There's a guy canoeing in that cloud, hey?

Karyn Ellis said she'd always wanted to write a song with the word "Canada" in it, and I agree.

AAM NAAM NAAM!

Always sad to say goodbye to family, and always excited to be back in Canada!

Leaving and Working

Mom went home this morning, and Simon went home this afternoon, but not before Dad took us to show us his work and Simon got the chance to expertly bomb a few photos:

the sights

I headed in to downtown Portland twice today, once to visit Powell's City of Wonder (pdf):

Then we went home so Cousin Claire could tell me how badly I needed to watch Black Swan, and dad could show his sister his new presents:

Then it was back to East Portland with Andrew to try to find PDX's live music scene at the Doug Fir:

The headliners, Guantanamo Baywatch, played a single, shockingly unpolished set of a kind of crazed surf music so fun that I danced the whole time I was in line for drinks.

Overwhelmed

Sometimes downtown PDX is so exciting that you want to run around waving your arms going "weeeeeeoooeeeeeeooeeeeee!!!", and sometimes downtown PDX is so exciting that you want to curdle up in the end of one of Powell's Books' book alleys and rock back and forth and cry.

Winning at Christmas

Christmas may be about family, but Christmas day is about presents. That box has a hand-made robo-patterned snuggie in it, and hell yes.

It's also possible to win at Christmas. For instance, Joanna won at Christmas by making me the perfect snuggie. Baby Interrobang won by getting this home-made quilt from Lisa:

Auntie D won 'most clever' for her gift of a subtle hint for Dad:

Matthew and his family won for coming from the future:

Dad won by asking for memories for Christmas, we all won for giving them, and Toshia won for putting them together for us.

And we all won for food.

Christmas feels like a whirlwind this year. We didn't even get the tree trimmed until Christmas Eve.