Today's Robbie Burns' birthday, but we celebrated yesterday with much pomp and circumstance (and ale and scotch) as usual. This year, I finally tried the Haggis. In fact, several of us lost our Haggis Virginity yesterday. It wasn't as painful as I expected. In fact it tasted quite like corned beef hash, impossibly. Here are pictures from the festivities and to top off an awesome day, the Saints won their playoff game.
OK, so 2009 wasn't so bad. It wasn't so good, either but I hesitate to say good riddance to it lest that gesture jinx me for next year. So, hmmmm, a little reminiscing?
January: This was the month my fascination for taking pictures of dead birds was born. And my favorite guy turned 200.
February: My fashion sense sunk to a whole new low. Previously just oblivious to trends and labels, in this month, I took active steps to defy good taste. On the bright side, there was our Burns Supper, always a highlight of the winter if not the whole year. And a Sussex Spaniel won Best In Show at Westminster.
March: Oh, the High Holy Month. Parades galore, the Philly Phlower Show, more dead bird photo opportunities, and my abduction by aliens a pipe and drum band.
April: Wow, this was a big month. I got new shoes, went to band camp, and finally got a photo published in a major magazine. Look out Nat'l Geo, here I come!
May: I made my debut with the band! This might also have been the month during which I accidentally put the litterbox lid on backwards one morning after cleaning the box, which meant that the door (aka the only opening) was facing the wall in back and couldn't be accessed, and when I got home from work about 12 hours later both cats were sitting in front of the box with their back paws crossed looking at me saying "YOU IDIOT" with their laser beam stares. But I didn't get any pictures of that so you'll just have to imagine how funny it was.
June: I think it was around this point that the scales for 2009 really started tipping away from the "Sweet" side to the "Sucks" side. I did get another good dead bird photo. Actually, we had a bunch of good days on that vacation but it is still that illness I got that defines the week for me.
July: Oh, wait. There WAS a month worse than June. I was still sick, we cancelled our summer family vacation, our band came in last in our first competition, I fainted after a hot parade. That is all.
August: Technically, I got my new car in July (the 31st) but didn't begin enjoying it until August. Here, at December 31st, I'm about to turn 15K miles . . .
September: We're tipping back a little towards the "Sweet" side this month. Murphy adopted us, for one thing. She is still here daily, but after a miserable failed attempt at getting her to be an indoor car, we have decided to continue living on Murphy's terms, with her firmly outdoors. And no thanks to Facebook, I was reconnected with a friend I'd thought long as-well-as-dead. Miraculous Finally, a new tradition was started.
October: Well for starters, I died. Then I went to Virginia for a few days. And then I died again.
November: Perhaps the toughest month of this year. But I met some really awesome people and shared some very important stuff and gained heaps and heaps of wisdom. These are the times that give us the most reason to be Thankful. As I truly am.
December: Fast month, busy month, but I managed to enjoy it for the intended reasons without going crazy. And another new tradition was born!
So, good times were had, but on the whole? This sums it up:
So 2010? We're ready for you.
BRING IT.
We had a really awesome day. The kids were happy with their gifts, I had a happy text from a dear friend, and I got to spend the day with my kin. Nothing could be better. Let it be known that if I ever keel over from this point on, it's all good . . . I have had such a good life. I want more, and I'm going to try my best to live another 20, 30 years or so, but in case that doesn't work out, know that I am perpetually happy to be here and to know you! If the extra 20 or 30 doesn't work out for me, so be it - I won't know the difference and I wouldn't want you to bother, either. And jeez, this isn't a doom & gloom note. Just want you to know I'm happy ! Live, Love, Laugh.
I haven't been posting much lately. Has anyone? Facebook seems to have usurped this method of communication but I am reluctant to accompany it on its death-march. Instead, I will continue to post things of relevance, infrequent tho they may be. So much has been going on and not all is share-worthy, but tonight is Christmas Eve and I wish you all a blessed Holiday, lots of good will, and merry times to come.
Just for kicks, these are pics from our evening this Eve.
Merry Christmas, all.
Yes, the tackiness of the Christmas season keeps getting worse every year. Just when I thought there couldn't be anything much worse than a lawnful of Homer Simpson and SpongeBob giant inflatable "decorations," I saw these at the dollar store today.
I laughed out loud. Then bought these two just so I could stare and them and laugh some more at home, at my leisure. I mean, they are hysterical, are they not? Christmas Cards with chocolate praying hands built into them? How brilliant! What kid (or adult) doesn't want this special card? Is it not incredibly awesome how they managed to keep the meaning in the Season, keep Christ in Christmas, AND throw in some DoubleKrisp chocolate at the same time? Wow . . . imagine if . . . whoever you gave this to actually had been praying for chocolate?
I just don't know if I could actually eat it though. I got over biting off chocolate rabbit ears and Reeses Santa heads, and decapitating Peeps and animal crackers long ago. But it's just a little weirder to imagine biting off the fingers on some chocolate praying hands. I think I'll have to mail these to some special friends, instead.
Are you praying for chocolate by any chance?
"For last year's words belong to last year's language and next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning." T.S. Eliot
So here it is, the last few hours (and words) of the last day of 2008. I went to work as usual, and then ran a few errands, and more than once during the day I heard someone remark that it had been a fast year, or "Wasn't it just last New Year's a few weeks ago?" Twice I heard "I'm glad this year's over."
I'm not.
Actually, I'm not really glad or sad but probably some of both and a little of neither. The difference between December 31, 2008 and January 1, 2009 is a very artificial boundary, if you ask me. But placing events in a year is how we measure and keep track of them, at least in the absence of any more significant milestones such as September 11, 2001. I am still, and always will be, placing events in my life as before or after that stake in the ground.
Ordinarily, though, we remember what calendar year things occurred in and also whether or not that was a good year or a bad one. Occasionally, the years contain an even balance of good and bad, or not enough of either to note. In that case, the year could be neutral, possibly even forgettable. Off the top of my head, I can't remember anything at all significant about 1987, for example. But I know 1990 and 1993 were good, being the years my children were born. In 1996, I was divorced, broke my arm, and lost my job of 17 years so I'd call that a bad one. 2005 saw a significant relationship implode, and yet another job lost to downsizing. Both of those events made way for new things, though, so it was a year of catalysts. Turning points. Difficult, but strengthening. Generally, the good years contain births, weddings, trips, and other assorted successes and joys, while funerals, job losses and other struggles cause other years to be looked back on less fondly.
I would call 2008 a very good year, overall. I guess I didn't have much to lose on Wall Street .
Not long before the year started, I received the gift of a Ganesh, with the counsel that "he removes all obstacles." Whether Ganesh had anything to do with it or not, I was able to do a number of things in 2008 that in earlier years, I had not found easy or even possible to do. Quitting smoking. Moving to a new place. Changing. Improving. More changing. As insignificant as some of those things may seem to you, I have not taken these accomplishments for granted. And some 2008 events I have appreciated even more: my daughter getting her license, turning 18, graduating from high school, starting college and finishing her first semester with flying colors. My son making perceptible emotional and physical changes from a boy to a young man. Opportunities I have been given at work. The continued relative health and well-being of my immediate family. People I have been lucky to know and new friends made. Places I have been and things I have seen.
It wasn't a perfect year. There were deaths in the family, hospitalizations, a car accident, frustrations, hard work. But it is both the good and bad events that add depth and color and shape to my prism of experience. The kalaidoscope through which I see the incredible beauty and precariousness of everything else in life. I sense this more clearly every passing year no matter if it was a good one or a bad one. I am more frequently brought to tears by things as simple as a piece of music, a face, a tree, a photograph, a conversation, a breeze, a string of words. Conversely, I am less likely to cry or be bothered by minor problems.
I don't know if this is just an increasing sense of time running out as I get older. I've never personally experienced any death-defying moments like the kind that bring other people to this point of view. Maybe it's hormones, or maybe it's my particular brain chemistry that ought to be studied after I die. Hell, maybe it's mental illness. I do wonder at times whether my appreciation of little things is amplified for a reason: Does the beauty exist to this degree only against the contrast of something darker and scarier and not so pretty lurking in the shadows around the corner? Is there a shoe waiting to drop that my subconscious feels looming over my head?
I don't dwell on those thoughts. I prefer to think I see the magic in things.
Yesterday I received the gift of another Ganesh from my friend at work. I can't give you his name, but the cadence of it roughly matches "NoCinnamon NoMonopoly" as best I can convey it. It's musical, more like a melody than the percussion-y sound of most American names (to my ears). Anyway, as so many other H-1B visa workers here do, he travels back home to India each December for about three weeks. That's the total amount of time he gets to spend with his family each year. That thought pains me on his behalf, but I can also feel how deeply he values each and every minute of those visits. I recognize in him a sense of appreciation ten times greater than my own. And the fact that he appreciates my friendship enough to bring me a Ganesh from his trip is truly, utterly humbling.
This Ganesh is a mere two inches tall, and if you don't have any sense of what I'm talking about, you will see a plastic, mass-produced, stereotypical souvenier-shop trinket, one of perhaps tens of thousands that look exactly the same.
Through my prism, I see a gift of incredible beauty, color, detail, delicacy, history, meaning and culture. I see a reminder of friendship, appreciation, and the message . . . the magic . . . that all things are possible.
So here, at the conclusion of 2008, I am grateful for the year I've had, with more good than bad. I can only rub Ganesh's trunk for luck and hope that 2009 brings more of the same. That my sense of gratitude and appreciation continues to deepen. And that is is a good year for you, also.
Happy New Year.
