Christmas Letter 2009

2009 Christmas letter

Welcome to our same old Christmas letter bold new experiment in social media. Consider this just like Facebook, only with one status update per year and “printed” on what the ancients called “paper.”

This year the Letter has an official soundtrack, so at the appropriate points, please download the referenced song from Itunes before continuing to read.

“Hurts so Good.”—Hobbes, the cat, started off with a typical year, sleep, eat, meow, eat, eat, plot world takeover, sleep; but a normal yearly trip to the vet brought us the news that she had feline diabetes. Not a fatal, or even painful, condition, but it meant her days of her and me sharing the ice cream spoon were over. It also meant we had to give her insulin shot twice a day. You’d think that she wouldn’t like it and run away, but she doesn’t. In fact, she will sometimes purr when we give her the shot. I hope that’s not a comment on how little attention she gets around here.

“A Comedy Tonight.”—So after several years, I auditioned for some community theater and got a part in the Thalian Association production of “Pillow Talk.” Some of you know that the world has not yet caught up with my sophisticated idea of “key” and “pitch” and “singing” so it was not a musical. It did wind up that there was a small part that I had to sing. The director forgot to ask if I could “sing” before she cast me. (not that it would have mattered. First rule of auditioning is always say “yes.” “Can you speak Russian? YES. Can you do a backflip? YES. Can you juggle chainsaws? HOW HIGH?”) So I wound up doing a “speak-sing.” For the theater people think Gregory Harrison in “My Fair Lady.” For the geeks think William Shatner in “Rocket Man.”

“Holiday Road”—We took a trip a trip North to Connecticut and New York City this summer. Ella got to go to the American Girl Store in NYC. While she was having tea and having her doll’s hair done, surrounded with pretty pinks and pastels, Gavin and I were doing boy stuff. Namely, looking at two-headed goats and the world’s tallest man at the Ripley’s Believe it or Not Museum. They also got to see “The Little Mermaid” on Broadway, and they both got a huge thrill out of riding in a cab without a booster seat.

“Tonight’s Gonna Be a Good Night.” Julie’s sister got married on Bald Head Island. She got to be a bridesmaid, Ella got to be a flower girl, and Gavin got to wear a bow tie. Hard to say who was happier.

“School’s Out for Summer.”—Julie had her 20 year high-school reunion. I got to see all her high school friends and amazingly, not a single one had the perm that all the girls had in their high school picture. (You kids out there consider that as a cautionary tale for tattoos. Once upon a time the big hair perm was as cool as the barbed-wire-around the bicep). I’m sure Julie had fun since she was the last to leave every function. Its been a long time since she saw an early morning from that end of the day.

“Harper Valley PTA”—Julie also volunteered to be the treasurer for the PTA. Unknown to her, this is a full time job. She’s got volumes of spreadsheets and checkbooks and receipts she pours over all the time. She’s decided that Sarah Palin got into politics because it was less work that the PTA. Vote for Julie in 2016!

“White Wedding.”--My cousin Doug got married in Texas and I flew down for the wedding. Everybody seemed to think it was a great match-up. So much so that people kept falling over each other to take credit for getting them together. At one point I swear the pitcher who started for the Astros on their first date at the ballpark stood up and tried to take credit. I had fun even though it was at an somewhat inconvenient time of the year for me. Let’s just say there was some basketball being played a long way away on the same weekend and leave it at that. (I’ll bet if the date conflicted with Texas spring football it would have been moved). I stayed with my Uncle Bill. It was fun but I don’t really have a joke here. He gave me grief last time I saw him in Texas that he didn’t make the Letter that year so I have to give him a shout out.

“Lets hear it for the Boy.” Gavin got to go to his first football game, which was, as he said, “awesome!” Carolina won, and, more importantly scored plenty of points so he saw plenty of fireworks. He likes doing the “Tar”…”Heels” chant, although he and Ella fight over who gets to be “Tar” and who gets to be “Heels.” However, I am a bit concerned he may switch allegiances after he saw an ECU cup that Julie had with PD the Pirate on it. “Mom! There are PIRATES at your school!” Good thing the school in Durham isn’t the Duke Blue Robots, or I’d be in real trouble.