Merry Christmas

In the film and photo world there are two notoriously difficult subjects to work with: children and animals. I chose the latter. When deciding on a subject for a holiday greeting, our dogs just seemed like the natural choice. They’re fairly well behaved animals, they know how to sit and stay, they even rollover sometimes when pressed. I was sure with a little bit of cheese for bribery I could easily get my Christmas shots.

Well, after a few failed attempts to get them together, I decided to shoot each dog separately and photoshop them together later. Huney (the hound) didn’t care to have anything on her head which she made it abundantly clear with her expression. Mae West (with the tongue) was the consummate professional and was fairly sedate and easy to pose. Her only problem was that whenever a “treat” came out, she would immediately rollover three times to prove how worthy she was to receive said treat. Silvia (the young pug) is persistently hyper and the mere fact that we could get her to sit still for a few seconds at a time was miraculous in itself. So here it is my deceptively simple Christmas greeting. Enjoy!

Katie

A Night Out/In

Sam, Mom and I just had a fabulous night out or in rather, watching the new Sex and the City movie over at our neighbor’s house. Of course we had to dress for the occasion and though I wouldn’t give the movie my highest rating, the night was a smashing success. The dogs… well they were lazing about today and are thrown into this Chronicle for extra cuteness.

Katie

Skiing at Chataloochee

The Cataloochee ski area in Maggie valley was having its annual canned food drive, and I thought this would be a great opportunity to go skiing. Sam and Ashley had never been skiing before, being from Florida and Louisiana respectively, so we all decided to go up and ski for the day. Sam took to it like someone who was born around snow and by the end she and I had progressed to a more difficult slope. Ashley had a little more trouble her first time out, but she kept at it and we all had a blast. On the bunny slope there was one little girl who hadn’t so much learned how to stop as she had learned that sliding down the slope on her butt would eventually make her come to a stop. One time she came careening at me and ended up stopping right under me. I snapped a quick shot of her in her stopping pose.

Katie

Cookie Bake

Friends and neighbors came over for our annual cookie bake. But the cookie bake isn’t just about eating and watching Die Hard 1 and 2, (our idea of Christmas movies) it is a working holiday party. Everyone took part in rolling dough, cutting and frosting their cookies, and of course doing the occasional quality control taste testing.

Katie

The WLOS Bear

The news station has a bear. Well, we don’t exactly have it, but it’s shown up a few times and everyone gets so excited when it’s in the parking lot, they all run outside to see. Sometimes I think they get too close. I was standing in the bed of my truck with one of news photographers when the bear wandered down in our direction and we both got some great shots. We think it’s blind in one eye and might be sick. It was way too thin and didn’t seem to be bothered by the crowd near by. We called the park service and they said they couldn’t do anything so we stopped using the outside garbage cans in hopes it will move on.

For those who don’t know, my sister, Rebecca, is now working abroad teaching advanced English at a University in China. She is going through training where she teaches young students, but at the start of the new semester she will be teaching college students. She’s not very good at keeping in touch with people and I expect if you tried to email her, she wouldn’t respond. She just asked that the few people who are getting her emails pass them along to other people who are interested so here are some excerpts from emails she’s sent:

Katie

“First as I viewed the plane, it was like this big white bird thing with small narrow eyes and pilots for pupils.”

“The Beijing airport is pretty busy and thank goodness my new friends helped me get through all of the security lines and bag checks.”

“I have arrived and my place is on the first floor, there are neighbors who live up on the second floor, and they invited me for dinner, then the people who I will be working with invited me for dinner also. So I had two invitations on the first night, I feel like quite the social success.”

“I have an extra bedroom and one of my toilets [Western] flushes really good, so if you want to come and visit keep that in mind.”

“I have three new friends today. I can't pronounce their names so I just call them by the first letter A, B, and L. But they took me shopping and thank goodness because the grocery story is three stories.”

“On the first day the kids were so excited to see me, their new English laoshi. When I arrived, they all ran up to touch me and say halloo. I was in a swarm, holding their hands all the way up stairs to the teacher's office. And then under the desk, more children were hiding so that they could see me too. Once everyone was shooed out of the office, I had some hot water and went to class. Here the kids like to repeat every word that you say. And when I started talking, some of them looked so confused. Their little faces scrunched up as they were trying to understand the new English accent. It seems they can understand English, only if it is spoken with a Chinese accent.”

“Apparently if you want cheese in China, you have to go all the way to Beijing. My upstairs neighbor brought me back some today; I am very excited about it…I also never thought anything could be cheesier than Spanish soap operas, until now. The Chinese may not have a lot of cheese, but they certainly have a lot of cheesze.”

“My evening classes with the adults are the most fun… I gave them each a piece of Dove and told them to smell it, not eat it, and then I made everyone tell me a few descriptive words about the smell. Some people said that the smell made them think of sitting beside a peaceful river, some said that they felt greedy, and some said that it just made them smile. And I told them that there were no wrong answers.”