Winter Solstice, 2012 _____________________ Dear Ones: What can I tell you? Solstice has come at me so fast, I am nearly dumbstruck, but you know me, and you know that this silent state cannot long endure, so fear not. Make sure your seat backs are in the upright position, that your tray tables are up and locked, and check that your seatbelts are fastened low and tight around your waists. Be sure all electronic devices are turned off, and please direct your attention to the safety announcements. This letter is intended for mature audiences only, and should only be viewed by persons under the age of 18 with parental supervision. Now, sit back, relax, and enjoy your flight. We have just finished a political season, and I am only glad it is over. I hate confrontation and disagreement, and spite and venom the more so, so good riddance to all that, and let’s get on with it. How people maintain energy to hate full time is beyond me. I just don’t get it. I just paddle along, work my little corner of the world, hope to get along with my neighbors, and avoid confrontation every chance I get. But I have to conclude overall, that all the bullshit we endure in the name of Democracy is worth the prize—self-government. The process demonstrates the old saying that freedom isn’t free. You have to put up with Fox News. Here in Washington, formerly the “Evergreen State”, now the “Evergroovy State”, we have decided by referendum to allow the possession of marijuana, and gay marriage. So now we sit up all night smoking dope, eating chocolate chip cookies, laughing until our ribs ache, and planning 30,000 weddings. Proposals to criminalize bogarting that joint cannot be far off. And “Divorce Court” should be a freakin’ hoot in a couple of years. Meanwhile, conservatives have wearied of petitioning the White House to secede, and are planning a mass exodus to Texas, in hopes THEY will secede. See ya. But you better learn some Spanish, Cabron, ‘cause your pale ass will stand out in the sun down there, for real. We have had an action-packed year here in Anacortes. Catherine decided to pass the torch at Quilts of Valor, and though she remains involved, she is no longer responsible for the day-to-day management. That left her with time on her hands (Danger, Will Robinson…) so she decided, suddenly, to rejoin the workforce as a midwife. (Welcome back from the 47%) It has been ten years mind you, so she has had to take a lot of refresher courses to reactivate her RN license, and has yet to find a site for clinical work to redo the midwifery portion. She needs a thousand hours someplace, and has run into a brick wall so far, but Determination, thy name is Catherine. And if this can be turned into an international travel opportunity, then so much the better. (for her) She has become quite the portrait photographer this past year, learning Photo Shop and printing and matting her own stuff, and had a show in Anacortes at an Art Center this year. We belong to different religions on that subject—she is a Canon adherent, and me, a Nikonista, and we can’t decide which religion to bring the kids up in. Troubles for any marriage. Our various kidlets are scattered farr and wee. Michele and Eric and Jack(7) and Lily(5) remain in Columbus. Mom and kids visited this summer and camped with Grandma at Mt. Rainier. They hiked up from Paradise to the base of the mountain, and had a grand time being Junior Rangers, complete with badges, and a photo with the senior Rangers! Nathanael is still in art school, on his GI Bill training in San Diego, doing well, and planning a visit here with boxer dog Kirby, and Everett, this week. Looking forward to that very much. He does mural art, a refinement of his former training as a juvenile delinquent “tagger”. People ASK him to paint on their walls, and he doesn’t get carded buying spray paint any more. Everett is in Monterey, CA, at the Monterey Institute for International Studies, getting his Masters and working hard on his Mandarin and Cantonese. Reportedly, he can be mistaken for an old Mandarin washerwoman on the phone, and when speaking Cantonese, sounds a bit upper class. Hannah is still in Honolulu, a Lieutenant j.g. aboard the USS Hopper. She expects to finish her active duty career this summer, after putting on LT bars, and then move back to the mainland. She has continued her ultramarathon career, finishing the Badwater 135 mile Death Valley to Mt. Whitney race, and winning the Zion 100, and co-winning the Cascade Crest 100 here in Washington. We crewed for her that last race, and had a great time in our beautiful Cascades. Her stories are posted on www.runsealegsrun.blogspot.com As for me, I continue my work-sleep-work cycle as always, punctuated by a little excitement here and there. I got a phone call one day in April, telling me I had won a 2002 Maserati Cambiocorsa coupe in a charity raffle. No Joke. So I flew to Orlando Florida with Everett, and we motored back to Washington, stopping to visit a few friends enroute. Excellent Boy Trip. The car is fast. No, I mean fast. And it really “hugs the road,” as my mom would say. I ain’t sayin what my top speed was, so don’t ask. Speaking of Mom, she and Dad remain well, splitting time between Buffalo and Ridgeway, Ontario. Mom was determined to go to China, and found a package tour through the local Chamber of Commerce, styling us as a “Delegation”. So various family members came along, including Dad, Grandkids Nicholas and Freddy, daughter Anne, and me, pinch hitting for Everett. His school responsibilities precluded a fast trip, but his translating abilities were sorely missed. We flew from JFK to Beijing, were greeted by a guide, and bussed about between alternating cultural sites and retail opportunities. We were then flown to Shanghai, and did more of the same, before flying back to Beijing’s international airport. There we ran smack into Hurricane Sandy. We could not fly to JFK, so the tour operators put us up in rather less than 5-star accommodations, (completely unlike the paid portion of the trip) and we finally scrambled back to the States by various routes. It was a grand adventure. I played hookey from a couple of retail opportunities, and loved being on the loose in Beijing and Shanghai with my camera. Mom and Dad got around surprisingly well, and are still basking in the amazement of it all. Pics are available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/chamberofcommercechinatrip/ Work-life is challenging, as always. Several urgent visit centers have opened in our area, siphoning off a lot of paying customers, so our world is less busy, and enriched with non-paying clients, along with the very sick. So we struggle with the drug-addicted, tend to the very sick and dying, and with very little in between. The State has become serious about the prescription drug abuse problem, now that prescription pill abuse kills more people annually than traffic accidents. So at least we have more back-up when we say “NO.” We are prohibited by law from replacing lost prescriptions, no matter whether by theft, accidental drain-dumps, or suicidal ingestions by Fido. Sorry, “They” won’t let me. So the sad excuse stories have dried up, and the mysterious repetitive fall stories have become popular. Gravity waves are a bitch, no doubt. But one lie is as good as another, I guess. The only other excitement of the year was my climb of Mt. Rainier. That story is told in more detail at www.bobchristopher.blogspot.com . The mountain was unfinished business for me after almost summiting in 1979, so friends from work basically dragged my sorry ass up the hill, and it was done, finally off my bucket list. Team Legacy 2012 Huzzah. I pause, by time-honored custom, to mark the passing of a few notables. Dave Brubeck, my all-time favorite Jazzist, almost made 92, but Whitney, alas, did not. Rodney King asked, “Can’t we all just get along?” but wasn’t a swimmer. Larry Hagman got lucky finding Jeannie in a bottle. Ray Bradbury gave me goosebumps as an adolescent, and Maurice Sendak gave my 'wild thing' kids and me a bedtime story to remember. A heartfelt salute and farewell to Sally Ride, and Neil Armstrong, both made of the right stuff. So long to Ernest Borgnine, and Mike Wallace has signed off for all time. Dick Clark won’t be at the Rose Bowl Parade this year. Hey, Hey to Monkee Davey Jones, and Donna Summer has had her last dance. And sad farewell to three hundred more young Americans lost in Afghanistan this year. And so Friends, beleaguered and benighted countrymen, lend me your ears. Or at least your eyeballs. We, the people, have awakened after a savage fight during an intoxicated evening, still in the same house, still stinging from things said, which should have remained unsaid. But we all live here, and we must find a way to get along, to push past the hurt feelings and bruised egos, justified though those feelings might be. We can’t divorce—we had that conversation one hundred fifty years ago, at a cost of half a million lives, and the treasure of an entire generation. That conversation is now over, and for all time. So we must coexist, accept difficult differences, with respect tempering our amazement, abandon outrage, and move forward. We will not survive, behaving as petulant school children, exacting tit for tat. We will not survive tribalism, gang-ism, objectifying our opponents. We have no parental figures to sort this out. We are IT! So let us draw together against our real problems, celebrate our commonalities as well as our differences, and recognize that our diversity is our strength. Please, do a little something every day to make yourself and the world a little better, take care of those around you, especially when you have the power, and they do not. Peace, love, security, freedom from want to you all, and we will talk again next year, at about this time. Cheers,