A Christmas Letter...

There is a tradition of including a letter... more like a newsletter in a Christmas card... I have resisted it. Generally I have resisted Christmas cards in general...

This year I have purchased several boxes of Christmas cards... I have written a Christmas letter...

Now, on Christmas, (the frenzy of Christmas slowing) I am starting to address envelopes to hold Christmas cards, containing our Christmas letter...

It has been a tough year.

Some of you will receive a "dead trees" copy of this included with a lovely card...

For all of you, this, in two pages is our year, on this, the occasion of a seasonal change, rebirth, and time of reflection....

Hello friends,

We (Tina and I) have never “done” a Christmas letter… but this year seems to need one. It’s been a tough year.

We lost both of my parents. Mom died suddenly in March. She had been failing for some time, but it was still a surprise. Dad began having pains in May, which was diagnosed as a very aggressive lymphoma. Dan and Penni, and Tina and I spent much of May, June, and a bit of July with Dad… first in the hospital, on to the hospice, then for the last month caring for him at home, and selling pigeons. I believe for Dan and I it was a gift to spend so much time with him… even if it had a sad ending.

The last month was special, at home in a house filled with friends and pigeons. There were visitors from California and Nebraska… there would have been more visitors if the end had not come so quickly.

Since then, Dan and Penni have moved from Alaska to Florida, and now live in Mom and Dad’s house on Dansville Drive.

From the perspective of December and Christmas, the rest of the year seems like a blur…

I continue to run a Historic House Museum… Tina continues at Google… Stephanie is in College... Brian has completed his Navy enlistment, and has embarked on life…

The year started in January (as it customarily does) with a trip to Hawaii. I spent 10 days working in Honolulu consulting on restoration and care of two wooden railroad cars. It is a bit weird staying in a vacation paradise and going to work each day.

Stephanie and I went to Washington DC in late February to visit with nieces and nephews and great nieces and great nephews and, oh, to visit libraries and museums… While there, there were conversations with Dad about Mom… I already had reservations to be in Florida for a visit in mid March. It seemed to be a good thing. Unfortunately, the timing was off, and Mom died the morning after I returned from DC… 3 days later I would have been in Florida with her. Tina flew down with me… We had a wonderful time with Dad. Dan came down a week after I left to spend two weeks with Dad. We all thought there would be many, many more visits.

Tina and I flew to New Orleans in May for the Rotary International Convention. Meanwile Dad checked himself into the hospital. He said everything was fine. We arrived early to work on a volunteer project creating a library in a local shelter. We spent three days in New Orleans before we decided that Dad was in trouble, and maybe it wasn’t a simple infection that they could fix.…

Tina and I arrived in Florida on Sunday. We got the initial diagnosis on Monday, his birthday… We started Chemo before we got the final diagnosis that Friday, and moved him to the hospice. They were able to control his pain and stabilize him. 10 days later we moved Dad home.

The month of June was spectacular… With Dad in his own bedroom, friends visited… they brought pigeons. We auctioned pigeons… We had cocktail hour every afternoon. His friends helped Dan and me. They made the last month special. We can’t thank them enough.

With Dad’s death, the rules changed… We were dealing with all the things that had to be done… Dan returned to Alaska and his fishing boat. Penni sold the Kodiak house, and moved to Florida with their dogs. Penni is from Tampa so this was a homecoming. I returned to work, the Patterson House, with summer camps and such.

Back home the day to day world continued.

Brian’s enlistment in the Navy ended in February, but he extended and stayed with his ship as the rescue swimmer until it returned from The Gulf in May. He was at home for the summer before entering a program in Jacksonville, Florida, as a deep water hard hat diver and underwater welder.

Steph is attending San Francisco State University studying zoology, and volunteering at the San Francisco Zoo’s hospital and as a penguin volunteer.

Tina and I escaped from life in November and spent a week in Hawaii, island hopping, visiting Kauai, Oahu and the Big Island… Of course we had to return to real life all too soon.

Thanksgiving was spent with family (including Brian and his girlfriend Lauren) in Yosemite with the extended Hees family… 44 strong. It is a family reunion going back to the 1960’s, maybe to the 1940’s… Dad’s sister Lois was there… it was a great time to catch up with everyone and recover a little.

We had a wonderful time with Tina’s family in Tucson just a week ago, as her older sister Karin got married and the family gathered to celebrate. Welcome, Don.

As I write this, Christmas at Patterson House is winding down… We will start taking Christmas down on Monday the 19^th… a week too early. Tina is handing out Google’s Christmas present (whatever it may be).

We are looking forward to hosting Christmas Eve at home with the traditional Roast Beast and Yorkshire pudding and family… Christmas will be with Lauren and her family.

Bye, and Merry Christmas, Randy, Tina, Steph, Brian, along with Emma the wonder dog, Daisy, Lilly, Atakapa, Annie, Sophie, Chloe, and Phoebe.

PS… I just received this from a friend… it seems appropriate…

Dear Santa,

I don't want much for Christmas; I just want the person reading this to be happy .

Friends are the fruit cake of life- some nutty, some soaked in alcohol, some sweet, but mix them together and they're my friends.

Special thanks to all our friends who helped and held hands while Mom and Dad died… We don’t know how to thank you enough.

It is the night before Christmas Eve…

We are at home… the Christmas lights are on outside… inside a single string of light illuminates our small, 4’ tall tree… (we have kittens in the house, three kittens… running, playing… a recipe for disaster for a conventional decorated tree…) There is a fire in the hearth… a traditional wood fire…

According to the Bay Area Air Resources Board, tomorrow, on Christmas Eve, a traditional wood fire is unwelcome, even illegal.

This bothers me…

There are many reasons to celebrate in late December… There is Hanukkah (or Chanukah) the Jewish Festival of lights… There is the Birth of Christ, which according to many Biblical scholars likely did not take place in December, more likely in September after harvest or in April...

The December date is an homage to the winter solstice… the shortest day of the year… typically December 20^th or 21^st… A significant day in several “pagan societies” abet several days before the adopted Christian day…

The traditional European pagan (German, English, Scandinavian) celebration celebrated the turn… the day when days stopped getting shorter, and began to again grow longer…

They, the early Europeans, celebrated with a feast, with an evergreen tree brought indoors, with a fire in the hearth and maybe a bonfire outside.

Our Christmas celebration was assigned the late December date to the celebration of the birth of Christ by the Romans as they attempted to subdue the Goths and as an olive branch, continue an “acceptable appropriate” celebration to a date significant to their culture… Later in the 19^th century, we, collectively added references to the German tree and Santa Claus (previously St Nickolas or Father Christmas) to the celebration… Since retailers and the media have made it into a frenzy of shopping and consumerism.

My background is English and German… My wife is Scandinavian… We are nominally, but not actively practicing Christians. We are not pagans, but have pagans as ancestors.

Fires are banned because in winter, fires affect air quality… Air quality impacted as too many of us try to live in the west…

Edward Abbey ranted against the industrialization of tourism in the arid west… about improved roads bringing casual tourists… in The Monkey Wrench Gang. Seldom Seen Smith says, .."Any road I wasn't consulted about that I don't like, I litter. It's my religion." "Right," Hayduke said. "Litter the shit out of them."

Tomorrow, Christmas Eve, I will have a fire on the hearth… part of my religion… part of my Mid Winter celebration…

Stumbling towards Christmas…

Christmas at least as defined as the calendar is 3 days away… fast approaching…

At work, Christmas at work is nearly over… We are fast packing it away into the attic to wait until next November… Bags of garland… bags of cotton masquerading as snow… boxes with Christmas trees inside… boxes of ornaments, carefully sorted by color and theme… Carol Pike’ mice and rabbits are gone… home…to a place still Christmas…. As are the Father Christmas dolls, consigned to the attic…

Half the house (Patterson House) is bare… devoid of Christmas and its trappings… The remainder Is still Christmas… sadly isolated by spaced no longer Christmas.

I am done… I will spend the next 4 days at home… preparing and celebrating.. not at work…

Today, I was Father Christmas… for the 4^th time… for the Pizza with Santa Tiny Tot programs… for the day care programs… for children… We talked of presents expected… of how Reindeer can fly… about how I can get down chimneys, and how I don’t get dirty, and how I can get in when you don’t have a fire place (I enter via the dryer vent, part of the same magic that allows reindeer to fly, me to shrink to allow a passage through a chimney, without getting dirty) Apparently Google maps is a big aid in navigation, and in a new tech theme I am keeping the naughty and nice list on an Ipad….

I haven’t been Santa or Father Christmas prior to this year… but this year I have been him 4 days… It is a role growing on me…it may happen again. I had thought Christmas was over… I was wrong… I got to be Santa, rather Father Christmas, for a new generation…

Later, after work, I went shopping… for a roast beast… for wine… for asparagus, and butter and the stuff which will become Christmas Eve dinner in a couple of days.

Steph and I went shopping… for stuff to make cookies…(there is a threat that flamingos may be involved…) for stuff to make Christmas Eve dinner…

I am feeling Christmasy

Twitter scoops the New York Times… and Flamingos

Apparently Kim Jong Il, the leader (dictator, insert your favorite diatribe here…) of North Korea has died this evening… (probably yesterday in Korea, or maybe tomorrow... after all it is across the Dateline…)

This in itself is not the issue… the issue is that we (Tina (aka the wife) Steph (aka the daughter) and myself) found out via Steph’s twitter feed…

We are “connected” at least electronically… There are 4 laptop computers and a couple of Ipads and three smart phones (my phone is smarter than your border collie) in the household for three of us… two of the laptops are on… We have TV too… and a radio… don’t forget or under estimate the reach of old fashion radio. Radio continues to be the media of choice in our cars as we commute to work and school.

I subscribe to the NY Times updates… I pay for it (not much so far, but will continue to pay as the costs rise…) They email me updates and news headlines several times a day… I read their digital edition each am… increasingly the NY Times on line is my primary news source. My “Dead Trees” subscription to the San Francisco Chronicle is losing out. (it doesn’t help that the Sunday Chronicle isn’t delivered until near 8:00 am… long after I have lost interest… 20 years ago it was outside about 5:00 am…)

North Korea was a tightly controlled dictatorship… their citizens didn’t have access to twitter or the New York Times or just the internet… not allowed… I can assure your that few if any North Koreans found out about Kim Jong II's death via the internet or God forbid twitter...

Yet, here in the “West”… in a land that values freedoms, we are finding out about great change a world away, via the very technology banned by Kim Jong II in his country… probably before any of North Korea’s citizens… (this was originally 7:50 pm (Pacific time) the NY Times sent out their update 13 minutes later)

It’s a “Brave New World”

And... a Nash Dr. flamingo update... the flamingo fairies have been busy... more have appeared... nearly every house on our street now has one... There are more than two dozen houses with their very own lawn flamingo... at least a couple of houses have several... all in celebration of Christ's birth and community spirit.

The Flamingos of Nash Dr.

We live on Nash Dr… There are Flamingos here...

Not the living kind... the cheap plastic kind, even better with lights...

A neighbor has had a plastic flamingo on her front yard… She is the second wife… the first wife has accused her of being “trailer trash” (she is not!)… in response she placed a tacky pink flamingo on her front lawn (in reality in a planting bed)

I have decorated said flamingo on several occasions… Red white and blue beads for July 4^th… Mardi gras beads for that holiday… The flamingo’s family has decorated her (him) since…

Several nights ago a cheap plastic flamingo appeared in our front yard…

Cheap plastic flamingos have appeared in many front yards in our neighborhood…There is a rumor that a cheap plastic flamingo might appear atop the porta potty across the street...

I think this may be a sign of a community… a true community… not just living nearby… I like it.

Randy

Headed cross the Colorado

6:15 am, Saturday Morning, SFO... Too damn early

We are boarding in about 5 minutes... But folks are in line... When you check in Southwest gives you a boarding number... Getting in line early does not change the boarding order... But line up as early as you can just in case...

Out side there is a near total lunar eclipse... But no one seems to be paying attention... They are in airport mode... They need to find their next line...

I am off to Tuscon... T's big sister is getting married... T and Stephan are already there... I had to work last night so am a day behind...

Work has been busy... Christmas weekend (3 weeks before the day) followed by a couple of day of Tiny tots... 3 year old's and their parents... Then two days of tours and our Christmas evening event last night... (2 weeks before the day)... We are down to 6 more days of tour over the next ten days, before we can say it over and put away the trees... The too many trees and too much Christmas in a big old historic house... Then Christmas will be over... A week before it occurs...

Dawn breaks as we take off... It is a spectacular hazy soft dawn... Pastel reds and oranges to the east... Soft blues and grays... There are benefits to getting up early... Too soon the sun rises, and the mood changes... The magic fades...

To get to Tucson you must first go somewhere else... A classic case of you can't get there from here... I am headed for San Diego where I have a bit over an hour to find something to eat, and with luck a wifi signal... It wasn't working at SFO this a.m.

About an hour and a half latter, on the ground in San Diego... I have just about an hour before The Tucson flight boards... I was thinking about breakfast, but the options near the Southwest gates were limited to a bar (doing a lively business at 8:20 am) pizza or Qusnos... I ended up with a Starbucks coffee... Mean tine I am fantasizing about Mexican food in Tucson...

It is surprising cold in San Diego, the pilot reported it was in the low 40's as we landed, (not that I have to deal with it inside the hermetically sealed building). It seems to be cold everywhere right now... Brian, in school in Florida had us send down his cold weather gear...

Now headed back to our hotel... for now home... The sister in law is wededd... We have met and welcomed the new in-laws... We have eaten and drunk... Both the required champagne toast and bottles of wine while sitting about talking. Steph, I, and two nephews end up in the hot tub...

The next morning we gathered for breakfast. It was good family time... I hung out with the niece from DC (my eastern headquarters) and a nephew, recently escaped from the Army... Iraq, Germany, and Afghanistan (at Texas too...)

We (T and Steph and I went to the Desert Museum, a cross between a botanical garden and zoo, finding the new in-laws there... We toured and saw animals... We all watched their Harris Hawks as they soared and played and hunted small game. Then lunch and more socializing before heading for the airport and home...

We are flying Southwest again... Home via LAX... Both legs have not really been late, but both were not quite on time... This seems to be a function of SWA's quick turn policy... Great for aircraft utilization, and as a result profits... But creating a sense of urgency, and a feeling of rushing to line up, rushing to board, rushing to put away our too large carry-ons into too small over head bins...

On the way in to LA the cabin crew announced we were preparing for final approach 200 miles out, just past the Colorado River... And locked down the plane... Seat backs in the full upright and locked position... Tray tables up, electronics off.... On this flight they started beverage at 200 miles out...

The pilot just announced we are beginning our decent, at 100 or so miles out... Apparently it is raining in "SF" (at least he didn't call it "Frisco") Outside the clouds are hiding all... No lights... No land marks.

We will be on the ground in 20 minutes or so... And home in 40 or so... To too many cats.. And work... And for Steph it is finals week... Oh to be young again

Bye for now, Randy