The Photo Album

Here's us, albeit a bit pixillated.

Picture taken by my parents, of course. Neither Ken nor I are much given to snapping shots of each other, and certainly not of doing all the set-up to take a picture of ourselves together.

Here's my parents in their disgustingly well decorated home. Ah, hardwood floors! Not only are they handsome and easy to clean, but it's a lot more fun to watch cats run across them.

The rocking chair is a popular spot.

And this is Ken's mom. These were taken during the holidays, and his dad was watching football on TV, so we didn't get any of him. Maybe we can get him after they move to their new house, among the boxes of books.

Next, we present two of Ken's siblings, Pat and Kate. Pat has just recieved the 50th anniversary edition of Peanuts.

Kate has just a bit of the deamon-eyes that the camera pre-flash is supposed to keep from happening, but, hey, when did any of us believe a product's own advertising? Kate is playing with my slinky. Orange, isn't it?

Here is my Grandfather Fournier trying to hand one of the latest family pets (Winter 00), also a dachsund, to my Grandmother, who is refusing to touch her.

The latest pet ('99) in my extended family. Lucy, the dachsund puppy. She's horribly cute. And pretty hyper, but well socialized for all that. She's with the same family that turned out Spike, The Most Laid-Back Cat In The West.  It's a family thing. 

Friends 

Most of our friends live at least a three hour drive away, some five hours.  This sucks.

Here we have the (somewhat ex-) Kalamazoo contingent:  Scott, Emily and Lydia, in order from left to right, goofing off for the camera.  Emily is holding a pair of screaming purple otters named Ru and Ra.

Of course, now Emily and Scott have moved to Ann Arbor, so everyone is concentrated, which is nice.

The Old Guard Ann Arbor contingent, at least the ones I usually still see, are Beth and Brian, shown here with their cats.  The tiny grey one is Nezumi and the huge orange one is Sam. 

Nezumi, aka Zoomy, was at the feirce-kitten stage when the first picture was taken, where she will attempt to gnaw bodyparts off whomever is holding her...provided she isn't asleep.

This second picture shows her as the sleek and long-legged and inquizitive creature she grew into.

Miscellaneous.

All the other stuff that wound up in the camera and looked neat once we downloaded it. Lessee...

My newest toy (as of winter '99). Isn't it neat looking? Its engineering is rather ingenious, too, all raised levels and channels for the cords, and clever concealment of the guts. Much more elegant than my homade version. Now, wouldn't a potter's wheel be fun?

This represents Ken's and my most recent triumph in the power-tool and carpentry area. We made this bookshelf ourselves. Ken did all the staining and we counter-drilled sunken holes for the screws that hold it together so we could put wood plugs over them. It came out marvellously, if I do say so myself, especially considering that we didn't have a worktable and had to improvise. And now all my crit books are OFF THE FLOOR in the office. Well, at least for now.

My garden this year (Summer 01) has produced a hybrid Morning Glory; it's the picture at the bottom. Completely by chance, no less. My best guess is that the Heavenly Blue (the one on the bottom) hybridized with the Star of Yelta (top).

The new flowers are smaller than the Blues but bigger than the Yeltas, and a truely lovely mid-purple. It seems to have inherited the vigour of the Yeltas, too, which managed to re-seed themselves last summer and grow again in the containers of the catnip and thyme. I was hugely impressed, since both of those herbs qualify as weeds by their own aggression toward competing plants. Of course, the Blues did manage to grow handily this year in the same space as the Spearmint, which is pretty impressive, too. The hybrid somehow seeded itself into the Morning Glory pot and completely surprised me this year. I hope it comes back next year.

And, indeed, it did.