Merry Christmas!

Well, we had planned to (grudgingly) leave Rufus and Amelia in charge of the house, and head up to see Sophie's family for the holidays. The first "white Christmas" Texas has seen in many years intervened, however - shutting down parts of both highways we'd have to traverse. (Note: It wasn't a lot of snow, but we got a huge amount of freezing rain, which sheathed many of the major roads here in ice. Better safe than sorry, I guess.)

So it's a quiet, wintry day at home with the dogs and cats for us. Which suits us quite well. Rufus and Amelia got to romp around in their first snowfall today, including chasing squirrels early in the morning for Ammie and the largest ice-cubes Rufus has ever owned. It's all melting away to mud and sludge at this point, but it was grand while it lasted.

In other news, our decade-old Olympus C-5060 camera has finally died. Since we can't come close to affording a digital SLR (which is what I ultimately want, camera-hound that I am), we've opted for a Canon PowerShot SX120 in the interim. Hopefully, it won't take long to get the hang of using the new camera, but I apologize for any major lags in photographic quality.

Other than that, we wish you, your families and friends all a wonderful and loving holiday season. May your days be merry and bright, and may your nights be warm, cozy and a bit fuzzy.
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Monkey vs Dog in the Great Panty Battle

So, I'm gathering up laundry and Rufus grabs a pair of panties and runs out the back door. He proceeds to rip them up (Emmy helps) and chasing is no good, so I grab a big stick and start whacking it against the tree he's running around, and I yell "Drop it!" (whack) "Drop it" (whack) while following him around the tree. Basically, I become Big Scary Monkey. The stick shatters with every smack and I very rarely lose my temper with Rufus to that extent. (Annoyance is a totally different thing.) With a look of shock, he finally dropped it and just stood back and let me take the shredded remains of my undies. Now is very contritely sitting at my feet. So is Emmy (who drops things immediately.) Panties destroyed but maybe he'll stop swiping my stuff. I'm sure it's not the Dog Whisperer way to solve the problem, but it worked on this day.

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