The very first thing I did when I went home was the annual holiday party with Bruce. Once again, it was a smash success. We spent the day drinking wine and eggnog, and baking things, while Bruce showed off his nutmeg grinder and his three-tier cheese tray. My god, that man is gay.

See how artfully I have arranged the cheese? I'm gay!

The dinner, which Bruce cooked pretty much all by himself, was the best thing I ate all vacation (with the possible exception of New Year's Eve dinner). Our family Christmas dinner ended up being an awkward meal with bad food, so I am glad Bruce kicked it off in style, giving me something to cling to in the world of overcooked string beans and dry turkey.

My contribution: cookies in the shapes of camels and "camel-toes."

We did our usual thing, inviting a whole bunch of random people who didn't know each other and forcing them to drink wine and play ridiculous icebreaker games and become BFF. We had the cheeseball gift exchange. We embarrassed Katie with "the muff story," a yearly tradition. It was a smashing success.

My sister and I in front of the tree. Also, my boobs, apparently.

The next few days were a flurry of family obligations and Christmas presents. Probably my best present was the autographed cast photo of the late, lamented Firefly. Every single cast member signed it, and (bestill my heart) Joss Whedon signed it too. I actually have in my possession Joss Whedon's signature. It's already hanging over my TV where I can lovingly gaze at it.

Another favorite gift, from Ash: a pink steering wheel cover for the Watermelon!

Speaking of Firefly, I have another cool story. On my way into town, I called my sister's office. One of the PAs transferred me over, but instead of Abby, a guy picked up the phone and said, "Monique!" enthusiastically. We started bantering about the show's cancellation, and it took me awhile, but I finally figured out that I was talking to Nathan Fillion. And we bantered! Very exciting. (I guess that really was him on instant messenger a few weeks ago...)

Starring Abby and Ash, with special guests Moca, Creamsicle and Munchkin. (Moca is the cat, the other two are the ham hams.)

I also got a digital camera (from my parents, which means it was hella cheap) which I took a lot of terrible-quality pictures with, and then lost in Vegas. And I know I got a bunch more stuff, but I left it all at home, so I forgot what it was. I'm going to go home and get all these presents and it'll be like Christmas all over again.

My aunt, uncle, mom, dad, cousins, sister... everybody!

Like I said, Christmas dinner was an awkward affair with bad food. My mother had a falling-out with her best friend about five years ago-- we had been very close to their whole family ever since I could remember. Then their mothers fought, and never made up (although my grandmother had cancer and, you know, died and all). Well this year they reconciled, and my mom's friend invited us to dinner.

But pretending that we hadn't seen them in five years was impossible, and they didn't even seem all that interested in filling in the five-year gap in our lives, and it was more uncomfortable than anything else. All of us girls (the four cousins and Ash) wanted to get out of there as quickly as we could. Plus, as I mentioned, the food sucked. Merry Christmas.

The girlz

I went and spent one evening with my friend Eric, and another evening, we got together with our usual appendages-- K.T. and Tim-- and drank and talked about bullshit all night. Here is a picture of Eric and his dog Molly, taken with my fabulous digital camera:

Was this an Amazon Gold Box digital camera, perchance?

My camera did much better in the sunlight. See the picture of the Watermelon's steering wheel above, or even this self-portrait:

Yes, my eyes are that blue. No, my face is not that pink.

Let's see. What else? I saw lots of movies. Chicago, 25th Hour, Better Than Chocolate, Monsters Ball, Lilo & Stitch, Minority Report, Legally Blonde, The Two Towers (yes, again) and probably some other stuff. Chicago was definitely my favorite moviegoing experience. I had never seen the musical before, so it was all new to me. Richard Gere can dance! John C. Reilly can sing! Who knew?

I spent thirty bucks on a parakeet playpen for Phoebe. She still hasn't played on it. However, she has been seen to play with her new B-E-L-L.

I saw other friends while I was in town: Charlotte, Bruno, Katie, and Matthew. Mostly for meals and conversation, and there ain't nothing wrong with that. I really wanted to go bike riding on the beach with Matthew, but I couldn't be dragged away from my vacation agenda of sleeping really late, eating chocolate, reading, and playing computer games. We didn't make it to the beach until sunset.

Going to the beach is good for the soul, no matter what time of day you go.

On the journaling front, I got to see Diane, Darin, Sophia, Simon, Tamar, Dan, Damian, Kymm, and Steve Amaya, at a brunch at Tamar's house. We had scones with clotted cream. Although I've never considered myself a fan of scones, and "clotted cream" sounds totally gross, my god, those things were good. Plus, great conversation (and gossip) with fabulous people. And those children are so cute.

None of my pictures of the brunch came out-- what a shock. So here's Phoebe instead.

I also met up with Pamie-- we had this crazy vacation schedule where she was coming up here at basically the same time I was going down there, and we had like, one day of overlap where we'd both be in the same city at the same time, so we met up. I met stee too, who is every bit as charming as they say. He told me his blackjack betting system, which was something like 1, 2, 3, 5, 9, but when I went to Vegas, I forgot it, and it turned into something like 1, 5, 47, 7, 0. Stee, we might have to have a review of the system; I lost.

This is not stee.

Vegas kicked seventy five kinds of ass. I can't even tell you. Even the drive was cool-- we played License Plate Yahtzee on the way up and "I Never" on the way back-- thereby learning way too much about each other's sex lives, but what the hell.

"I can't believe I just lost 'I Never' because I [censored] your [censored]!"

Ash had never been to Vegas. I sat her down in front of a video blackjack machine to teach her the basics, and she caught on incredibly quickly and then said, "I don't think gambling's my thing. It's kinda boring." My little sister had never been too enthusiastic about it either.

By the end of the weekend, we were all standing around a craps table, and Abby was yelling things like, "Hot roller! We got a hot roller here!" and Ash was all throwing chips on the table, "Eight the hard way, for the boys!" Nobody wanted to leave. We had to drag my sister away from the craps table.

Here we are at the Venetian, wandering around in search of cheap craps. (Hint: it's not at the Venetian.)

We all won money, mostly playing craps. In fact, I paid for my whole vacation with my $250 or so in winnings. Usually I win all my money on blackjack, but I wasn't having a very lucky time with that game. It was about the only game I didn't win-- I won big bucks on craps, $20 on Keno, $60 on some lame dice thing, and I even won at Bingo!

We were all about the hot balls.

The Bingo parlor was so much fun. Everyone in there was nine hundred years old. You get these bingo cards and this "dauber" to mark the numbers as they are called. At one point, I said, "I only need one number!" and Abby said, "Me too! O63!" and I said, "Oh my god! I need O63 too!" and then the Bingo caller was all, "O63" and we both yelled "BINGO!" and won $60 each. Cool.

Here we all are with our lucky daubers. Even combined, we weren't as old as anyone else in the room.

Bruce took me to a fancy New Year's Eve dinner, another new tradition. We went to Ray's, a famous place with a famous chef who does "fusion" cuisine. It was possibly even better than last year's meal. I had macadamia-nut-encrusted mahi-mahi in a lobster-butter cream sauce, and it was every bit as good as it sounds. And sometimes, late at night, when I'm all alone, I think dirty thoughts about the chocolate soufflé.

Fireworks on the Strip at midnight-ish.

The only disappointing thing was the utter lack of a countdown. Last year we were on the other end of the Strip, and all the big casino signs did a countdown. Even though were standing right in front of the Mirage and about eight other hotels, there was no countdown-- just ads for Sigfried and Roy, and the $9.99 lobster buffet. It was very anticlimactic.

Not that drunk. As opposed to last year.

Oh, and my drive to L.A. and back was good, except that someone broke the CD changer in my car at the holiday party, so I had to rely on tapes. (Thank you, Kymm's mix club.) I need to get the CD player looked at, I have no idea what the hell this person did to it. It looks okay, but it won't eject, and it won't play. I miss Eminem!

Driving out of the city in the pouring rain also made me realize how nice the Watermelon handles. I was able to drive 75 mph in a downpour without feeling at all unsafe. Great handling, that little car. And now that I got the wiper blades replaced, I'll even be able to see something next time.

You just have to envision the hot pink steering wheel cover. It's integral.

Now I am just babbling in the hopes of wrapping up this entry in a clever and punchy manner. But this entry is five hundred pages long already-- if I haven't done it by now, I'm not going to. Um. The end.