September yada yada yada the darkest part of the year.

OR: The Year in Pictures, la troisième partie.

SEPTEMBER.

We had a last Labor Day hurrah in Idaho. Hurrah!

Huzzah!

Tiger RIP.

OCTOBER.

Ain't nothing but a beach thing. Hermosa Beach.

Possibly the raison d'etre for the L.A. Project: finding the Bartlett Motel, where my family stayed for six weeks when we moved there. I was fourteen. This motel had no swimming pool. We told the time by daytime game shows, sitcoms, and soaps, and we were damn good at it. Lomita holla!

NOVEMBER.

Risked the Continental Divide and also Rock Springs, WY, where many a better man's (and woman's) dreams have gone to die, to visit our friends George and Maureen in Clark. 'Twas swell.

I am thankful for my sisters and brother (sister E here, representing).

I am thankful for my aunts and uncles (darling Aunt Sal, also representing).

I am thankful for my whole family in all its nooks, crannies, and permutations, actually.

DECEMBER.

Events of all stripes--dutiful (finishing the semester, grading, fretting about grading), infelicitous (the sick), felicitous (I won an XBox!), and festive (tree, present-buying and -making, craftacular)--all culminated in the arrival home of this young man:

and we just couldn't be happier for him to hang up his suit and stick around for awhile.

Tomorrow: the Best of 2009. As promised.