Dearest Decemberites:
As the Big Day looms, we welcome the end of a below-zero (-18°C) cold spell that called into question our residential standing as the best place on Earth to live, work, play, drive, and retire. JoAnn endured the chill with typical Swedish stoicism, until the siege’s third day, when she found Tom in the garage plucking out an angry Norwegian anti-icing ballad on a poorly-hidden ukulele, an instrument that seems destined for imminent reinstatement in Aunt Linda’s collection of family treasures.
Substandard environmental conditions played a large part in our 2011, beginning with a February excursion to the Tropic of Cancer, where record-breaking low temperatures chased us indoors each afternoon to watch the wind-driven Sea of Cortez batter the Baja Peninsula. In Colorado, a June hailstorm ravaged nearly every roof in town and destroyed our confidence in the insurance industry. Heavy October snow improved our view of the foothills by clearing the town of thousands of weak, unsightly tree branches. The climactic unrest made us grateful for the new roof over our head, installed five months late over the Thanksgiving holiday by a heavy-footed battalion of hammer-wielding roofers.
Between squalls, we participated in a pre-hailstorm family reunion in mammoth-crazy Hot Springs, SD, followed by a post-hailstorm visit from Tom’s sister Marie, who brought along potential CSU students Tom, Ben, and John. We feel confident that any one of these young men would add a touch of class to a campus fondly known to us for its opening- and closing-day sofa burnings and auto overturnings, acts that partially explain our rating as the safest place to drive in the country. Our Christmas motto: “An upside-down vehicle is a safe vehicle.”
Another notable event occurred in conjunction with our 18th wedding anniversary, which Tom celebrated in non-romantic fashion with a Twilight Saga parody, squealing in fear while watching a timber wolf drag JoAnn by the scruff of her fleece across a spacious and well-appointed animal sanctuary at the Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center. The romance continues to this day.
JoAnn’s ever-present, career-centric passion resulted in summer-time shoulder surgery to correct a joint impingement. The largest impingement on her subsequent recovery proved to be 13 bismerpund of irritable, stubborn Norwegian, who remains uncorrected and chronically disrespectful of gravity and other wrongly-interpreted forces of evil. With supervisory encouragement, his daily safety briefings no longer include the phrase “We’ve never left one up there yet,” but he remains adamant in his claims of mysterious objects seen in the sky, sometimes on the horizon, most often in front of airplane-lavatory mirrors, where he spends ever-increasing amounts of time grooming eyebrows grown thick enough to collect free-ranging data.
We end the year with the customary attachment to our front door of the Treasure State wreath, courtesy of Aunt Mary. Every year we wonder how the Big Skyers grow each garland so perfectly round, and we promise each other a visit to the mysterious Montana wreath ranch to watch boughboys wrestle wild greenery into submission. Other plans for 2012: a New Year’s visit to Tim Tebow’s house of worship, a March snuba-fest with untamed Caribbean Sea turtles, fewer medical procedures, less inhumanity to plants, neater saw kerfs, and a sincere wish for a Taser-free (unless recreational or medically prescribed) holiday season for you all.
