TALIA:
Talia, stymied by the couch buying process in the Netherlands (pick a couch, give them some money, wait for it to show up in your living room...why do they have to make things so complicated?), went into a furniture store in Munich and has since refused to get up. We miss her, but are happy if she's happy. Before sitting down, Talia earned us a lifetime's carbon credits by restoring the creek, completed field work for an advanced degree in herring inspection, and got all caught up on her bathing.
FELIX:
Having finished his final year of elementary school, Felix moved to the Netherlands where he introduced bike surfing ("gevaarfietsen") to the Dutch, proof, if such were required, that you can take the boy out of California but not the California out of the boy, also, that he has no sense at all. When not brushing his hair--which is to say all the time--he is busy making excuses, popping Bloons™, and perfecting his impression of Richard Feynman (the brilliant scientist Feynman, not the louche skirt chaser Feynman). Felix enjoys picking up his clothing and coming to breakfast promptly just about as much as you'd expect.
GIDEON:
Shown here robbing a chocolate store--one sample only, Gid!--we have our younger child and his faithful bicycle helmet (he goes through bicycles like I eat potato chips but somehow the helmet stays on). Gideon went straight from second grade to fifth, albeit in different educational systems, and now mutters angrily to himself in two languages, so yes, you could say the move to the Netherlands has been a success. He sleeps in his own bedroom but doesn't like it, and is still, even after all these years, 100% guilt-free.
ALEC:
Alec found his missing hat but even so slept badly last night, so if this isn't funny that's why. When not tossing and turning he likes to collect jobs and debt, the thinking being that one will eventually catch up with the other and isn't it exciting waiting to see which one wins and doesn't that maybe explain all the tossing and turning? Alec travels often, mostly to visit Talia in Munich, and found himself on two (sub)continents he'd never expected to visit this year or any year, further proof that, as he likes to say, too much is never not enough.
THE HOUSES:
It was a big year for us mortgage holders and the properties by which we are encumbered. First the house in Cali had to be made ready for renting. This entailed mobilizing earth moving equipment to ensure the place didn't wash downstream while we are gone, and, harder, packing up the house completely, a process we savored over many weeks and that somehow left the space seeming even smaller than it was before. Dispirited, we rented it and moved to Amsterdam. There we embarked on a months-long process to purchase additional space for our apartment, despite the fact that, not having a couch (see above), we don't even use the living room we already have. This section, upon rereading, is sad, not funny, but it is true and sometimes that's reason enough to laugh.
THE VACATIONS:
As noted some screens above, I write from Athens, but as screens go by so does time and I'm actually posting from Meteora, Greece. Unable to pick among a plethora of my perfectly framed shots of the incredible rock formations in and around which we have been hiking almost non-stop for the past two days, I instead offer you this disgusting video of Gideon drinking hot chocolate I took just hours ago.
Now that's fresh! For more from our many picture perfect and enviable in every respect vacations this year, please review my previous posting on Ameland, which really was as wonderful as it looks. For the rest, well, here's a sampling of some ups and some downs, vacations and otherwise, with the by now usual Apple-supplied soundtrack:
Have a very happy New Year!
