So, Kris comes home tonight, and sitting on the front step is a box.

It's a big box.

He thinks, "Good lord, woman, what have you ordered this time?"

I arrive home ten minutes later. I walk in the door. Only, I can't actually get in the door, because there's a huge box in the way.

So, I ask, "What's this?"

And Kris looks at me like, "What do you mean, 'What's this?' Did you order this?"

"What? What? I didn't order this! I'm done spending money."

"Uh huh."

"For the year."

So, I scramble over the box and into the house, and look at the box. I tear into it, pulling all the pieces out, scattering them across the living room floor. Then, in true boy fashion, I assemble it without looking at the instructions:

If only I knew who sent it to me. I'd write them a thank you note. Fly out and give them a hug, too.

For reasons I'm unable to comprehend at the moment, I happen to surf for good domain names when I'm idle and have a connection. At one point, Jamie commented that my domain nonf.at (which I haven't done anything with yet) is one of the shortest personal domains he knows of. I commented that I have kh4.us, which is my shortest domain name, but, well, this site is really the only site I'm particularly good at updating regularly. I also own km4.us, for Kris, but he does nothing with that one (nor with krm4.org, which is also his).

Yet, even with a slew of unused domains, I still surf, looking at various domains. Today, I tried to find another short one, one that I could use with my name. mkh.us, the most obvious one, was taken. So was krm.us for Kris. Both had squatter pages on them "This domain name is for sale!".

Okay, so I kept looking.

hod.us? Taken.
dsd.us? Taken.
den.us? Taken.
mcq.us? Taken.
een.us? Taken.
knk.us? Taken.
k-k.us? Taken.

My first thought was "Good lord!" followed by a mental note to put "coming soon!" notices on all the extra domains I have that aren't being used.

I guess Kris and I will stick to our k?4.us domains as our short, short, shortest domains.

On the fourth day of Christmas, I went back to work.

Kate, Liza, Maeryn, Mike and I went out for breakfast this morning early (where 9:30 is defined as early when you're on vacation), before Mike and I wandered to the colo to do some server swaps. You know your mind is still on vacation when you get the drill wedged between the rail and a server because you jammed the drill into the rack to unscrew a screw and forget that the act of unscrewing the screw will increase the length of the drill, making removing said drill impossible without screwing the screw back in.

Fourth day. Christmas. Vacation. Remember?

Clearly not.

The other thought that popped into my head was why, oh, why, must everything at the colo take three times as long as expected? Why?

We went to install an Apple X-server Mike had, only to have to install it three times, each time learning something a little different, a little new about the box we were trying to install. Like, the width of the head is 2 millimeters wider than the rack space opening. We had to shove the box in at an angle, then rotate it into place, then screw two shelves into place to hold it, as screwing it in was impossible since we rotated the box into place, blocking the mount bracket openings with the rack wall.

Uh, yeah.

I then spent another hour server wrastling, attempting to beat down the two new servers going in for a client. Beat down, indeed, as I left the colo unsuccessful in the installation of the site onto the two new servers. Something about a 10000 volt power box thumping behind me, and thw whirring of hundreds of fans, and insistent beeping of hundreds of unloved servers disrupting my concentration, or something.

That, and insight when I tackled the problem at home.

On to other work now. Or, time to finish up this syncing daemon of joy.

I slept.

On the second day of Christmas, I was completely embarrassed.

We started out our second day of Christmas in a sleeping contest that, yes, once again, Kris won. I'm not quite sure how he does it, but he managed to out sleep even Bella this morning. I managed to wake up all of 3 minutes before my mom called to wish me a Merry Christmas (phew! maybe she didn't notice I had just dragged my sorry butt out of the bed).

Life's been pretty good for Mom. She's been hitting the gym and loving how good it makes her feel. I'm so incredibly happy that I can finally say to you, "My mom can kick your mom's ass."

My parents did a good job of making me cry today, though. Mom commented that life really is good for her, that she recognized while driving home recently that, should life end at that moment, she could say, "I'm doing what I want to be doing, and I'm happy." Not many people can say that, and I'm thrilled that she can say it. The best part is that, since my life is following the arc of Mom's life (about a year delayed), I have about 11 and a half months before I can say the same thing. Whoo!

Eventually Kris dragged his slow-waking bum out of bed and into the living room, to discover, no, Santa had not brought more presents for him, and yes, he had only 7 boxes left. Aw, boo! Only 7 more gifts!

I'm a firm believer that the best gifts are the ones that someone wants, but won't buy for himself. In that frame of mind, Kris did an incredible job of getting Christmas presents for me. I received not only a earphone for my Treo (having lost my original one, and too cheap to spend $20 for a new one), but also Edward Tufte's two design of visual books: The Visual Display of Quantitative Information and Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative. I'm so very excited about these books! They're at the top of the pile o' books to read this vacation

After the gift exchange wherein Kris managed to rake in the socks booty (getting nearly as many many pairs of socks as I have domain names, close, but I still win), I went to make breakfast. I asked Kris if he wanted to help. He agreed, so we made breakfast together. Sorta. Maybe. "Huh. The consistency of this batter is odd."

We were making pancakes and somehow in the relaying of recipe ingredients from the cookbook to me to Kris to his hands, the amount of milk dropped from two cups to one, and we had really, really thick pancake batter I was happy to go with it and plopped a couple lumps into the pan when Kris pondered out loud if the flour should have been only one cup. I responded, "No, it says here two cups of flour and two cups of milk." "Two cups of milk? But I put in only one."

Oh.

I recovered by adding the other cup of milk to the batter, dumping the two partially cooked lumps of batter from the pan back into the batter bowl, and shooing Kris out of the kitchen. He left laughing that maybe he won't be my sous-chef after all.

Punk.

They turned out really well. I made three pancakes. Three really big pancakes, and they were dee-lish-shush!

We played with the gifts for a while (in particular Kris' new Pedalo). I read a bit from my books, found the Napoleon's march / army size graphic that is so famous, tormented the dogs with some treats (they hate that, getting food and all), oooooo'd and aaaaaah'd over Kris' three new books on CDs, which included Wicked and the Chronicles of Narnia (all unabridged, of course). The C of N are read by seven different authors, of which we recognize only four. Kenneth Brannagh is the reader of the first book, so I might steal the book and listen to it first (KB being one of my favorite actors).

As in all good days, Kris fell asleep on the couch next to the dogs while I putzed around the living room for a few hours. Laundry was done. Papers were scanned. Pancakes were packed up for the fridge. Gift wrap picked up and thrown away. Boxes thrown into the garage. Eventually Kris woke up, and we finally took the dogs for a walk.

Well, we tried to. The day was mostly sunny, until just before we headed out. As we stepped out, the rain started. Slowly, ever so gently at first. Careful. Caaaarefullllll. Let them get out far enough. Wait for it... wait... for.. it. The farther we walked, the more the rain came down. Until, just as we turned a corner and pondered continuing or turning back, the skies opened up and the rain came dumping down.

Giggling and laughing, we ran home.

Dinner was two of the steaks we received yesterday, and very, very tasty. MmmmmmmM! During dinner, I remarked, "Good lord, it's 5:30! Can you believe it? We're having dinner at 5:30." "This is lunch, dear. We'll be eating again at 9:30."

After dinner, as we were talking, oddly enough in the bathroom, Kris looked at me when Bella bayed (I, being unable to use the bathroom without doggie supervision, recall). "That's not Mike is it?" "Sounds like Mike and Liza." "But I haven't showered since Friday."

Mike and Kate and Liza and Maeryn came over for Christmas greetings. As I met them at the door, I turned to look at my living room, and so wanted to cry. The house is a complete wreck, with laundry piled up on the couch and on the coffee table, papers piled up on the dining area table, dirty dishes in the sink, ultimate gear piled up the next to the door, dog toys everywhere. The house was a complete disaster, and the neighbors were coming in the front door.

Did I mention the embarrassment? Yeah, thought so.

Kris' family called just as the Gulls arrived, so he talked to them while Mike, Liza and Kate all tried out the Pedalo, and I held Maeryn. I hereby declare Maeryn to be the cutest baby I have ever had the joy to hold. Oh, someone guarantee me a kid like Maeryn and I'll have one! I'll have three!

Kidding.

But she is damn cute.

Dad called later in the evening and we talked for a while. He managed to make me cry with a compliment. Every kid wants to hear praises from her parents'. I happen to be lucky enough to have them be told directly to me.

So, this Christmas was very low-key. We didn't head up to the City for Teh Langpad Postmas holiday. Nor did we make Julie's Channapork dinner. I think if Kris' work hadn't been so stressful, and he didn't need so much rest, we would have been more social. Instead, we had a pleasant, slow, quiet Christmas. The calm before the storm, I'm sure, of the next three months, when I travel about 70% of the weekends. Until 2006, though, there's the rest of the nine days of Christmas...