most recent trip to Shreveport. I found the owner's manual to contain some fascinating information, including the above regarding how the car learns your frequent destinations. As my eyes were glazing over, all I could think was "Hop on one foot in a circle and use the opposite hand to toss three magic beans over your left shoulder while chanting 'frequent destination' backwards (noitanitsed tneuqerf) 10 times." |
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| I was summoned for jury duty for the first time in my life last Fall. Managed to get a continuance because the appearance date conflicted with the Portland trip in December. But the government will have its due. I was one of 30 prospective jurors who appeared as required on January 14. Six of us would be chosen for the drunk driving case. We were assigned randomly-selected numbers, mine being "17." I learned two things: (1) Being assigned the number 10 or below increases one's chance of being selected; and (2) during the 3-hour process of being questioned and waiting around, you're not allowed to leave to feed the meter. However, you can submit a resulting parking ticket to the bailiff for "fixing." I wasn't chosen and was kind of sad. Would have been interesting to serve on a jury. |
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| Turk Pipkin is an Austinite and author. His "Grace and the Moon," in both English and Swahili, is the story of little girls in the USA and Kenya musing about the moon. Proceeds from the book sales go to funding humanitarian projects through Nobelity, an organization he and his wife founded in 2006. You might have seen Turk on The Sopranos or seen his documentary film "Nobelity," in which a number of Nobel Prize winners are interviewed regarding how to solve world problems. Tom and I attended the book signing at BookPeople, an independent bookstore, because I need to learn how to do a book signing for if/when my book is published. |
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| Amon wanted no cake. But crickets??? Each of us in turn--Papa Tom, Fox, and me--politely declined to partake. They were crunchy like chips. Ew! |
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| Gifts for Amon. What could they be? |
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| The best present of all. Fox in a box! |
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| Ta-da! |
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| Rain, rain, rain all the way from Austin to Shreveport on Wednesday, January 2. This flooded field is on the 314 just north of Brownsboro. The 314 is my route from the 31 to I-20, through the artists' community of Edom. So good to spend time with Dad, Charles, Martha, and Craig. |
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| We waited for Fox to get back from Pittsburgh and Amon to have a day off work before celebrating Christmas. |
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| Thanks, Emma! Fox loves her fox purse and fox sox ... er, socks. |
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| New Year's Eve day found us at the Howells for one last hurrah before Beka, Scott, and kids flew back to Seattle. Here, Sadie, Fox, Lucy, and Jim play Twister. |
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| Watching the sun set on 2018 from the back deck. |
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| One last holiday hurrah with a drive down brightly lighted 37th and 36th streets. "Joy to the weird" indeed. |
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| A couple of years after the satellite dish was installed, our neighbor's tree grew tall enough to block the signal. No television! |
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| The blocking ligustrum was no match for Papa Tom and his chainsaw. |
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| The branches are down (with our neighbor's permission) and the television signal is back. Super Bowl Sunday is on for Papa Tom, Greg, and Roy. |
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| Christmas week began on Friday, December 21, at Sarah and Kirk's with "Tarka Night," in which we bring in food from the Tarka Indian Kitchen. Jim, Lucy, Jake, and Fox took turns choosing dance tunes on Alexa. |
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| Papa Tom worked from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Christmas Day. After he got home, he and Amon finished the 550-piece puzzle that we'd started a few days earlier. Turns out two pieces are missing. Left at the HomeAway in Westlake last year? |
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| The day after Christmas, we had lunch at Jan and Jim's with Sarah and Kirk, Beka and Scott, Liz and Jarad and the great-nieces and great-nephews. Here are Jake, Grandpa Jim, Jim, Sadie, GranJan, Lucy, Miles, and Hank. Luke is running around the room somewhere. |
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| Caught the Austin Blues Society Christmas party at the Skylark Lounge on Thursday, December 26, 2018. Will I ever be an accomplished enough blues guitarist to join the jam? |
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| Had a wonderful time on Friday, December 28, 2018, with Al, Joyce, and Emma at Dueling Pianos at the Hippodrome in Waco. They did not play Tom's request (Redneck Mother by Jerry Jeff Walker) but they had the audience rollicking with many other crowd pleasers. |
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| The upside of the Asheville Lewises not flying home on Sunday, December 9, due to a record snowstorm on the East Coast, was getting to spend time with LaWanda on Monday. She'd had major school deadlines the week before and we didn't get to see her at the HomeAway. Next year we'll check with everyone about potential conflicts before planning a family get together. |
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| At Portland's famous Powell's Books: the largest independent new and used books store in the world. |
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| Until recently, Austin had Leslie, a bearded cyclist in a bikini, who did his part to keep Austin weird. To date, Portland has the Unipiper, a unicycling Darth Vader with flaming bagpipes. Maybe the Unipiper could be coaxed to spend winters in Austin? To help us stay weird? Does part-time borrowed weirdness count? |
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| Our first drive to the HomeAway, after dark, on a lonely, winding road through the woods, took us under a railroad trestle manned by trolls who demanded a toll! Not so scary in the daytime, thank goodness. |
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| Or what? We never paid and nothing bad ever happened to us--so far! |
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| Leila, Micah, Otis, Ava, and Mason, on the safe side of the troll bridge |
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| The real trolls. The only thing more scary is Ramzi's purposely ugly Christmas sweater. |
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| Micah showed the kids how to make origami roses |
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| Ramzi gave the kids a moonwalk lesson |
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| We had a "make your own pizza" night thanks to Leila. Thanks, Leila! Mya and Ava got creative with their pizzas. |
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| Pitching balls into the wastebasket |
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| No family get together would be complete without our Nerf guns |
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| Retrieving Nerf gun darts |
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| The basement pool table |
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| Micah set up a BB gun shooting gallery on the porch |
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| Micah gives Mya, River, and Mason sharpshooter tips |
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| Piper on the porch |
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| While Ryder, Brandy, and Ramzi toured downtown Portland, the rest of us made Christmas cookies and shot BB guns at the HomeAway. Ramzi even found the perfect sweater for an upcoming "ugly Christmas sweater" party in Los Angeles. |
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| Somebody's keeping Portland weird. |
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| Leila rolled out Christmas cookie dough for the kids |
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| Somebody's been taste testing the icing before adding it to her sunglasses cookie |
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| Ava, Piper, River, and Mya. I think they're waiting for the cookies to cool before eating--er, decorating--them. |
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| The kitten cookie is to pretty to eat |
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| Micah chose Ninja gingerbread men for the kids to make and decorate |
