On the morning of our wedding, our photographer's father had a stroke.

He pulled through, which was unexpected I think, but as you can imagine this delayed the receipt of our official wedding photography exponentially. It also tested the will of the photographer -- much more strenously than it tested my patience in receiving the pictures -- and she performed admirably. Finally, it tested the discretion of my darling bridesmaids, who waited until the next morning to share this piece of news with me and Bryan.

Thusly, we received our photos perhaps three weeks after Heather and Eugene -- before whom we were married two months prior. That certainly did not damper my enthusiasm in pouring over each print or file. We opted for digital photography, after much nail-chewing, and it is truly a glorious thing! And in the process of sifting through the images, I have learned things about Dreamweaver and Photoshop I never could have imagined.

(I might also add that organizing these, as due to various factors, has been the hugest pain in the ass I have ever known, and sometimes it was so hard I cried, but I'm trying to be nice here.)

There are some I love, many I like very much, and a few you'll never see.

At last: Our photos have been posted! Hooray.

One downside to my new job at Yahoo is that I am obliged to read all the news stories, every day. Which is no fun when you're spending New Year's Eve in Vegas, have reservations at Morton's, and are looking forward to your first winter completely snow-free.

Sigh.

I have been blogging so much recently because:

a) My new job has revived my creativity.
b) I did not have to drive down to Sunnyvale for the past five days.
c) I simply have a lot to say. Or --
d) I am a big loser who stayed in the entire weekend, save a trip to Old Navy.

?

The coolest thing about our friend Adam Sandler is not that he shares a name with a very famous celebrity.

It is not that, for the past 10 years, he has worked on the set of The Price Is Right alongside the venerable Bob Barker.

And it may not even be that by the grace of his hand, I attended the 54th Annual Emmy Awards with one of my very best friends. (Though that certainly could be debated.)

The coolest thing about Adam Sandler may just be that right now, my husband is standing on the sidelines of the San Diego Chargers/Oakland Raiders football game, with a big orange glove on his hand, acting as TV-timeout-guy-in-training. That's right, there's a guy, standing on the sidelines of every NFL game, with a big orange glove on, who signals to the coaches when the broadcast booth needs to call a timeout. Next season, in Oakland every other week, that guy might be my husband.

Very cool, Adam Sandler!

When (the same) computer things go wrong more than two times in a row, it makes me want to throw the whole f#@(&#() shebang out the window.

Just a warning, in case you're walking anywhere nearby my window.

Grrrrrrrrr.

And I would like to add that, for the first time in my 32 years, I spent the holidays apart from my family. Sad, but, tonight:

I am wearing my new yummy fleece pants. I am drinking wine that my mom got us, after indulging in a facial that Bryan got me, out of plastic wine glasses that Sue and Mike got us, and I am working on my wedding photos.

All is wonderfully well.

Today at Old Navy, for $118 I got:

1. Three sweaters, two turtleneck and one cardigan. Zip.
2. One pair of yummy fleece pants.
3. One cordouroy jacket. Red.
4. Two long-sleeve black shirts, for under things.
5. Three pairs of socks.

You really have to respect that, as much as it pains you. Really, you do.

As a Jewish girl growing up in a sea of goyem, I suppose it was inevitable to fall in love with certain things about Christmas. One, of course, is time off work. (Hanukkah offers no such luxuries.) Another is the tree: It just smells good!

The last is certain Christmas songs. Two, actually. The first is "God Rest You Merry Gentlemen," as sung by the Bare Naked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan. Embarassing, I know. Though it must have some sort of appeal to us holiday-music-deprived Jews, as my other Jewish friend from MA also became obsessed with it that one December. On Christmas day that year, she, Bryan and I made a sad small turkey -- a sad small turkey that took hours and hours longer to cook than we expected. We filled the time by drinking wine and hounding our local station, WBOS, to play the song. Finally they played it, many bottles in and still turkey-less, and it became the final official time I recorded a song off the radio. I just rediscovered that tape and let me tell you -- it gets a lot of airtime on my commute home.

Ah, Christmas cheer!

The other song is "Little Drummer Boy," which I find rather haunting/beautiful. I feel guilty listening, so I soothe the guilt by diverting my attention to the urban legend around the David Bowie/Bing Crosby performance in 1977: I remember hearing somewhere that Crosby's image was superimposed onto the video after he died six weeks later. For some reason I find that completely creepy/enthralling. Have you ever seen the footage? I mean: So weird!

I can't find much on this online, except for this tidbit about 3/4 down the page.

Merry Christmas, all!

Those of you who partook last Saturday: Photos are up.

Oh and also, Lynn tried to burn our house down last night by "heating up" a chocolate chip cookie at 500 degrees in the toaster oven.

For 15 minutes.

Pet peeve #231:

People who don't push their chair back in when standing up from a table.

I love Andy Pettitte, who sobbed when asked about the New York fans he's leaving behind.

I love Andy almost as much as I love some ESPN writer, who thought to pull the Seinfeld clip of George Costanza yelling into the phone: "You tell that son-of-a-bitch -- no Yankee's ever coming to Houston!"

And I love that writer almost as much as I love my husband, who TiVo'ed the ESPN segment for me because he knew how much I'd appreciate it.

I'm feeling the love.

This was the best $4.99 I've spent in a very long time. (On sale at Target...) Maybe ever. And I love that there is a classic version already -- is that legal? Poor "classic." So abused.

Well, whatever: Great stocking-stuffer! Bringing mechanical tooth-cleaning to the masses!

Hi ho, progress.

Last year about this time, we invited Stephanie and Adam to the annual Microsoft holiday party. It was on a boat. And it coincided with the maddest, craziest, most intense storm my San Francisco years have ever seen. The boat never left the port, and hailing a taxi at the end was an 45-minute, rain-soaked affair. So when the heavens opened up last night at 5PM, I was sure we were in for the same for this year's Yahoo holiday party -- despite me moving companies and all.

I am happy to report that the skies cleared by the time we pulled up to the SF Concourse Exhibition Center, and nary an umbrella was needed. I take this as a good sign.

Plus, The Flaming Lips played, and Jess and I gossiped.

Have I mentioned here yet that this is the third time Jess and I have shared office space? It's sort of a long story, in fact. Circular and intertwined and just slightly serendipitous. Back in November of 1998, I was unemployed. That previous June, I'd quit my job to spend the summer in Europe, taking classes in Aix-en-Provence, living with a French roommate, and traveling on weekends. It was grand. But returning home jobless, interviewing and interviewing (with occasional breaks for scrapbooking), I was thisclose to taking a position with a Cambridge book publisher, editing text on technology blahblahblahblah what? Enter WildWeb.

I saw the ad online, and I promptly stalked HR via a torrent of e-mail and phone calls: Senior Producer for a website on ENTERTAINMENT and POP CULTURE and a TV SHOW!?! I wanted this like nothing else.

Miraculously I was called in for an interview. As I walked into the cardboard office that November, portfolio in hand, Ann Taylor suit buttoned to the breastbone, I first crossed paths with Jess, who was there interviewing for the very same position. She was cool and smart and fun and fresh, and I... I was wearing Ann Taylor. We smiled at each other, guarded, questioning, jealously, wondering which one of us would WildWeb want? (Along with other "w" questions.) The answer was: Both. We became fast friends, wrote a column that played on our differences, and loved every minute of that fabulous place where Mario Karts flowed freely and Felicity's lovelife was a matter of national importance.

It ended in December of 1999. I went to Microsoft and Jess to Scour in LA. A year later Scour ended also. There happened to be a music producer position open in my group: for UltimateTV. Jess was convinced to move north, and shortly thereafter, we were coworkers once again. UltimateTV ended next, in January of 2002. I stayed at Microsoft and Jess went to Yahoo.

Flash forward to my honeymoon, September 2003: Bryan and I are coming back to our villa in Hawaii. There's a "while you were out" note tacked to our door, and it's from Jess. It says, and I quote: "Congratulations! Job has opened up @ Yahoo. Senior Producer job!" And now, I am at Yahoo. I'm making content, I'm writing headlines and leads, and I'm publishing a website six times a day. And once again, I'm working with Jess.

It's sort of a perfect circle, see?

Other things I like about Yahoo are that there are peanuts in the vending machine, soda from a fountain, and roasted sweet potatoes on the salad bar.

Change is good, as is food.

That was a long story.

Up next: Thanksgiving photos, game photos, and more game photos! We've been having way too much fun lately, but not nearly enough photos.

Every once in a while, I break from reality for just a millisecond, and imagine that I actually can go back in time and remind the DJ to play Hava Neglia at our wedding reception.

Just every once in a while.