For posterity -
Dec. 30th, 2005 12:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kyburgSince there's no chance of sending Christmas cards out now - the only real casualty of getting sick *right at Christmas* - if I'd had the hours, I'd have gotten them out. Getting sick at the last sealed the deal. Well, at least I didn't need to hit the day after Christmas sales for cards; I have plenty for next year. And there's always next year.
Greetings of the Season To You!
Welcome to the somewhat-annual Christmas Letter – probably one of the few methods of communication left, after alphorns and morse code, to reach many of our friends and family. Hey, it’s once a year – don’t miss it!
Uh, has anyone seen 2005? I just had it, right here – and now it’s gone. Anyone want to tell me where it went? (You suggest I look under in the bushes outside, and I may have to hurt you.) Actually, that’s not really fair. 2005 will likely go down in the books for a number of reasons, but the most important accolade it could receive is that 2005 has been the Year of Exceedingly Good Fortune. Hang on, I’ll explain.
2005 began with Donna spending a week at her childhood home in Hemet, looking after her mother. Mom had had a huge surgery earlier in December 2004 – big, complicated and not without a significant amount of risk involved. In her convalescence, Donna shared some of the caretaking with her younger brother, who lives there with Mom 24/7. Now, while she was there, the good car (the one from 1994) decided that was a good time to blow a head gasket. There had been plans to replace the POS (Donna’s 1988 pickup truck), but now it was apparent that we had to replace both cars. Good Fortune? Two things. One, we discovered just how much real estate can appreciate in the right neighborhoods in Southern California, and Mom did well in the week Donna was there. In fact, even with a number of setbacks and difficult times, Mom continues to hang in there – now, as a cancer survivor with a number of lifestyle changes (and challenges too, hoo boy).
And Donna has the good fortune to have siblings to share the responsibilities of seeing her mother is cared for. With her late husband, it was a different story – but she finds she’s drawing on a lot of the experiences from that time. Nothing’s wasted, as they say!
We bought two 2005 Nissan Sentras. Donna got the red one, Jim got the silver one. The two old cars were donated to charity, and Donna was at work when they were towed away. She hopes they’re making somebody in Mexico very happy as taxi cabs. At least, that’s what she was told they were most likely to end up as. Both of them had over 200,000 miles on them.
More good fortune? Jim landed a permanent full-time days slot that goes from Sunday through Thursday – 8:30 to 4:30. No more per diem wondering what the weekend schedule is going to be – or how many hours we’d have to budget for. No more suck Sunday nights! And with the union contracts as they are (and as in demand as his specialty is), he’s getting paid better than either of us could have anticipated.
2005 is also going down as the Year of the Bear. We went to Canada for one of our two international trips this year – a little place called Fairmont Springs, which is just west and south of Calgary, a twenty minute drive from the national parks in Alberta. Jim has discovered that timeshare exchanges are GREAT, watching Canadian television is fascinating and food made without corn syrup tastes better. He found the dual language labeling most entertaining (can’t wait until we can get to Switzerland, and he can deal with everything in four languages), and thinks measuring distance in kilometers is cool. He’s also taken a very distinct pleasure in having foreign coins in his pocket at work to do quick sleight of hand tricks to calm down kids getting x-rayed. The bears? We saw four of them, and not once did we get usable pictures. “Here bear...here bear....come back....” Donna picked up her first example of Inuit art – a soapstone sculpture of a bear. Of course.
This summer, we also got involved, in the most limited fashion, with animal rescue. Limited, because we didn’t rescue more than one family of cats – but that was plenty. In kitten season, all of the shelters are full – and Los Angeles has plenty of cat rescue groups, but even they are overloaded. We were able to connect with one lady who would help us place the cats and show them – but she couldn’t help us house them. This is important because - we have a large band of children who live down the street from us. They come to see Jim, and show him things – toys, cats, guinea pigs, and even their youngest brother once. They had a cat they had had to “let go” because their family had been evicted. Said cat was also massively pregnant – and had started coming by our house. Some things, you just can’t let be – we started feeding her, and after she had her kittens, we hoped to get our hands on them to get them placed. We got our wish in July – we got the mother with five kittens, and we placed them all after getting them altered, inoculated and socialized. Three of the kittens went to Seattle, matter of fact, to folks we’d been communicating with on paper for years – another bit of good fortune. We’d been wanting to see them for a long time – and Seattle is a pretty nifty place, all by itself. We’ll return there, for sure!
The end result, though, was that we added two more cats to our household (the mother and the skittiest of the kittens, who we really didn’t feel would socialize well again alone) – so we now have four cats (Ai-chan, Hiroshi, Rei and Kibo) and Spice the wonder puppy (15 years old and the vet says everything is A-OK for some years to come). The good fortune is that we can do that – and the cats are all doing well, and we have lots of little furry companions in our lives.
The big trip of the year? A week in Australia. Donna got her wish, and got to spend her birthday at Australia Zoo in Beerwah, Australia. That’s Steve Erwin’s (the crocodile hunter dude) Zoo – and although he wasn’t in residence the day we were there (that’s kind of like asking to see Walt Disney when you visited Disneyland. Never happened to you, did it?), the Zoo is an impressive facility, even for its size. It’s small, well-run and very hands-on. The highlight of the day was walking in the kangaroo enclosures, where you were encouraged to feed them. Grays and Reds. Like feeding little horses. They’re softer than koalas, and incredibly sweet. Think your typical petting zoo. Like that.
Australia was interesting in that it didn’t feel that different. It looked like San Diego (if everyone drove on the left hand side of the road, and had roundabouts), felt like Hawaii (really warm, really humid) and even sounded familiar, once you got used to the twang. And the vernacular. Jim was much better prepared for the experience, having spent two years in England in the service back in the day – Donna loved being where they drank tea. A lot of it. Even on the airplane. Oh – we got to see the first A380 from Airbus land at the airport in Brisbane. Qantas had taken delivery of the first one and was flying it all over the country showing it off for their 85th anniversary. We got videotape of it landing, and had 747s on the the runway for comparison. The future of commercial air travel – those planes are reputed to be able to hold 800 people at capacity, and have two decks the entire length of the fuselage. (We hear Qantas only plans to put 550 passengers on right now.)
More good fortune.
To the bad? We’ve lost members of our family this year to the simple fact that time does pass – and we are constantly reminded that you can’t take anything for granted. We’re older – hopefully, wiser – but, you never know. You try to do as much as you can (and, always do your best), but the final result is never clear until it’s upon you.
Our prayers are with those who have lost everything this year. We know that number is high. With those who have lost loved ones – and have loved ones in harm’s way. May you have a wonderful Christmas, a happy Holiday season – however you celebrate it. (We hope to have some good fortune left over for next year!)
I was thinking last night driving home about sending Chinese New Year's cards. I just might.
Greetings of the Season To You!
Welcome to the somewhat-annual Christmas Letter – probably one of the few methods of communication left, after alphorns and morse code, to reach many of our friends and family. Hey, it’s once a year – don’t miss it!
Uh, has anyone seen 2005? I just had it, right here – and now it’s gone. Anyone want to tell me where it went? (You suggest I look under in the bushes outside, and I may have to hurt you.) Actually, that’s not really fair. 2005 will likely go down in the books for a number of reasons, but the most important accolade it could receive is that 2005 has been the Year of Exceedingly Good Fortune. Hang on, I’ll explain.
2005 began with Donna spending a week at her childhood home in Hemet, looking after her mother. Mom had had a huge surgery earlier in December 2004 – big, complicated and not without a significant amount of risk involved. In her convalescence, Donna shared some of the caretaking with her younger brother, who lives there with Mom 24/7. Now, while she was there, the good car (the one from 1994) decided that was a good time to blow a head gasket. There had been plans to replace the POS (Donna’s 1988 pickup truck), but now it was apparent that we had to replace both cars. Good Fortune? Two things. One, we discovered just how much real estate can appreciate in the right neighborhoods in Southern California, and Mom did well in the week Donna was there. In fact, even with a number of setbacks and difficult times, Mom continues to hang in there – now, as a cancer survivor with a number of lifestyle changes (and challenges too, hoo boy).
And Donna has the good fortune to have siblings to share the responsibilities of seeing her mother is cared for. With her late husband, it was a different story – but she finds she’s drawing on a lot of the experiences from that time. Nothing’s wasted, as they say!
We bought two 2005 Nissan Sentras. Donna got the red one, Jim got the silver one. The two old cars were donated to charity, and Donna was at work when they were towed away. She hopes they’re making somebody in Mexico very happy as taxi cabs. At least, that’s what she was told they were most likely to end up as. Both of them had over 200,000 miles on them.
More good fortune? Jim landed a permanent full-time days slot that goes from Sunday through Thursday – 8:30 to 4:30. No more per diem wondering what the weekend schedule is going to be – or how many hours we’d have to budget for. No more suck Sunday nights! And with the union contracts as they are (and as in demand as his specialty is), he’s getting paid better than either of us could have anticipated.
2005 is also going down as the Year of the Bear. We went to Canada for one of our two international trips this year – a little place called Fairmont Springs, which is just west and south of Calgary, a twenty minute drive from the national parks in Alberta. Jim has discovered that timeshare exchanges are GREAT, watching Canadian television is fascinating and food made without corn syrup tastes better. He found the dual language labeling most entertaining (can’t wait until we can get to Switzerland, and he can deal with everything in four languages), and thinks measuring distance in kilometers is cool. He’s also taken a very distinct pleasure in having foreign coins in his pocket at work to do quick sleight of hand tricks to calm down kids getting x-rayed. The bears? We saw four of them, and not once did we get usable pictures. “Here bear...here bear....come back....” Donna picked up her first example of Inuit art – a soapstone sculpture of a bear. Of course.
This summer, we also got involved, in the most limited fashion, with animal rescue. Limited, because we didn’t rescue more than one family of cats – but that was plenty. In kitten season, all of the shelters are full – and Los Angeles has plenty of cat rescue groups, but even they are overloaded. We were able to connect with one lady who would help us place the cats and show them – but she couldn’t help us house them. This is important because - we have a large band of children who live down the street from us. They come to see Jim, and show him things – toys, cats, guinea pigs, and even their youngest brother once. They had a cat they had had to “let go” because their family had been evicted. Said cat was also massively pregnant – and had started coming by our house. Some things, you just can’t let be – we started feeding her, and after she had her kittens, we hoped to get our hands on them to get them placed. We got our wish in July – we got the mother with five kittens, and we placed them all after getting them altered, inoculated and socialized. Three of the kittens went to Seattle, matter of fact, to folks we’d been communicating with on paper for years – another bit of good fortune. We’d been wanting to see them for a long time – and Seattle is a pretty nifty place, all by itself. We’ll return there, for sure!
The end result, though, was that we added two more cats to our household (the mother and the skittiest of the kittens, who we really didn’t feel would socialize well again alone) – so we now have four cats (Ai-chan, Hiroshi, Rei and Kibo) and Spice the wonder puppy (15 years old and the vet says everything is A-OK for some years to come). The good fortune is that we can do that – and the cats are all doing well, and we have lots of little furry companions in our lives.
The big trip of the year? A week in Australia. Donna got her wish, and got to spend her birthday at Australia Zoo in Beerwah, Australia. That’s Steve Erwin’s (the crocodile hunter dude) Zoo – and although he wasn’t in residence the day we were there (that’s kind of like asking to see Walt Disney when you visited Disneyland. Never happened to you, did it?), the Zoo is an impressive facility, even for its size. It’s small, well-run and very hands-on. The highlight of the day was walking in the kangaroo enclosures, where you were encouraged to feed them. Grays and Reds. Like feeding little horses. They’re softer than koalas, and incredibly sweet. Think your typical petting zoo. Like that.
Australia was interesting in that it didn’t feel that different. It looked like San Diego (if everyone drove on the left hand side of the road, and had roundabouts), felt like Hawaii (really warm, really humid) and even sounded familiar, once you got used to the twang. And the vernacular. Jim was much better prepared for the experience, having spent two years in England in the service back in the day – Donna loved being where they drank tea. A lot of it. Even on the airplane. Oh – we got to see the first A380 from Airbus land at the airport in Brisbane. Qantas had taken delivery of the first one and was flying it all over the country showing it off for their 85th anniversary. We got videotape of it landing, and had 747s on the the runway for comparison. The future of commercial air travel – those planes are reputed to be able to hold 800 people at capacity, and have two decks the entire length of the fuselage. (We hear Qantas only plans to put 550 passengers on right now.)
More good fortune.
To the bad? We’ve lost members of our family this year to the simple fact that time does pass – and we are constantly reminded that you can’t take anything for granted. We’re older – hopefully, wiser – but, you never know. You try to do as much as you can (and, always do your best), but the final result is never clear until it’s upon you.
Our prayers are with those who have lost everything this year. We know that number is high. With those who have lost loved ones – and have loved ones in harm’s way. May you have a wonderful Christmas, a happy Holiday season – however you celebrate it. (We hope to have some good fortune left over for next year!)
I was thinking last night driving home about sending Chinese New Year's cards. I just might.
