The Final Week

What Does the Fox Say?

The day after Christmas, my mom reached out to say that an art print I'd ordered Kitten for Valentine's Day had arrived in the mail; and so we hopped in the car and headed back over to my parents' house for the second day in a row.

Midway there, my mom texted to ask that we "try not to wake the guests sleeping out past the pool"...

Trouble in Potato Soup Land

Saturday morning, we were just finishing breakfast when someone knocked on our door; and it turned out to be Rosie bringing us up the plate we'd taken down with a bunch of nachos for them a few nights prior.

But Rosie's one of those people who will never return an empty dish; and so, she had stacked the thing with lunch for us...

Kitten and I won't touch seafood, but I set the shrimp aside for the Molerat to munch on later. And the rice, the salad, and that plantain-taco-lasagna thing in the back were all scrumptious.

Soon it was time to head over to my parents' house yet again this week, because my mom and Kelly were making potato, bacon, and cheddar soup for dinner.

A mile down the road, we got stuck behind the Darth Maul mobile...

Maul finally released us from his infrontofus-ness just in time for us to drive into Silent Hill...

Uh-oh... This could be trouble.

...And it was! Pop-o-Matic Trouble to be exact...

Liv started off super excited, but then her interest began to wane when Athennia had to keep course-correcting her when she would try to move her pegs into the other colors' starting or ending rows.

A few minutes in, she hit us with,

I fink I'm all done wif this game, because you always try to teach me.

So I told her that that was fine, but Aunt Athennia and I were still going to finish the game before we moved on to whatever new game it was that Liv wanted to play.

Clearly this reality sandwich wasn't the tastiest thing she'd ever bitten into; but, once she realized that she'd have to wait for us to finish the game whether she stuck around or not, she reluctantly resumed playing.

Then, look whose mood did a complete 180 three minutes later when she won the game!

Aunt Athennia took it especially hard...

Dinner was delicious, the company was lovely, and Kitten and I even found two bucks in the backyard as we were leaving...

Oh, and these guys, too...

Speaking of Loud Jerks...

The guy in the second house out our back bedroom window—whom I fondly call "Cockbag"—has had a dirtbike for forever... because that's exactly the kind of practical purchase that a guy who looks 30 and owns exactly 0.00016 acres of land tends to make.

But, the dude must've bought his wife an ATV for Christmas so that she could enjoy the pleasures of being a low-rent toolbag as well; and so, Sunday afternoon, I captured this video of the two of them leaving their toddler unattended in their unfenced front yard while they did some on-the-road off-roading...

Family Christmas

Monday evening was our extended family Christmas, because that was the day on which the majority of us could manage to be available.

It turned out to be a relatively beautiful day—especially since the rain held off...

I probably wouldn't have taken any photos, except that Liam and Hannah presented this opportunity just a few minutes into the evening...

And I'll readily concede that Liam had on the coolest shirt at the party by far!

Kitten was nice enough to take a decent amount of pictures while everyone opened presents.

Laura and Ava weren't there. Pete had to leave early to go into work, and JD hadn't yet come from work at that point.

And, as for Matt, Crawford, Maya, and Cole...

Other than that, Kitten was the one behind the camera, and Angie and I were standing right next to her; but I believe she managed to get at least one shot of everybody else :)

Riley got an Amazon gift card...

Liv got a garden-stone decorating set...

And Dave and Angie gave Hannah her first drum set!

Hannah thought it was such an awesome present that she tried coming back for seconds to see what else she could score...

I'm not sure how—since all we did was load up on appetizers and desserts for four straight hours—but somehow Athennia had her first gallbladder attack in months, and I woke up in the middle of the night with some impressive heartburn.

It wasn't such a big deal for me, since I just popped some pepto and went back to sleep.

But Kitten had to wake up and go to work at 5:30 in the morning... although, to say "wake up" implies that she had actually managed to fall sleep—which she's not sure she ever did.

New Year's Eve

I snapped this pic of the clouds over our apartment Tuesday afternoon...

Then when Kitten got home from work, I decided an easy dinner from Domino's was the best thing with which to chase a night of heartburn (though Kitten opted for SaladWorks instead).

When we arrived home with dinner in our hands, we saw this absolute clownshoe pleading his case to the father of his girlfriend whom he just cursed out and accused of cheating on him just a few days ago...

Naturally, Kitten was exhausted from having barely slept the night before; but we still managed to make it to midnight!

And since there were crazy flash-downpours off an on all evening, everything was too soggy for the neighborhood's resident pyromaniacs to set off explosives all evening long; and, by the time the storms blew over, everyone ended up setting off their arsenals all at once right at midnight, instead of having doled them out over the six hours leading up to midnight.

Santa Claws

Finally, here's the final batch of 2024 cat pics!

We'll start with Lucky doing Lucky things...

And here's Odin pulling his nightly "I'm starving to death!" ritual...

At least Penny has the decency to go on hunger strike and put herself behind bars...

Odin also has a second nightly ritual, later in the evenings while Kitten and I are watching television to wind down before bed: He loves it when, on occasion, I let him chase around this tiny tape measure I have—which I keep on the top shelf of the bookcase next to my desk—and so he'll sit there with us all evening long, just waiting for me to move a millimeter in any direction...

And the moment I do, he's convinced that it's 100% go time. Every. Single. Time...

Meanwhile in Rileyroomland, Supreme Reichchancellor Lucky continues to develop his plans to take over the world!

And finally, a couple rare shots of the Trifecta coexisting in perfect harmony...

So that's... what, Adolf Kit-ler, Winston Purr-chill, and Joseph Meowlin?