Season's Bleatings -- 2014

All I need for Christmas is a bib.  When you spend your waking hours in a recliner, as I do, odds are good you will drip various food substances on your shirt.  Last night, a forkful of Stroganoff wound up in my lap.  But it's happening, all this spillage, at an alarming rate.  The washing machine is going non-stop.

At least that's what Sue tells me, that I need a bib.  Let’s face it: A bib is just a few inexorable phases from a droning drool circle.  Now that I am officially SEMI-RETIRED, I must accept that my life as a spring chicken is over.  In the mirror, I see a molted rooster.  But think not that I mock old people.  When he was an old codger, my father went through a ream of bibs, and I loved him just the way he was.  I take heart that some of our greatest citizens wound up with colorful foodstuffs dribbling off their chins.  Groucho Marx, for example, wore a bib.

There’s more decrepitude:  I can't put a sock on my left foot without splaying on the floor.  That's because when I twist a certain way, the sciatic nerve on the left side of my butt screams bloody murder.  Coincidentally, Sue has screaming sciatica on her right side, so that when we both hobble around, we hobble with reciprocating limps.  We found that if we stand side by side, her on the left and me on the right, and bind together our sciatic legs with tight rounds of duct tape, we can walk three-legged without any pain at all.  Effective togetherness!

Sue creates beautiful quilts. Day after day, up to the sewing studio she climbs, where hour after hour she toils away with thread.  She could make a fortune on Ebay or at art fairs, but insists instead on GIVING HER TREASURES AWAY, like a thimbled Johnny Appleseed.  I urge her to practice the essence of the season -- make as much cash as you can!  But it's no use… the land is blanketed with her generosity.

Brendan and Jodi are thriving in Grand Rapids. Brendan is an investment banker at Fifth Third and Jodi looks after grants at Spectrum Health Center.  They thrived their way into buying a big old house on Hall Street which their two dogs have commandeered.  Brendan remains principle tuba for the Holland Symphony, with his dogs’ blessings of course.

Elizabeth continues to lasso stray cattle in Texas.  Which is to say, she is still in Austin working as a personal assistant to an heiress.  Which is to say, if Elizabeth plays her cards right, she could end up as a monarch for a small island nation.  Meanwhile, her dog likes to bolt out the door and launch like a rocket for the Austin city limits.  This, however, keeps our daughter in good physical shape.

My father took his last breath on June 28.  My sisters and I were there and beheld his exit out the bedroom window.  He was grateful to finally take his leave, and bestowed upon his family, his friends, and his students, lives with richer hearts. 

While I was crawling across the floor last night, I noticed a rubber bone under the sofa. It belonged to Darla, our sweet and beloved yellow Lab, who died in August.  Neighborhood squirrels now run amuck, cocky with their new-found freedom. We can't get used to coming home to an empty house, absent of the frenzied welcomes that spanned 12 human years.

So, we count our blessings -- heating pads, Ibuprofen, duct tape.  My fantasy football team, the Squatting Dachshunds, is in the league championship this weekend.  I'll be in my recliner, drooling without bib, egging them on.  Wish me luck and, by the way, Merry Christmas!