My, she was yar.

The squirrels thoughtfully packed my Christmas present in my aloe plant before I left Austin. That's right, 7 weeks after leaving, I found a little tree growing from a buried nut in the pot. Thanks you little f'ers.

Work is useless for me today. All I can think about is this:



Yipee skippee! Xmas morning I land in Brussels for a nice long visit with mom, plus my brother and his family, who are also flying in for the holiday. Am very much looking forward to seeing Belgium, which, according to Eddie Izzard, God created on the first day. Oh how I adore you, Eddie.

I plan to take countless pictures of my nieces and nephew, who are arguably the cutest kids on earth. Might take some of Belgium too. And frites. Gotta buy some chocolate for all who requested it. I'm not a big chocolate freak to be honest. Not unless it's in a brownie or something. But the frites and waffles, I will fall prey to immediately.

And I'll have Liz in tow. Meet Liz!



She's my Christmas present to myself this year. Donations are being accepted to pay off my credit card. Clearly I don't have funds to buy a digital SLR right now, but I'd decided long ago that I wanted to get one soon. And when the Belgium trip got booked, I knew I needed it before I left. So I researched and watched the sales and pondered and polled. In the end, lowest price trumped all other factors and I got the Nikon D40. I'm looking forward to learning what all its buttons do (there are a lot more than are on my old Pani). Speaking of my Panisonic, it's not retiring forever. It is a good, sweet, if slightly temperamental camera and has served me unbelievably well. Most important, it is with it that I discovered how much I love photography, and through it that I documented New York. Yes dear, we'll always have New York.

As for Liz, she's a good bit heavier, and makes me feel very fancy and professional. And not named for who you probably think she's named for (ahem Liz Lemon). I do love Lemon, but the Nikon is actually named for Liz Imbrie from The Philadelphia Story, one of my favorite movies. She was the photographer and straight gal to Jimmy Stewart's reporter.



Here she is meeting Tracy (Katherine Hepburn). God I love that movie. It's genius. I've got this odd habit of naming electronics for characters from old movies. I've already used Bailey and Devlin for computers. And the iPods have an exclusive contract with To Kill A Mockingbird (hello Atticus, Scout and Scout 2).

Anyway, turns out a Christmas tree is a perfect thing to have around when experimenting with an SLR for the first time. All those bits and baubles to practice zooming and focusing on.



Cats too, it seems.



Office is closing early today - hooray! Better scurry so I can get everything done. Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday, and I'll see you in '09!