Liz & Chad, Chad & Liz

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One of our Christmas gifts to Liz and Chad was a photo shoot. The photo session happened this afternoon, and while it got quite wild with dancing, jumping, and gravity defying poses, I’m posting serious photos for a proper introduction. Liz is Laurie’s youngest sister and Chad is her husband. They were married in August.

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Chad

 

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Classic Kitties & René

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Romeo, Tesla and Guildenstern were classic today. We went over the Lane’s house and played with Tesla and he posed for me. Then we dropped by Laurie’s parent’s house and Romeo was disgusted that we walked in smelling of Tesla. Earlier in the day we put carrot cake outside on the deck to cool, and when Laurie whispered “…don’t tell Guildenstern!” he perked right up and looked around to see what we were whispering his name for.

I took René in for his quarterly beak trim. Classical KHFM was playing an opera during our drive to the vet, and when René heard the woman’s voice he started to hoot and whistle like he does when he’s flirting with women. I found it interesting that he reacted the same way to a beautiful voice as he does to a beautiful woman.

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Visiting Kitty

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Lane brought Tesla to the Christmas celebration. He was a little pouffy at first in a stand off with Romeo. Then he ran and played wildly. Romeo still didn’t approve, so it was time out, sit in the corner for Tesla.

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Oh! Christmas Tree?

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People have been asking if I took photos of our Christmas Tree. First of all, Laurie and I have never had a traditional Christmas tree. The closest we ever got to a traditional tree was a tiny, live, pre-decorated tree we got from a fundraiser. Otherwise, we normally decorate a houseplant, indoor tree (ficus or norfolk pine) or more recently our large bonsai ficus. This year we got as far as lighting candles, although there is one gold ornament laying at the base of our gnarly, bonsai ficus from last year (last photo).  Laurie did a lot of cooking, so the candles reflecting in the stockpots and mixing bowl made nice decorations.

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Rail Yard Cats

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Merry Christmas! You have probably heard of “junkyard dogs” — rail yards have cats. I stopped by the yard where the Santa Fe 292 locomotive is being restored, and there were lots of cats in the rail yard. Most of the cats hid when they saw me approaching the fence —  one cross-eyed kitty was curious, two sat at opposite ends of an old loading dock, while two others watched me from the safety of a stack of railroad ties.

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Dinner with Santa

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If you are wondering where Santa was on the day before this Christmas eve, he was having dinner with Laurie, me and a group of friends and making kids worried as to why he was at El Patron’s eating with the likes of us instead of preparing gifts and tending to his reindeer and sleigh.

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Love on the Seine

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The sky was overcast and gray all day for solstice, which reminded me of Paris. Looking through my photos taken from a riverboat on our last day in Paris back in June, I noticed that there was lots of love along the Seine despite the gray sky and rain.

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