Dearest Fellow Preppers:
The Season of Shards opened for us on December 5 with the sporadic tinkle of bulbs and ornaments raining down on driveway, tile, and hearth. Undaunted by the breakage, we consoled ourselves with closely timed arrivals of the Colorado Christmas tree, the Montana Christmas wreath, and multiple decorative bottles of Mexican La Pinta Christmas tequila. While our holiday preparations remain incomplete, we remain joyous and thankful for all that we have, as well as the flu that we don’t, yet.
Holiday arrangements appeared in different forms around the house this month. JoAnn preferred her typically thoughtful placement of boughs and lights, candles and trees. Resident felines Emma and Olive favored an unlimited-edition garbage collector’s series of festive hairballs, often displayed in plain sight for easy viewing and stepping-in but occasionally hidden in the seat of a recklessly thrown pair of jeans. Tom put his arrangement skills to work in the backyard shed to facilitate JoAnn’s access to the snowblower. Precipitation and cold loom on the horizon, and Tom’s most fervent Christmas wish includes readiness for his loved ones.
On the subject of readiness, we have equipped ourselves for the end of the Mayan calendar by purchasing calendars that continue well into 2013. Armed with these updated timekeeping devices, we intend to last long enough to cross the fiscal bridge that our valiant elected officials are working so hard to construct. Calendars notwithstanding, the world surely cannot end until St. Peyton and his muscled herd of untamed Broncos break our hearts in January.
If the unexpected does occur (a Denver Super Bowl loss), we will take with us fond memories of our warm-weather getaway in March, which consisted of two brief visits to DFW airport, separated by a superb week on Barbados, home of Mt. Gay Rum, the rum that invented rum. Our visit included a drive-by of a luxurious hotel where a person named Rihanna once stayed, followed by tours of a spectacular flower forest and wildlife preserve. Water-based activities consisted of a swim with the sea turtles, as well as a good old-fashioned Barbadian beach bashing, delivered to Tom courtesy of the Caribbean Sea, after which he was stripped of his SpongeBob boogie board by a band of pre-teen Barbadians who chastised him for dishonoring the sea. The resultant kelp cough made the return-trip inflight movie even more unwatchable than usual.
Upon our return to Colorado, JoAnn took a deep breath, hoisted the weight of the health-care system onto her shoulders, and ruptured a lumbar disk. A team of professionals mitigated the pain in relatively short order, but the real work began during recovery, when Tom quickly found himself still unable to keep up with a recently anesthetized, surgically repaired JoAnn. Tom’s injury of the year proved less serious but far more entertaining: a Darker and Stormier TenCane-induced window strike on Halloween, when a sneaky sliding-glass door disguised itself as a wide-open entrance.
The 2012 growing season ended before we could take advantage of our newly legislated right to possess and pay tax on the formerly evil weed known as marijuana. By this time next year, we hope to string a new set of lights on the tallest and most legal hemp plant in the neighborhood. Wish us luck. Or is it pot luck? And please have a safe ladder-mishap season.
