Dear Family and Friends,

We'll begin this year's bombastic holiday report by refuting a few lies about us that are circulating in the popular press. Lest you believe everything you read while checking out at the supermarket, here are the facts:

It is absolutely not true that Adrienne is graduating with a masters in nuclear engineering next week. The poor kid can hardly pronounce the word "nuclear". It is also untrue that the villain caught vandalizing "Support Our Troops" stickers by turning them into fish-with-feet stickers to honor Charles Darwin was the Paul Rose that we all know. (We have no idea who that impostor was.) And it is unequivocally incorrect (that's how you say "false" in Rumsfeldese) that Katherine is pregnant. She is not carrying Alexander the Great's or anyone else's baby.

So the flamboyant Roses of Niskayuna are still merely three. The text below will help you get reacquainted with the characters behind the drama. 

Character one: Adrienne is an easy-going two-year-old. In addition to books and puzzles, Adrienne's passions right now are The New York State Museum, the web site for Elmo's World, dressing up, mixed vegetables, kiwifruit, and, we regret, holiday candy. She is involved in two local play groups and loves the church's nursery. But she repeatedly says that she doesn't like to play with other kids.

Character two: Katherine is an easy-going twenty-nine-year old. She attends a ballet class at least once a week, attends two different book clubs a month, and attends to Adrienne almost always. These days much of her residual energy is channeled into championing organic foods and other pugnacious left-wing causes.

Character three: Paul is a crotchety thirty-year-old. His main interests are his wife, his daughter, and his career (yawn). Paul works hard to appear obsessed with psychology, pedantic, and militantly professorial; but in spite of it all, some students manage to see through his elitist veneer.

Now that you're familiar with the cast, we'll cut to the drama (with fewer big words and more conventional punctuation).

There is no news about Paul's job search. (Dramatic, right?) Paul now has eight big fat application packets under the noses of as many hiring committees. This is enough information to justify just one solid prediction: One year from now, we will be living somewhere, doing something.