Sweeping out the head space

How was your Christmas? I hope you had a good one, and if you didn’t have a good one, I hope you don’t place too much stock in the holiday. By now, you’re probably looking forward to the New Year’s Eve parties.

Me, too. Believe me, after Christmas, I really need a long series of drinks.

Seriously, though, I had a pretty nice Christmas myself. Fun to watch the kids, get together with relatives, eat far more than is good for me.

Kathleen’s parents were in town. Truth be told, I love my “in-laws” (no, Kathleen and I aren’t married so there isn’t a word for my relationship with her parents), and they’ve always been great to me, but I still try to be on my best behavior. I sit on the couch, catch up on the news and my e-mail, and participate when my participation seems warranted.

Let me throw one more fact at you: I recently made Mozilla’s Firefox the default browser on my laptop. One of the extensions I added blocks Internet advertisements. The links are there on the page, but I can’t see them. Anyway, Sunday while I was checking my work e-mail, I clicked on one of these blank spots and a couple new tabs opened. I noticed they had jpg extensions, but basically since they popped behind the tab I was working on, I ignored them, finished what I was doing, and went to spend a gift certificate, leaving the laptop on the coffee table. You can imagine my chagrin when I got home and saw the picture of the young woman who corresponded to those jpgs.

And then I noticed somebody had been reading the New York Times while I was gone. What’d’ya think? Do I ask or just wonder for the rest of my life whether it was my father- or mother-in-law who was treated to the X-rated pics?

And that’s a Happy New Year to you, too.