The Rest of Our Lives Will Be Just Like Christmas

Merry, Merry my friends.

Obligatory music video to follow. You guys all know that I l.o.v.e. Frightened Rabbit. What a special treat, I might even say a Christmas miracle, that he has this tune. We did a White Christmas themed radio show last night. Yep, we did our show on Christmas. It was really fun actually. Last year, we went skiing on Christmas. This year, KWVA. Next week, first show of 2011, I will be flying solo, as DJPJ will be setting up for the second annual New Year's Day Funk n' Balls performance. I'm pretty sure the radio show'll be themeless. So anyway, because just about everyone I know had a white christmas (some first the first times in their lives. Come on you weather controlling aliens, I know my Montanans and New England folks will make me jealous, but Tennessee, really?) I thought we could give ourselves one. Musically, anyway.

Frightened Rabbit - Best Christmas Song Of All Time

I hope all your Christmasses were as lovely as mine. I had the best of both worlds because I was lucky enough to go see momma, papa and brother bird and still get home in time for the actual day with my man.
Check out what I got for Christmas...... drumroll... bbbbbbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrmmmmmm....

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Look how fast my hands are moving... you can't even see the sticks!

Just call me Pigeon White. Maybe one day I'll be good enough to play with a pseudo-brother-guitar-god, creating one of the best rock combos of all time because I can play just as well as some sixth grader practicing in his garage. Just kidding, Meg, I think you're great. Really. And, while you're listening to me, how about getting over that stage fright and getting back on the road?
How does someone get stage fright AFTER years of touring? I'm just sayin...

AND I'M JUST KIDDING about getting the drums. I don't get to keep them, but I did get to play them. These drums are on loan from Brad. The aforementioned FnBs have been practicing here and leaving their equipment much to my, and my dog's, delight. Actually, I am not sure if Floyd is delighted or absolutely terrified... you be the judge.

Goes berserk to the beat of the drum

Back to the reality. As you may know, Florida is a great place for birdwatching. And, as you may also know, my relationship with birds is a complicated one. But I partook in: 

Some owl stalking, although we were careful to not molest the birds in any way, in accordance with the posted warnings. 

Well, that's my mom, but I was there too. 

It was a two hour drive to see this guy. Each way.

Totally worth it. I am being serious. 

Plus, the route guidance took us through a Wal-Mart parking lot to get there. It doesn't get much better than that.

In bigger bird news, we went to Jungle Gardens.

Birds Galore.

I saw some flamingos.

I fed a flamingo. 

OH EM GEE.

Scared for my life at this point. 

As you can see, I was not able to look directly at the bird while feeding.

Photo credit: Mom (good job getting the shot while convulsing with laughter)

I actually was *ok* until a big duck snuck up behind me and pecked my leg. That was the end of that. In other animal encounter news, my parents' "foster dog" Ernesto bit me. I honestly don't think I have ever been bitten by a dog before. Ernie is a fiery one. I can't say I was too sad to see him go back to his original foster person due to repeated bitings. My parents are getting a new one in a couple weeks, Atari. I named it. 

Just to finish up with the animal adventure section of this post, I met my brother's pride and joy, Winston Thelonious Monk.

This is a real cat.

And this is after I cleaned the eyes. And check out my ring! Instant classic. 

Photo credit: Brother (again, good job getting the shot while convulsing with laughter)

This is what xmas trees look like down on the gulf coast. Beautiful. 

We went to several movies, tis the season (for Oscars, hello). 

The Tourist: Great, fun little movie. Can you go wrong with Johnny Depp? No, you can't. Especially in cute cotton pjs. 

The Social Network: I felt really excited to see this one, because I have been reading about Zuckerberg for years in Fast Co. and Business Week and such. Great movie, great dialog... I liked it a lot, but what are all these people saying it was the best movie of the year? 

The Fighter: Great, intense movie. Can you go wrong with Marky Mark Wahlberg? Can you go wrong with Christian Bale? No, of course not. And, being born and partially raised in New England, I kind of don't believe that Bale isn't really from Lowell. My dad grew up in the next town over (from Lowell) and he was buying it too. If Bale doesn't get the Oscar, I'll eat my mittens. It was like Intervention, but even more real. And the mom deserves one, too. There are some early Oscar predictions, as you can imagine, I get into that kind of thing. This year will be the first one in a while that I have seen a lot of what I am sure will be contenders. My man and I are going to see Black Swan tonight, so I'm covering all the bases. 

Anyway, I had a great time with the fam in Florida. Of course, I didn't get too much work done.

 

This is the textbook I'll be teaching this quarter. I brought it all the way to FL.

What you can't see is that I am on page 3 or something like that.

Back in waterworld:

Xmas Eve

Xmas AM

It's a good thing Floyd doesn't believe in Santa anymore, because how could we explain how he got a gift even though he has been bad all year?

I ordered my man the Keith Richards book for Christmas, delivered free with the wonderful student Prime account, and I told him to just put the Amazon package under the tree. But I forgot that I ordered something for myself as well. You can just imagine the excitement when he opened this:

Even better: what you can't tell is that it's 1270 pages. 

And for me.... I got totally spoiled, as usual. One of my favorites:

Is this gift as good as a drum set? I think, yes.