All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth. . .

and all the loot i got!!!

Merry Xmas everyone.

rogray and i are in amish, pa at his mom's celebrating this blessed holiday that has enticed jews for centuries. . .and now i can be a part of it.

rogray's sister holgray and her bf, kk, are here too and we all got some slammin' stocking stuffers: passes to movies, floss, toohpaste, snowglobes, chocolate santas and the life hammer!

rogray scored a new wardrobe and i got a few new clothes too. rogray got books, i got cds, and, thanks to holgray and kk, we both scored my favorite kitchen appliance ever made.

and the mystery of rogray's present to me? the answer is the most awesome gift ever: the complete calvin and hobbes harcover box set. that's right -- every calvin and hobbes comic strip ever printed in art book quality. i am beside myself with joy.

what i've learned about christmas is this: it's about spending time together as a family, sharing the joy of warm relations and rejoicing in the generosity of the human spirit. and presents. and eating.

i think someone said something about it being someone's birthday but i was too busy eating peppermint bark, moose munch, cookies, peppermint cake and rogray's spinach artichoke dip to hear what they were saying.

chanukkah oh chanukkah

tonight is the last night of chanukkah. tonight is the night rogray and i will exchange presents. presents are, perhaps, my favorite things ever.

rogray's present to me is in the big blue bag and weighs maybe 50 pounds.

my present to him is in the teeny tiny red package that weighs maybe 2 ounces.

so far the guesses for what his present could be are an anchor, a giant rock, or a very heavy bowling ball.

anyone care to throw in a guess or two?

winner gets a virtual pat on the back sent to them via email.

deck the halls! (w/ wgc #14!)

last saturday was our 2nd annual holiday ArtJam!: Brooklyn edition. what's an ArtJam!? i'm so glad you asked. . .it was created with jk in l.a. last year. you share arts and crafts supplies and just make things until you can't anymore. usually it would be just jk, rogray and me making collages and the like but the holiday version is open to all. we supply food, drink and supplies and in return people make ornaments for our tree. we then keep our favorite ornaments for the next year and hopefully in a few years we will have a tree full of ornaments that have all been made by our friends.

here are the top ones from last year:



the first two are from the dude. the red one is his portrait of rogray. the last one is jk's panda ornament. for some reason my picture of the virgin mary and hassidic jew ornaments made from last year didn't get on the old flickr page. but you can imagine.

we threw some logs on the old "fireplace":


whipped up some latkes, pigs in a blanket, spinach artichoke dip and rogray's pine nut and gingerbread cookies:

and herbed potato chips: .

both went over grand -- he'd never made cookies before and they were deelish. i think i'm forgetting how to cook.

here is a collection of photos of people making crafts. look at the joy on their faces. basically people came in and either made a beeline for the food table or one of the craft tables.



the chef brought cupcakes and various toppings for people to make edible crafts! here she is:


people with their cupcake masterpieces:


here is mr. mo shoving an entire cupcake into his mouth:


his wife was very proud.

here are people being silly:

lawyer gets fresh with rogray:


this is as crazy as the hulk gets:


the critic acts smarmy:


this is me at my tipsiest (read: drunk oblivious to the hangover that will inhabit every aspect of being the next day):


do i look like bugs bunny there? i feel like i do. . .

c-dog and i get serious and do a p.s.a:

don't do drugs kids!

doesn't our hair look really good there?

enough of this. here are the ornaments!

here is the top of the tree. i call it "the father, son and the holy spirit."


a fashionable crucifiction:


koogs':


the hulk's 3 wise men:


a gentlre reminder for the holiday season from mateo:


mr. f's hidden talent comes out:


a heart exploding with ArtJam! joy:


c-dog models her ornament:


ms. mo made a collage that will forever live on our refrigerator. look how amazing it is:

it doesn't even look like a collage! it looks like a picture out of a magazine.

rogray and i made dreidels out of clay!

i went classic on the right while rogray went stylishly artistic on the left.

in the end our craft table looked like this:


and our tree looked like this!




there are so many more ornaments that i didn't take pictures of yet. i think it's safe to say that the party was a success. the food was eaten we ended up having more liquor than what we started with (thanks guys. how'd you know all i wanted was wine and whiskey? you're geniuses.) rogray and i didn't even have that much clean-up. merry happy chrismukkah everyone!

oh christmas tree oh christmas tree. . .

rogray and i picked out our christmas tree! or chanukkah bush. . .

this is where we got it:



every year some tree farm from vermont sets up shop in front of the park slope food co-op (of which we are members) so hippies and wanna-be hippies can buy their trees from people they assume are actual hippies living the dream of communing with the earth as opposed to "freelancing."

bucky sold us our tree:



i just realized that if it cost $10 a foot and we spent $40 on our tree, and if bucky is actually the same height of the tree as he appears to be in the above photo then bucky is 4 feet tall.

here is a very naked tree in our apartment:



after our chrismukkah holiday ArtJam! party i will have pictures of the tree decorated and ornamented. . .and i will have pictures of the dreidels we made from a drug-store purchased make-your-own dreidel kit. . .i'm sure they will work perfectly and there won't be any problems with them. . .

pictures of you. . .

i can't really go into a weekend without posting some of the 200+ pictures i took of the last one.

last saturday and sunday were truly marathon days and the fact that i made it through without one argument or one episode of lateness (ok, maybe one but i had a very difficult time waking up on sunday) is a miracle.

saturday began with an a.m. birthday part for rogray's niece and nephew who turned 2. the starts of the party:

gracie:


and pedro who was either tired, drunk, or very much in love with this balloon:


there were bubbles and uncle rogray's ballon flowers:


rogray thought he was all cool until the 7foot guy in this picture started making balloon dogs.


pedro and gracie's friend olivia said that she liked the dog better. ouch.


more party fun:



i left the party to go meet up with koogs, her mom, and cec for a little bit of wedding dress shopping (koogs, not me). koogs was kind enough to take treat us all to lunch! here she is trying on dresses:

only if she were in a midsummer night's dream:


only if she were someone completely different:


this one was super hot:


or sexy and sophisticated as koogs' mom called it. we loved it on her but koogs doesn't want your typical wedding dress and we were worried about whether or not it would take to dying the color blue she wanted it. but we put it on hold and went to a few other places ending at morgane le fey. . .which is where she found and bought the dress. i'm not putting pictures of it on here because that seems wrong but it is the perfect dress for her. it's white but doesn't look like a wedding dress. after a day of looking at her in dresses and thinking "maybe you just don't get that mythical feeling when you find the dress that everyone talks about you feeling" we felt it when she tried it on. it was the last of her options at the last store we were going to and it was an amazing moment. we all teared up and she got really excited.

i left the ladies to head back out to brooklyn for the lumberjack's performance art piece he did for class at pratt. rogray and the lumberjack started a band and they played music during it. here are some selected moments. rogray is the one in scary make-up -- so scary that when he picked me up after their dress rehearsal and hadn't told me about the scary make-up i screamed and started crying. in my defense it was 1 in the morning and i had spent the entire day returning from peoria.



this is what rogray and the lumberjack looked like in the light:



now you see why i screamed and cried.

after that we went to mo's holiday party. at this point my brain had shut off, my legs actually hurt and i was dreading having to wake up at 8am the next day to drive 4 hours to massachusettes but i rallied. in part due to mr. mo's swedish meatballs. here are pics of the partay:

the chef and her beau:


arrow tellimg mr. mo about getting hit by a car on his bike:


delores their demon cat:


the artiste and her techie roomie:


the hostess strikes a pose:


it was a very good night and a very good party.

the next day i woke up with aching legs and set off with the photog to massachusettes. . .to see jum's baby!



me and the miss magarathea rose:


the photog and the baby:


jum and her little maggie:


mostly jum and maggie looked like this:

because this baby likes to bounce!

maggie's first doll is from her uncle:


when you squeeze the belly it breathes like darth vader and says things that darth vader says.

the photog and i didn't get lost on the way back which shaved an hour off of our drive time (no thank to you google maps.) and we got home by 11pm. i didn't have work the next day and decided that sleeping for 10 hours was the only way to recover from the jam packed weekend. . .next up: our chrismukkah tree and party. . .