avery

There’s a first. She supposedly won’t know who she’s seeing in the mirror for a year or so, but today she’s happy to have a friend. Before now she was either indifferent or suspicious of the competition. She’ll probably go back to suspicious tomorrow. That other baby is awfully cute. Maybe too cute.

Another first – that’s the first pic I’ve posted of Avery taken with the 7D. Almost all the others have been from my iPhone. It’s just so dang convenient, and the moments don’t last. Catch as catch can. If that’s still a thing you can say.

But boy does Avery love baths. She could stay in there all day. Just floating around, being warm and floaty. Chatty and just starting to be splashy. She’s all smiles and contentment until you take her out. Then there’s a subtle shift in the mood you can only detect if you’re within a city block.

Like this afternoon. She’s on a kick for the last few days of not napping. She goes down, inevitably, but she likes being awake. She doesn’t want to miss all this experience. So she’s a little cranky while she’s fighting it. Mostly just making cranky noises (literally sounds like endless cranking, which makes me wonder if that’s the origin of the expression), but sometimes winding up a really good purple faced rage. If she were refusing to eat we’d worry, but she’s as hungry and happy as ever, otherwise.

Hey! I forgot to to take pictures of the Christmas tree! Here you go:

See? The iPhone is just so dang convenient. I just leaned over and snapped a couple. Picked my favorite. Chucked it through PhotoToaster, and emailed it to myself to I could plug it in here. The same frame taken with the 7D would have taken five times longer. Of course, the image would have been five times better after Photoshop. Still, convenience.

Oh. Right. The tree is actually a pillar. I think it looks very Christmassy, and seeing as we don’t really have to put presents under it this year, it does the job just fine. Sigh. I do love the lights. In my dorm I had Christmas lights up long before I found out that’s what you do in dorms. I also had the entire ceiling covered in pop cans. In some ways my taste in decor has improved.

Marjorie likes the pillar just fine as well. And Avery is positively hypnotized. As long as the tv isn’t on, anyway. I know she won’t remember this Christmas, but it sure is a treat to see the light in those eyes.

Bit of a strange day there.  It somehow got away from me.  We had the village handyman (read: on-site electrician) fix the GFI outlet on the patio this morning so we could string some Christmas lights out there.  It went smoothly enough but it messed with the schedule.  Power interruptions meant patchy intertubes, which has a shocking effect on your day.  Also, Marjorie went to the gym (!!) and while Avery was a perfect gem, she can’t help but be a distraction.  Still loves elevators.  Still heart-floodingly adorable.  And in the end, we kept the lights inside.  Whatayagonnado.

So I didn’t accomplish everything on my list.  Still have some things to do with CBcom and for the app.  But with some help from Robyn and Marjorie I have the gifties for the nephews sorted.  Woo!  Now the bigger challenges of, on the Taverner side, the Cutthroat Christmas gift, and on the Phillips side, the Gift For Somebody and the Stocking For Somebody.  All very fun, but I like giving them all the energy and imagination they deserve.  It can be tricky finding the time for that.  Last year, in revenge by proxy for a lifetime of mandarin oranges in the toe of my stocking, I stuffed David’s with an entire box of individually wrapped mandarins.  See?  Fun like that.  Of course he also got a for-real stocking.  I’m shocked you would even ask.

[Aside: how the hell can that dog bark for four hours without pause?  I said pause.  Lack of paws would be a perfectly good excuse for a barkathon.]

Here is a random thing:

There is an actual company making fridges and calling itself Smeg.  This begs the question: Have they not heard of Red Dwarf?  And if they have, does that not make them the coolest fridge (SWIDT?) company ever?

So.  My knee is pretty much buggered.  I have to decide what to do about that.  I kinda need to be able to chase after my little girl, both of us screaming and giggling and running rings around Mum as she rolls her eyes at us, in the not too distant future.  Also, I really enjoy working on set, and those are very long days on your feet.  Not to mention some gear lugging.  Never mind strapping on the steadicam rig.  I could go on.  I need my knee.  So.  I guess there isn’t much deciding to be done.  Just some sort of professional looking at.

But more importantly in the right now sense, I completely forgot to take a picture of our Christmas Tree!  Excite!  Maybe tomorrow.  After sleep.

Happy Tuesday, Christmas lovers!

She humours me.

I’m up too late again.  Christmas shopping!  There was that one upside to the world before the intertubes – the shopping stopped when the stores closed.  Now it’s 1:30 in the morning and I’m cruising Amazon for just the right Avengers toys.  Or Lego.  Or any of the million other awesome toys that nephews might love.

To get to our subway stop we have to pass by a Christmas tree vendor.  We don’t have to have to.  It’s just not out of our way to take that particular street.  Nice folks.  We’re getting to know them.  From Quebec, actually.  At first Marjorie claimed she just wanted to smell the trees.  But after four or five pine-scented excursions, she’s asking questions about how long a given species lasts, when they might expect more smaller ones to show up… We’re not even going to be here for Christmas.

Clearly, my zest for the season is contagious.

So there might be a tree.  M being M, she researched.  She found that you have to have a fake tree for seven years before you’ve offset its environmental impact compared to farmed (real) trees.  I didn’t think to ask how they figured that math.  Water usage?  Pollutants?  Don’t know.  But it means I can feel better about paying $70 for a real tree.  Wait- what?  Seventy dollars?  Yep.  And across the bridge in Manhattan I have seen $115 trees with my own eyes.  Crazy.  But hey, it’s Christmas.

Nevertheless, I’m inclined to wait on a tree (live or not) until next year.  We won’t be here this year, Avery wouldn’t remember it regardless, and we’ve done a beautiful job decorating the massive concrete pillar in the outside corner of our living room.  Pics soon, I’m sure.

Then again, next year we’ve been talking about doing something tropical.

Meanwhile, tomorrow, Lee and I are hoping to meet online with Mr Brian Dobson for some last minute feedback before we send this script off to [Secret A-list Person].  And then it’s sent.  Tomorrow.  It’s time.  Perfection is the enemy of good enough.  Funny how for me that expression works so well both ways.  I strive for perfection, but you need to know when it’s good enough so you can move on with the next thing.  Relentlessly pursuing perfection every time just means you get to do fewer things.  Know your audience, give them more than they asked for, and move on.

Speaking of, time for bed!  Happy Monday.