washing machines don't know it's christmas

the only (and most handsome) appliance repair man in waco who works on christmas day..
claire, taking her usual role as supervisor.
merry christmas!

a very merry

the tree, with a very special tree skirt made by jeremy's mom, featuring a beautiful applique from his grandmother, and a few gifts. a tree complete.

merry christmas xo

step two, i hope we get done in time

well this was supposed to be the magical transformation, but he still kind of looks jank. needs a hat and shoes. he looks like the one from charlie brown christmas but that wasn't intentional, which is a little bit sad. so he's not ready, but he'll get there.

a little late, but not too

my christmas tree, he is not dressed yet, just waiting for him to relax. yesterday jse strung him with lights, but it did not look right. so he's just going to be like this for another day. but he's good enough just being him.
the dogs don't care about christmas. they think it is any other time of year, just a little bit colder. winnie is freaked out by moving lighted yard decorations. i asked claire if she knew who baby jesus was and she just smacked her lips.
this is a picture i was going to send to one of my favorite design/decorating blogs which regularly features pets, and then i saw how dirty the floor was and now it will go only on my blog.

christmas party favor

went to the annual blagg christmas party, youngdae sported the woman's scarf i got him 12 years ago. he still pulls it out every year.

the ornery host in the middle
jake
yd, jse and me in ambiant lighting

can you help me find my protractor?

does anyone think that evan looks like an engineer for sun microsystems? pretty mommy

just in case..

..yd becomes something great in the restaurant world one day, i need this photo as evidence of his humble roots..

happy thanksgiving

the only picture i have from two thanksgiving gatherings, taken by jse's 3 year old niece, hallie.

meet pistol

this is pistol, i love him. he is a black mouthed cur like winnie (they also report to the same boss) but weighs about twice as much. he is vicious towards hogs and cows but is very shy and sweet around people.
i don't know what he was doing here. he looks like he is trying to put himself into a corner but can't find one.
this sums up how claire feels about pistol (any dog other than herself). very suspicious. always watching.

good bye truck

jeremy is getting a new truck today. i will miss him, we have ridden around a whole lot in this guy. lots of random towns, country roads and through many a pasture. thanks truck, you've been good.

garage renovation pt 1

i am renovating my garage. so i thought i'd take us step by step through the whole process. i meant to do this with several other home projects, but i never have.

before

a dead tree, which sat behind the garage, had to be taken out but the people i called to get bids just shook their heads. the tree was tangled up in the power lines of four house holds. not good.

so jse rented one of these!

cuteup up and away

sometimes i am convinced that jse works better in the dark. at one point, he was 40 feet in the air with a pole saw, in the pitch dark, using only his head lamp. scary. the guys from the electric company were coming by intermittently to sight see..

now that's over and they have continued to excavate. now it looks like this.


to be continued..

claire de lunatic

i hate that there is no "stop" button on itunes and ipod (last time i checked?). it pisses me off, there should always be a stop if there's going to be a go. the opposite of play is not pause, it is stop. pause is like an ellipses, stop is like a period. can you imagine reading something without a period, only commas and semi colons and ellipses? that would be a nightmare. start, end. play, stop. the universe is dysfunctional without diametric, polarity. it's so underwhelming/anticlimactic to press pause when you really mean stop. not into it.

break me off a piece of that kit kat bar

i bought these snack sized kit kat for customers. i have eaten half the bag. the weird thing is that they are in packs of two and i never remember eating the second one. i always remember unpacking it and biting the first one in half but then i must black out because next thing i know, i reach down for the second one and it's gone. so i end up eating another pack. same thing. i hate snack sized stuff. bb and i have talked about the process of rationalizing your way through snack sized snickers until you've eaten the equivalent of a king sized snickers bar, even though if given the choice, you would think that eating a king sized snickers is both overwhelming and disgusting. sad.

happy half birthday, evan boy

if you EVEN say that you have seen a cuter baby you will be one hundred percent lying. yes i love being related to cute people. babies are not made any cuter and this one has a super dorky laugh to accompany his adorable face. let's hope adolescence doesn't do a number on him.

interpol the band, not the police agency

a few days ago, youngdae and i saw interpol in concert at stubbs. interpol is on my top five. i've never been sure what sort of person likes interpol, as their sound is very specific. paul banks, the lead singer, has a voice that is nasal, insistent, and a bit monotonous at the same time. the music reminds me a little of joy division mixed with morrissey and david bowie. it is driving and intense, no matter what the tempo, and very metered. but yet their sound to me is remarkably creative and expressive.

given that, yd remarked that he was surprised that the vast majority of the audience (it was packed) fit into two categories: non-hipsters over 35 or spanish speaking hispanics. isn't that weird? two girls in front of us were speaking in very fast spanish (and to me, seemed oblivious to the show) and then immediately started singing along to a song. i had mental whiplash. it was a good show, bands love coming to austin.

i know this isn't a very interesting photo, but i liked how it sort of resembled the cover of their first album, turn on the bright lights.

on a somewhat related note, yd remarked that he is offended when people make racial remarks toward him but that he, himself, is surprised when an asian person speaks in perfect english. hilarious

look how cute my nephew is

my brother and sister in law keep a blog. i refuse to tell you what it is because i want to be the one responsible for bringing you these freakishly adorable pictures of my sweet nephew, evan. i have to fight for attention with that kid around.

this is a very cute picture of evan possibly about to cry among pumpkins, but it's cuter if you know him. first, pre-cry, he breathes in and out very quickly through his micro-nostrils so the tiny little sound his nose emits is so cute you want to die. and then he sounds like a baby pterodactyl when he does cry so i kind of love it.

the kid has big hands. he doesn't know how to use the camera to his advantage yet (like me, i always position my head behind someone else's to compensate for my giant noggin). his left hand kind of looks like carl weathers as happy gilmore's caddy.
really i love this picture. he looks like someone just woke him up from a sleep-eating nightmare where he ate someone's entire wedding cake the night before the wedding. i love the wayward hair on the left side of his head and left eyebrow, especially. kristine has been saying that evan is looking more and more like paul, and actually, this is exactly what paul looked like the last time we ate barbecue.

ranch rodeo clown

last weekend i went to a ranch rodeo in fort worth with jeremy and his friend jason. doesn't it seem like i go to a lot of rodeos? don't think i've changed completely, i still read, write, take pilates and make lists compulsively.

ranch rodeos are different because the people competing are actual working cowboys. also, the events are different. the ones i remember seeing that night included team branding, wild cow milking, team sorting. this year, the fort worth rodeo used jason's cows, so he was kind of routing against the cowboys.

singing the national anthem (i definitely am the only evidence at these events that asian people live on planet earth. so when people collectively sing the national anthem or play "proud to be an american" over the speakers, i feel extra yellow and have flashes of people running out into the arena wearing white sheets..)
team branding (a cow is roped from both ends, wrangled to the ground and then someone has to run over and "brand" the cow. ease up, maf, it's flour and water.)
was really fun, except a guy got hurt really bad. as in, after he fell, he stopped moving. unfortunately, the "expert medical team" all had mullets and i'm pretty sure they were passing around a drinking jar with an "xxx" written on it.

this is the end, so why pretend

top three things that make my eyes roll into the back of my head.

3. cleaning out my ears with a swab
2. scratching a mosquito bite
1. a scalp massage

oh man i wish i could get all three of those things to happen simultaneously.

mutton bustin

mutton bustin is one of THE best things about the annual fair and rodeo held here. kids between the ages of 4 and 7 individually mount a sheep that is being held in a pen. the sheep is let out and starts running. there is no saddle or harness, the only place to grip onto is the sheep's fur. whichever kid holds on the longest wins. it's really hilarious and seriously adorable to watch. this year, wf, son of my dear friends j and g, made his first attempt. if you don't know w, he's observant and cerebral, honest and diligent, albeit a bit diminutive in size. he may have been the smallest and one of the youngest, but came in third! amazing! j told me he's ready to go next year. what a great kid, good job...

love how he is completely prostrate with flexed feet
look at that left chap blowing in the breeze so proud!
walking tallwith dad and grand dad

photos from the waco trib

austin speed limits

this weekend, i went down to austin to catch muse play at acl. what a great time, one of the best live performances i've ever seen. if you ever have a chance to catch them live, you should!

beforehand, at moonie's for burgers, with my bro and fam..bangs are too short. this really is like being kicked swiftly in the nuts, twice, look at my previous post for explanation.
does anyone think that evan is starting to look like pikachu?we ran into martha and john..they had just seen lcd soundsystem. we watched matt & kim together.
cool laser effects
a great shot of muse
yd and me. look at that guy standing behind us, doesn't he look toasted? there was also a guy who had made a huge sign for himself called "high five guy" or something. he was so obnoxious about tapping people on the shoulder, making a stupid face and putting a hand up for a fiver. he did this to me and i said no. he kept doing it so i told him that i don't touch people i don't know. still undeterred, i couldn't take the shoulder tapping anymore so i just moved. so we ended up standing in front of this guy who was as high as a kite. i wish he would share some of his pot with the high five guy, hfg needs to chill out, major. i think it was the principle of the thing that i couldn't give into.
this is not yd's best impression of an engineering student at berkley in 1997, he actually is using earbuds to talk on the phone. if you say something cool but are wearing dorky headphones like this, they cancel each other out and it's like nothing ever happened. except that i have a picture of it so you can't remember what was said, only that he was wearing headphones using a slide up phone.
afterward, yd wanted to commemorate his best wurst experience with a photo op but a mexican guy from san angelo couldn't focus (on my point and shoot, set on auto) very well. i'm not sure why i'm clutching my bag like this, weird.

claire...

always cuts her eyes and maintains a relaxed/definitely not relaxed pose when she's jealous.

has little jellyrolls around her ankles (in this case, thighs) that never diminish in their cuteness.will happily lay on top of, bite, sit on, run under and trip winnie to funnel attention towards herself
has ears that make her look like she just got her hair cut too short (which i call "all face". like chris farley's fat guy in a little coat. unfortunately, it doesn't help me keep from getting perpetually overly short cuts).