And Mom and Dad can hardly wait for school to start again

I hope all had a reasonably merry Christmas. While my sister and her boyfriend came down, my brother who lives out in California didn't fly over, which is fine since that relieved pressure on finding gifts for him. And my other brother and his wife didn't come because he's very allergic and won't be coming down here while the cats are around. He says last time he visited it took him a week to recover. It can take me that long to recover from my father too. That's fine too, though, since while I've got fine presents for her I'm second-guessing my choice of a remote-controlled dinosaur for him. It's juvenile, but I think he'd have fun scaring his cat with it.

So we had a small crowd, but I turned on the living room light so my camera had a chance of producing a usable picture. The living room is otherwise the dimmest spot on Earth not occupied by a coal factory. My father complained of the glare but did not turn the light off until the second my sister and her boyfriend left. Adding to the fun was my sister bringing her dog along, so the cats got to react. The dog really likes playing with cats, but has noticed that sometimes cats get all pointy when she plays with them, and so has understandably ambiguous body language. The older cat stood her ground, laying on the bed, occasionally hissing back at the squeaking dog.

The younger cat found the dog interesting but unwelcome and jumped to the top shelf in my father's closet. We've never figured out how she can possibly do that. Eventually my mother checked on her, and the cat leapt onto her shoulder, to stay. She would stick out her claws and arch her back and hiss at the dog, but she wouldn't get off my mother's shoulder for anything. Well, almost anything. When my mother sat down and took out the scissors used to trim the cats' nails, that's when the cat ran off and hid under the dining room table. She occasionally poked her head out the far side of the table and that was as much dog as the cat wanted to experience.

Trivia: In the Battle of Trenton 21 Hessians and no Americans were killed, and 90 Hessians and four Americans were wounded. Source: 1776, David McCullough. And I'm looking forward to whatever high comedy the Revolutionary War Reenactors have dreamed up for this year's Battle of Trenton fiasco.

Currently Reading: Empire of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World, Jill Jonnes.