Merry Christmas, everyone. 2010 was a hell of a year.

The best news of the year was Monstro's graduation from his PhD program at UMass-Amherst. It was a very long and exhausting road and we are so proud of him. He looked resplendent in his doctoral robes and the tam we had to special-order to accommodate his head size. We were thrilled to share the day with our comrades in arms, Dr. Emily and her wife Nick. We were not so thrilled when they moved away at the end of the summer; it's hard to lose friends to a crappy economy.

After receiving no interviews all year, Monstro received one 11th-hour interview and was hired immediately as the Visiting Professor of Writing and American Studies at a kinda-local liberal-arts college. He loves his job but it's only for a year and even though they have an opening and EVERYBODY loves him, they will not offer him the job because they already have two “Americanists” on staff. We have yet to hear any calls for the 2011 job season, even though he's applied for at least 80 positions across the nation.

In the interest of shaving a bit of time off of his commute, the family moved to a home in a nearby agrarian community and it's so much better than Northampton, they wonder why they didn't move three years ago. Their backyard is now so big, Lex calls it “the meadow.” At night, instead of hearing Harley-Davidsons, they can listen to the house settle and the fridge kick on. The move also garnered them a new roommate (see below).

Motormouth's career had its ups and downs this year. She said goodbye to two long-term clients because, ultimately, they weren't willing to pay what her 15 years of marketing/pr experience and results are worth. In the early summer, she took a position as the campaign manager for a judge in southern California –the last request of her deceased buddy, Kyle– and it taught her that yes, Virginia, southern California is indeed a cesspool of censorship, dirty journalism, and cowardly editors. More happily, she recently picked up a new client in her new hometown and the press release she wrote for them resulted in a TV-news interview that they'll be shooting tomorrow, for the best-rated news broadcast in the Springfield area. She also continues to partner with the amazing Jay S. for public-relations work.

It's just as well that Motormouth hasn't been so busy, work-wise, because her mom moved in with the family in September and that has kept everyone pretty busy. Her MFM (My Favorite Mother) had the first of two parts of brain surgery this Monday and goes in again next Monday for part two. If everything goes according to plan, the surgeries will eradicate her tremors, which are the #1 symptom of MFM's Parkinson's Disease. We'll know more in January when they switch on the device.

Lex loves his five-day-a-week preschool and we are delighted with it, too. He has proven himself the class star in anything pertaining to music, and he's also enjoying the children's art-and-music program at our church every Sunday. He loves playing with Mommy's musical instruments and his PaperJamz guitar. BK turned two this year, is attending a home-based daycare two-days/week, and is totally in love with everything about it. He recently learned how to count to 15 and he is the light of our world.

That's it. Merry Christmas and please pray for MFM's health, Monstro's job opportunities, and restful rest for us all.

Mom is doing OK. The doctors say her surgery went well. We go back for part two next Monday the 20th (or Sunday night if our call time is 6:30 a.m. as it was this week). We won't really know how it worked until January 4th, which is when they'll remove her sutures and switch on the device.

In the meanwhile, BK is sick, I am sick, we are all exhausted but what can we do? I went to sleep at 9:30 last night and dreamt dreams that you don't need to be a Freudian to figure out. Hell, you don't even have to know how to spell Freudian to figure them out.

We are the sandwich generation because our parents were the divorce generation.

My mom is having two-part brain surgery. The first part is being done this Monday, the second the Monday after that. I have a lot of feelings about it and her health in general, which don't really belong on the blog, but my family and I and her doctors could really use your prayers, so if you're the praying sort, or even if you're not —especially if you're not– could you spare a few thoughts for us this weekend and next week? My teeth are ground to the nub and I'm feeling very adrift. Thank you.

We have a houseguest in the form of half of our best friend. Nicki's up here from Pennsylvania. She's married to Emily, who didn't make the trip (hence the one-half aspect). We haven't seen her or Em since they moved to PA in late-July.

Nicki arrived yesterday in her little blue rocketcar. I was down in the driveway before Nicki could even open her door.

“I didn't realize how much I missed your smiling face until I saw it just now!” I said, pulling her into a hard, long hug.

It's awesome having a houseguest. First off, she brought us a case of Yuengling lager, something we'd never heard of until we met her. She's happy to sleep on our futon mattress on the floor, so we didn't have to move furniture. Moreover, it raises the grownup ratio in my household, so she's able to help me prep dinner or talk to my mom while I'm changing a diaper or help Mom find her wallet while I'm changing a diaper, etc.

Quite frankly, we might never let her leave. Sorry, Emily. You'll just have to move back to Western Mass. We'll clear a little bookshelf space for you and everything!

I've decided that a brief book review is a short review of an under 250-page novel. (For me, that's short.)

Today's selection is The Dwarf by Pär Lagerkvist.

You know how every so often the Swedes award a Nobel Prize to another Swede, just to keep it in the family? Lagerkvist won the 1951 Nobel Prize for Literature. I was thinking this was one of their throwaway prize years and greeted the book with a bit of skepticism.

“Erik liked that book,” Monstro said. Plus, my best girlfriend is in Sweden right now. So I decided to give it a go.

So glad I did! This character, who supplies the narrative voice, is compelling, and I recognized enough of myself in him to make me a little uncomfortable. The novel is funny except when it's not, horrifying despite the straightforwardness of description and motive, and the last sentence is seriously heartrending.

The Dwarf by Pär Lagerkvist reads quick and even features Da Vinci as a supporting player. I highly, highly, highly recommend this novel, and shall myself be searching out Lagerkvist's two collections of stories: The Eternal Smile and The Marriage Feast.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving. I hadn't intended on cooking the entire meal by myself but once I got started, I couldn't stop. Viola! We brined the turkey this year for the first time and it worked out really well: the meat was moist and yummy. Unfortunately, I found it made the gravy a little salty, and it also meant forgoing stuffing the turkey. Nevertheless, it was delicious.

I was concerned about how it would go because it was our first Thanksgiving without our friends Nick and Em — we've celebrated the last five turkey-days with them and I was afraid we'd be terribly lonely without them. The bright side was, the lack of Nick meant we could cover the turkey with bacon, because Nick's allergic to pork. It definitely was the silver lining.

(Incidentally, did you know that there's a word for “covering stuff with bacon”? It's called barding. Subconsciously, perhaps I knew this, and that's why my Dungeons and Dragon character is a bard. Barding. Look it up.)

We bought more ingredients than we cooked so I'm looking forward to a melange of leftovers and finger foods the next couple of days. Happy Thanksgiving weekend to you all!

Yesterday I had a birthday that turned out to be one of the more excellent ones in recent memory… It didn't start out so good — I had to clean the kitchen from the night before and then clean out the catboxes not once but twice — what is it about cats always choosing to take a dump the minute you've finished scooping their poop? Ticks me off…

Anyway, once I got the house and myself cleaned up and took Monstro to the tire place and drove him home and then took him to the dentist and drove around the area running errands and getting my free birthday rose from Nuttelman's Florist and picking up Monstro from the dentist, we went home, got my mom, sprung Lex from preschool and drove to Chandler's Restaurant at Yankee Candle, where I ordered my favorite entree: chicken parm from the kids' menu. We had an awesome lunch and BK sang “Happy Birthday” to me at least five times, which was so cute it melted the ice in my water glass.

Once we got home I opened a big pile of presents: some running accessories, a couple of books (“Booky Wook 2” and the last “Girl Who…” novel), some ukulele music including one with nothing but Christmas carols, and cards from far-away family members with generous checks therein. Mmmm.

I took the boys on a walk (my idea, not theirs) and then at 4:00 we all had some delicious black-forest cake. I made a wish and managed to blow out the candle. Everyone had cake for dinner. Then Monstro and I got spiffed up (you know, the clothes that used to be my skinny clothes now just fit regular, without the need for supportive or constricting undergarments) and left the rest of the family in the care of our across-the-street neighbor so we could go out and eat more food.

Not sure whether I've written about Bistro Les Gras in Northampton before but people, you have got to try this place. We were still pretty full from all the rich food of the past 6 hours, so instead of ordering entrees we got samplers of cheeses and charcuterie/pates and also a plate of salami that had been marinated in red wine. Speaking of wine, when I told our server it was my birthday, he brought half-glasses of sparkling wine to both me and Monstro. Then, it turns out that on Tuesdays, they offer flights of wine — three glasses for FIVE BUCKS. Yes, you read that right. Both Monstro and I ordered that, and recited lines from “Sideways” while waiting for the bevy to arrive. This evening, they featured Beaujolais, about which I know nothing except that it's a region in France, and I only learned that after asking our server. He brought a bonus fourth glass of wine, which was the Beaujolais Nouveau from the year before, to compare against the Nouveau that had just arrived the previous Thursday (“New new Nouveau, then,” I commented). So, for those of you keeping count, we had 10 wine glasses on the table, plus we each had a glass of water, plus there were three platters of rich French yummies and a bowl of sliced baguette. Monstro, the table, and I groaned with the volume of food and drink. Everything was delicious and the server was awesome; at the end of the night I told him he had been “attentive but not cloying.”

We took what few leftovers we had (hello, cheese!) to the van and then headed to East Heaven Hot Tubs, where I received a free half-hour tub for my birthday and Monstro had to pay $20. Note to the world: Beck's “Sea Change” is the world's best CD to accompany hot-tubbing. Monstro and I staggered out of the place all limp-noodlely. It was tremendous.

Just when I thought things couldn't get any better, a man who was waiting for his outdoor hot tub told me, “you don't look a day over 26.” Hell yeah, buddy. I'll take that to the bank!

We got home safely despite the buffeting wind, and I opened my last present, which turned out to be a much-coveted bottle of Maker's 46. I poured a fingerful over ice and sipped slowly, savoring the smoky sweetness.

All-in-all, it was a banner day, made all the better by the fact that I apparently look 14 years younger than I am. Thanks, universe.

My soul sista Becky sent me a link to a Mental Floss t-shirt. It reads: Fibonacci: As Easy as 1, 1, 2, 3

This is obviously the best t-shirt ever to grace existence. What a great b-day find!