My posts have been grouchy lately.
Mostly because I’ve found a lot to be grouchy about lately. HR 1409 and Michael Vick signed by Nike really irritate me.

But I’m sitting here with only one functional arm again, courtesy of another cortisone injection into the tendon over my elbow, and I was trying to find ways to..
A. Post something that wasn’t as grouchy and
B. Have a good source of blog material.

My screen saver is set to a slide show through my iPhoto library. There’s nearly 6000 images in there and that doesn’t count the ones that I want to get from Andrew that are in his library, but not mine.

I could sit and watch the slideshow for hours. I like scrolling back through, well, we tend to take photos of things that make us happy, so I like to scroll back through things that make me happy. I even enjoy watching other people’s slide shows, because I like to get a snapshot of their lives that they may not intend to show anyone else because it’s embarrassing or simply because they didn’t think the image worth making an public comment about.
I’ve had a camera since I was seven.
I have thousands upon steaming thousands of images. Granted, most aren’t scanned (yet), but what the hey.

It may be boring, but here we go on a regular feature.

First let me explain to you why I’m a horrid mean auntie.

Before we went to Hawaii for Christmas last year we made sure to ask Libby what Caitlin (then 14) and Lucy (then 11) had on their respective Christmas lists. On both lists were some minor electronic devices. What better person than Andrew to find electronic devices?
And so a small, but durable, digital camera and an iPod Nano were purchased.
Here’s where the rotten auntie comes in.

The camera and iPod were packed in our luggage. We didn’t want to wrap them before we flew just in case our bags were searched, but it was obvious that the difference in the sizes of the packages was going to be notable. An iPod Nano just doesn’t take up that much space.
I had been given a holiday gift at work that came in a little, teeny, tiny gift bag. Like about 3 inches by 4. About the size that you’d be able to wrap a token gift for a teenage niece who’s to big to believe in Santa anymore in.
Or about the size that you can wrap an iPod Nano in.

Did I mention that Caitlin really wanted an iPod?
The little, teeny, tiny gift bag came with us.

So comes time to wrap the gifts and I tried, on purpose, to make Lucy’s digital camera and camera case package BIG and FLAMBOYANT
It’s partway open in the following photo, but I think I did a good job. Sparkly paper, lots of curly ribbon, the whole nine yards.

When Christmas morning came around we also tried to be sure that we could deliver our presents to the nieces one right after the other.

So Lucy gets her BIG and FLAMBOYANT package then Andrew, with pinky finger extended, delivers Caitlin the little, teeny, tiny gift bag into which I had placed the solemnly wrapped iPod.
(Andrew is just out of frame here, but you can see the look on Caitlin’s face as the gift bag approaches.)

As she opens the solemn and boring package.

And then the reveal.

Caitlin, I admit, it was all my idea. I’m a horrid mean auntie….

But damn, it was funny.