Look closely at the middle and spot the basketball hoop. This whole picture is “nothing but net”.

I was amazed this afternoon by the amount and speed involved in our first real snow event, or, more accurately, our first slushing. It started about 3:30 pm while I was driving and by the time I reached our house, I had been going mostly 30 mph behind lots of other cars and getting deeper and deeper in the ruts of slush that looked more like the aftermath of a blizzard than the beginning of a snowfall.
It was quite lovely while I was driving – an evolving Currier & Ives landscape. When I got here, Summer and I stuck our heads out of respective windows and snapped photos . . . and then she ran off to paparazzi her family members. She forgets the pictures I have of her on my camera. Oh, could this be one of them?

So I published it. Right below this. About the tree. Cryptic. This message, not the tree.

Okay, I’ve had my fun for the day; let me plunge into real sentences. I am going to Las Vegas this weekend for Der Bingle’s  Company Christmas party; I drive to Dayton on Thursday and we fly out on Friday and return on Sunday and I come home on Monday.  I’ve had this invitation before, but  haven’t gone . This time I was on a 3-way call with Quentin and Der Bingle and I said, “You know, I might just let people fend for themselves and go.”

Quentin said, “Yes, there’s no thinking about it, Mom. You’re going. You are definitely going.”

So I am going.

I probably should put Rose in my suitcase to keep me on the straight and narrow.

 What? Suitcase? I want my own seat, the window one, of course.

I don’t know when we’ll put up our tree this year. We get it at a tree farm* down on the north side of Fort Wayne – usually a Fraser fir that comes home sticking out of the trunk. We don’t put it up until the middle of December and I surround it with fountains to keep it moist. I also shut off the heat vent close to it – I kinda figured that would be smart.

Usually I’m a big decorator, but this year I think I’m cutting back. Nutcrackers are sitting by the attic door, however, and they can be pushy.

* I looked and it’s this place. See, this place right here: