Merry Happy 2019:
Hah! Thought we finally left you off our list, did you? No such luck. The waste of postage continues, late but unabated:
A couple sad events subtracted some glee from our 2018, beginning with the loss of Tom’s Dad in January and ending with the passing of Tom’s Mom in December. Jim would have preferred that we carry on as if nothing had changed. Therefore, we continue to disobey him in death as in life by mourning his absence. Marie fought her way through Christmas Day, likely not for the first time, and passed away early December 26. They both got the celebration of life they deserved, and they would be happy to read our annual “update,” even though Jim claimed a yearly inability to understand a single word JoAnn writes.
Our 25th wedding anniversary took place in October, leaving us in such awe at the duration of our union that Christmas snuckled on by before we could compose a timely letter. Unsurprisingly, our views of the quarter-century mark differ. To JoAnn, the perception of time varies proportionally to the unpredictable, volatile, unseemly deportment of her poorly aging groom, who can, at times, make 25 years seem like 2500 to a long-suffering woman. Tom, on the other hand, has regressed to his teens and continues to lurk the streets of Fort Collins in search of what will likely wind up as an inappropriate anniversary gift. The secret to our marital success: a normalization of deviance that allows JoAnn to co-exist with a myoclonic jerk. The other secret: Tom cannot activate the TV without JoAnn’s assistance. Another secret: JoAnn avoids those conversational hot-buffoon topics in which Tom revels.
Speaking of teens, we had the honor of seeing a couple nephews, Ben from SD and Erik from MT, last fall during CSU campus visitation days. Unsurprisingly, they are much better behaved than Tom at any age. Both offered their uncle several tasteful anniversary gift ideas that remain un-acted-upon. Wherever these two intelligent men decide to matriculate, we recommend that they both major in straight-faced-ness after managing to deadpan their way through the horror that is Salem Street and Mulberry Avenue, although at one point Erik was heard to mutter a description of his uncle as the “Mouth of the Poudre.”
In the home maintenance/hobby department, JoAnn single-handedly remodeled the kitchen and a bathroom, all while regenerating her artistic side with the creation of at least a dozen beautiful paintings of outdoor scenery, holiday tableaus, and, of course, cats. Tom performed an August thumb-tip amputation during a shockingly un-electrical repair job. The resultant dumbprint left him ineligible for biometric security screening at work and thus subject to a quarter of time-consuming, unpleasantly intimate pat-downs and screenings sung to the tune of “tinkle, tinkle in the jar, while we watch you from not far.”
The “Most Successful 2018 Resident of Our Home” award had to go to Clem the cat (stage name: the Clemini Capsule), who finally caught a backyard squirrel after three years of meticulous feline calculations. His reward came in the form of shriekingly desperate finger flicks to the head and desperate jaw-prying until he released his prey. After a short period of vasovagal syncope, the victim stumbled off to the wrong sideline and disappeared into the rodent locker room.
With that unseasonable story, we embark on another year of chocolate-covered chins, dullterior motives, and bacon-cheddar everything.
