Something For The Fisherman

I plead guilty. I have conspired. Nothing illegal, just a bit of fun, and only after the fact.

I received a call from my sister-in-law Alta, the one married to  Steve's brother Max, living in Salt Lake City. As you may have guessed, it concerns a present being sent to him in the mail, along with others in a box. First it was to let us know it was sent, along with her reminder that it would be late. (As if we had to be reminded.)

She told me what all was in the box: some of her traditional orange fudge (think "Dreamsickle"), cookies we agree are at least as good as Girl Scout Thin Mints and available year around, a gift card for me, and something just for Steve. Ashley picked it out.

Ashley is the youngest of his/our nieces, now in junior high. I first met the whole family years ago on the Great RV Road Trip aka Disaster, posted previously in this blog over a couple weeks in July 2010. Their family was one of the best parts of that trip, and relatively disaster-free. Both families, including one of my sons, Paul, and Steve's daughter Maria, camped in Alpine, Wyoming. It was a place nearly sacred to the brothers, having many memories of fishing there when young with their father. This time more of us were along. From the campground, one takes a dirt road along the Greys River up the mountain into national forest land. You can pull over in suitable areas to fish, though the game wardens are frequent visitors and really appreciate proper licenses. Steve and Max fished, and Max's kids kinda fished a bit between bouts of being kids. 

More great new memories were built for those of us who went. (I took only my camera, no license required.) Ashley was about 5 (?) then, the youngest, and claiming the larger portion of her father's attention. Of the few people-pictures I took, ones of those two are among the best. Anyway, Ashley knew how important fishing is to her uncle.

When Alta told me what the present was, I agreed it was perfect for Steve. I suspect Alta wasn't quite sure, given its uniqueness and the particular sense of humor required for appreciation, but I did my best to reassure her he'd love it. And I promised not to tell him what it was.

However, I did promise to keep Steve from opening it until I was ready to video it being opened so they could have his reaction when he saw it. I had to at least let him know what the new rules for opening that particular present were, and Steve agreed.

It came today, three boxes and an envelope. Nothing labeled as coming from Ashley, so I filmed each opening, as it turned out, because that present was the last opened. Of course. As paper came off in hunks and revealed more of what it was, smiles turned to laughter, turned to him repeating, "Oh, that's precious!"

What was this gift that caused all this reaction? It's a toilet fishing kit.

No,  you don't fish in the toilet, you fish while on the toilet. Presumably for those lengthy stays. Presumably also for those who live in quarters where a second commode is available. It comes with a water-blue colored mat to cover the floor, fitting around the base of the toilet, a bowl for water and "fish", and a tiny pole rigged with line and a hook. All plastic so nobody gets hooked in any tender places. You know, like eyes. If somebody falls off the stool while fishing/laughing, it's their own fault and their own mess to clean up. And that's final!

Alta had tracked the package and known it arrived today, so called after supper. By then I'd had enough time to find out I have absolutely no clue how to send the video from my computer up to them. We may settle for a visit late this spring on our way north, and me bringing my laptop inside to view full screen on it there. Or my learning a new skill in the meantime.

Alta cautioned me that she really didn't want/need a video of it in use in order to be sure it was appreciated!

Hmmm, that hadn't occurred to me....

Another Christmas

I bet your holiday didn't start the same way mine did. Of course every day really starts with sequential bathroom stops: first mine, then the dog's. Other than a couple brief commands to the dog, I usually don't say anything on the way to getting those done, even with noting that Steve was already up and in the living room, witnessing lights on in the living room as I breezed through the kitchen to the door.

My first words as I came back in were. "Merry Christmas! It's raining!" followed shortly with "But just a sprinkle, not enough to keep her from going out." Because that's been such a problem. Well, not in frequency, as it's only rained once before since we got her, but she refused to go out for hours that day. This time she popped out, and in half a minute back in again, just enough time to be sure she used it well. The rain was actually a gentle sprinkle, just enough to say it had, and then gone again. Still, good news.

It was a quiet day. I kept busy with yard work, a combination - over short periods scattered through the day - of raking rocks and cutting up pruned branches to be hauled away in the garbage. Other than that, mostly I was working with our new Hopper 3. For those unacquainted, this means we switched from Direct TV to Dish Network. We switch periodically, depending on prices and contracts, and both satellite dishes remain on our roof. Each switch is a learning curve, as fingers have habits not necessarily helpful on a different remote, and occasionally things change. 

Setting timers on programs we wish to keep watching on a regular basis is a particular challenge right now since it has to be done off the "guide" which shows the upcoming schedule for everything for the next 9 or 10 days, but very little is being shown of regular shows, at usual times if at all, and not even always with the same titles. I was smart enough to write down all our timers from Direct before the switch, and I'm checking them off as we finally locate something to set a timer on, but there's still a lot to go.Then there were the new shows we found to set timers on as well, so the number of set timers is just as long as the old, with more to go. I do like the set-up on Dish where we can designate which shows go into which person's folder, when it's something the other doesn't care to watch. Steve's folder will be filling up with "Chopped" and "Lone Star Law" while mine will accumulate "Stephanie Miller" and some choices off PBS for example. Shows we both like will be watched together when we can find mutual time for it.

There are still glitches. In trying to solve one, getting the voice command function to work without telling us we are not subscribed to a channel that everybody knows perfectly we are subscribed to, the tech support guy disconnected ("unpaired") one of our two remotes. Steve got it back, but now mine won't control volume. So I still have to know what he did with his the last time he used it.

Decorations were unique this year. We do not do outside lights, though we enjoy others' displays. However, I do love the wreath on the front door, all multicolored large sleigh bells. And no, it doesn't make noise when we use the door, just when it gets put up and taken down. Still... sleigh bells.

There is no tree this year. Last year we decided the 7 foot artificial one, while in great shape, took up too much of our space. So we found a local small charity who took it and many of our old decorations, including way more strings of lights than even it could hold, to pass on to others somewhere who could appreciate them. Some of the decorations we'd already boxed up and sent north to our family members who do trees for the kids, leaving us just a few. But those were the most important few, like the wreath, and strings of Steve's MUST HAVE decoration for every year, bubbler lights. Don't get me wrong, I love them as well. In fact, it was a great happy surprise to him when we combined decorations years ago to find that I also had my own bubbler lights. But with the pandemic, this year we'd just not gotten around to finding that new little replacement tree to put them on. How to hang them?

Rich came up with the solution, after much thought and several tries of different combinations of things to find what worked. First he located a long garland of what I can only call "fake tree", the kind of thing you wrap around the trunk of a fake tree so you can pretend it's not just a pole with holes in it to plug the color-coordinated-by-size branches into. Then he located some suction type industrial strength grippers to cling to the glass face of one of our display cabinets and hold the garland  in the shape of one trunk with three branches. More or less, anyway. Wires were used to keep the bubblers upright, since gravity wanted them all to point down and who cares when you can't even see the bubbles? So now each "branch" has a cluster of bubblers, and the glass acts like a mirror, so 6 or seven lights appears to be a lot more. Add in the fact that the back of the cabinet is an actual mirror, and our "tree" really brightens up the house. Oh, did I mention that Rich found a floor switch so we don't have to bend way over and search for prongs and fit them in outlets to turn them on/off, but just step on a little knob? Barefoot even. There was a bunch of fuss and bother when each plan leading up to the final solution was found wanting, but who remembers that now?

It's Boxing Day (hey, I finally found out what that actually means, boxing things up to give to others) and we are still waiting for Christmas dinner. It's not turkey this year and I'm not the cook. Rich is. If you've read "Bad Habit" you know what part of the problem is: he worked so long and hard that he collapsed into sleep just minutes before he was to start the cooking. And neither Steve nor I could step in to do the grilling. Nor wake him.

Over a month ago, we'd talked about having a gas grill for some outdoor cooking. Say, maybe by Christmas, eh? We'd gotten a teeny charcoal type months earlier, the kind that sits off the ground about 5 inches, and had used it twice. Not ideal. Rich looked through the local "free" ads and found one to bring home, and this time it was a gas grill, nice cover, two wheels, a couple of shelves to hold stuff, and needing a propane tank. So he checked more ads, locating a used, nearly empty tank for a fraction of what bying an empty would cost. He hooked it to the grill and it had just enough propane in it to be sure it worked safely. We then took it as a swap on a filled tank, paying only for the propane, the way the new tanks work these days. (For you younger folks, we didn't recycle tanks back when, so they started manufacturing new grills with new hookups so only the new recycleable tanks would fit. No more filling the old tanks. You could, for a time, turn in the old ones for new as an even swap. Use it or lose it.) So far, so good on our "new" grill.

Thing is, the new tank didn't get hooked up before Rich zonked out, and we don't know how to use the grill in Rich's absense. That lesson will come, but not yesterday. We'd taken all the frozen hamburger patties in the house out to thaw. Rich could start on those while he himself got familiar with how the grill cooked. Hot spots? Cool ones? Does it cook slow or fast? This way, if anything burned, it was just hamburger. Christmas dinner was to be steaks! Actually, fillet mignons! It all had to go back in the fridge overnight.

.     .     .   .

Post Grilling:

Yummmmm. Yummmmmmmmmm. YUMMMMMMMMM! Of course there were a couple more snags. We don't have a grill utensil set, for one, so there was some scrounging for something usable, for now, as a fork and a spatula. Proper utensils will be on somebody's shoppping list, but not immediately.

There was also the need for a proper gasket for the gas line. The first time Rich turned it on with the full tak of propane, he heard a hissing in the joint in the gas line. Stopping immediately, he jury-rigged a new rubber gasket for the joint, though reminded us it would work for now but needed to be replaced soon with the right kind of rubber for a permanent fix. This seems to be the only thing wrong with the grill, but if it came to us free for want of a gasket, well, hooray.

Rich whipped up some packaged mashed potatos to go with the steaks, adding butter and garlic. Once on the plate, soaking up the steak drippings, couldn't have been better. As for other side dishes, who had room? All the hamburgers got packaged up for the fridge or freezer, depending on whose they were and their plans for them: eat promptly? Or freeze and pull out to nuke one at a time later? You still get that great smoky grilled flavor.

So now, you think the holiday is over? Hardly. We still have two packages arriving in the mail that we know about. One has been mailed. The second is waiting on something needing to go inside arriving in the mail to the person sending it to us. We might still be celebrating for our anniversary!

Bad Habit

 Rich has developed a bad habit. No, not that one. Not that one either. What? Wait! Moms don't get to know everything about their grown sons!

What I'm talking about is that he's developed the habit of pushing himself until he drops. Quite literally, he drops asleep after days of pushing himself as hard as he can tolerate while only taking brief naps, and then drops wherever he is, whatever is left undone or whatever his surroundings.

At first, it was just leaving the lights on. I'd remind him to turn them off, and once he woke, he'd go around and deal with them. A bit late, but he at least recognized the need to do so.

Then I'd start finding him asleep near his bed but not on it, or occasionally he'd gotten part of his body on the bed. He'd sleep sitting up fairly often, sometimes on the floor. Some times he'd sleep leaned over the workbench while sitting up on a stool. A couple days ago he was working outside on the patio in one of the wicker chairs, winding up spending the night out there. It dipped into the upper 30s that night. When he came in, I suggested he treat himself to a nice hot shower, but he fell back asleep on the toilet instead. Once he woke again, he was warm and skipped the shower. 

Lucky for us there's a second bathroom in the house.

Yesterday was the topper. So far, anyway. I found him as I was working on taking the dog out to the back yard, her bathroom. He'd been on his knees, rummaging in a box on the floor for who-knows-what, and fallen asleep in that position with his head down inside the box. The dog refused to go over his legs, which were blocking her path, despite my calling and coaxing. I gave up, hoping her bladder was up to the challenge.

But then a thought: I came back out with my camera and took a shot of him this way. Someday I may show it to him. Having his head hang down over the edge of the box doesn't seem to have hurt him any, as proven by his waking a few hours later in order to go sleep on the toilet again. And the dog got outside in plenty of time, so there's that.

My friend tells me he's turning into a cat. She has one and he sleeps in many of the same positions including head hanging ones. When Rich starts licking his paws, I'll go for that explanation.

A Little Christmas Magic

There was a time in my life when Christmas was about the magic. There was Santa, and modest presents, the kind where when you went to Sunday School and they handed out little brown sacks with an orange inside, possibly a bit of candy, a pencil, or a tiny toy, then topped off with peanuts, it was a magic event. Somebody gave me something! Wow! Mom raised us on her post-depression budget, all our lives for that matter, and a tiny gift counted!

Christmas magic was about the stories, the magic star, the angels, all the lights, and hiking home over snow so cold up in northern Minnesota that it went crisp! crisp! crisp! for every step. If we were lucky enough, there would be a few snowfalls with higher temperatures so it would stick together for snowmen, snowballs, forts, and still let us go sledding without courting frostbite. Now that right there was some magic! Of course, we didn't know yet that snow pants and puffy mittens and three extra layers and face scarves weren't fashionable. All of it simply allowed us to continue through winters.

As I grew older, the magic of Christmas was about the music. Being a Methodist meant that when in church, we SANG! Not wimpy mumbles chasing a tune, but we actually made music. And I was always in the choir, one blessed in my teenage years with a great director, Jewell Shannon, our minister's wife,  who challenged us and taught us with music we didn't always realize was supposed to be difficult. There were always concerts in church and school, back then making no pretense of being anything other than Christian, and so many carols over so many years meant that I knew multiple verses instead of the one most people can barely remember the words to, and could even sing descants to some with what passed for a soprano voice. That church choir director took a tenor part and raised it an octave for us sopranos. She even gave me a solo one year, something called a "Mexican Christmas Carol", which I've only heard once since, and lost the words to decades ago. The music is just fine. thank you, still there just by thinking of it. There is a repeated line of "then rejoice and sing, all ye children tonight." Every time I look for it, something else claims to be it but isn't. Even Google, with it's 30,000,000 answers to everything, can't find it, neither by title or those few lyrics.

The children's magic of Christmas switched from mine to being for my kids, as long as they would let me try to make it for them. Even that faded, much too quickly for me. My most magical memory of that time was when Steph was either two or three. I had found a good kids' book on the Nutcracker story, and followed that up with taking her to the ballet in Minneapolis. It could have ended there, but we always went down to the farm in Fairmont to spend time with my husband's family. There happened to be a thunderstorm that afternoon, leaving everything coated in ice. After dark, the farm's yard lights turned everything they reached into a fairyland straight from the design sets of The Nutcracker. Well, better, but who could duplicate this?  Leaving her baby brother with the family, we two bundled up and went out to enjoy the magic of it. By then we had the addition of a heavy fog, muting sounds and making all unreal. Their driveway out to the highway sloped just enough for a fun toboggan ride for a little kid, and I pulled her most of the rest of the way out to the highway. A car passed every two or three minutes, adding a whole new layer of otherness to the night. I hope the memory stayed with her, but it stays with me still, just as magical as then. I still try to catch some airing of The Nutcracker nearly every year, hoping some of that magic can be savored again. As for Steph, a second in-house performance a few years later when I took her along with both her brothers, Paul just over a month old, was more than enough, and she begged off from being "dragged along" any more. It occurs to me to wonder sometimes if the performances just can't live up to some winter magic.

 I no longer believed in the Christmas story as anything other than a much embellished fable, used by The Church to recruit members by appropriating everybody else's rituals into the mix to make it seem like changing their old ways wasn't actually a big loss because they still....fill in the blanks. It became about power and greed and so many other things they mixed in that The Church lost its credibility with me. It has accumulated a long history of having so many things needing forgiveness, and I'm not the one to give it to them.

The magic went away.

Decades of life happened, and after a while the music went away. When it came back, it was other people's music to create and perform, mine to listen to. I didn't really sing for so long I recently decided I couldn't anymore. Carry a tune? Uh-uh. Sour notes, wavering, croaking, and the note I was reaching for would evaporate before its end in a puff of air. So I quit trying. I couldn't stand to hear what I was making.

KBAQ (pronounced K Bach) is playing carols on the air these last couple weeks. Lots of them. Steve asked me to drive him to the grocery store late last night, late to avoid others, and me driving because I still have decent night vision. I waited in the car and listened to the music. It was cold so the car was running intermittently to keep me warm. It was almost like singing in the shower, private and lots of white noise to disguise whatever I was doing. So I joined in, halting at first, but I still know the carols, many through several verses.

I was surprised at how easy it was to sing along. Yes, there were a few breaks and sour notes, but then something changed. My voice was back, so long as I didn't try to pass judgment on its quality, just join in. I sometimes switched octaves since my range is shot, but that's easy with music heard every year of one's life. At least, when one was used to singing them most of those years. Eventually I popped up into the high ranges and started hitting every note. I haven't hit some of them for decades. I wasn't pushing it, just blending in, amazed at the ability so easily (?) returned after so many years. Eventually I let it go, knowing those muscles would be complaining soundly for days if I didn't ease off. It was about the same time that particular segment of carols quit. The announcer came on and informed me I'd just been singing along with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir!

Maybe the real magic of Christmas is in the music. Maybe that's all the magic the world needs, any time, any reason. Maybe all the world will get.

Disappointments

Last night wasn't a great time. First, the conjunction was a bit overrated. I drove to a spot where I could look southwest over a large spot of land with no development and thus no lights. I'd spotted the "Christmas Star" immediately, of course, even from my own driveway, but was hoping to get a better viewing with a darker sky. As I left the house, it was the only thing in the sky visible aside from planes, so that had to be IT.

Once parked, out came the camera. It was the first time I shot in the "night"setting, and had no idea what to expect. Fully zoomed out, what was initially one or two stars to the naked eye, alternating for no discernible reason other than having old eyes, the camera couldn't quite decide either, also alternating between one and two  objects on the view screen. At first, there were two, but focusing made it one. Another shot, and same. Third try somehow made it into two points of light. I haven't uploaded it to my computer yet, but I doubt that it will match my impression from the screen of a white object on the left and yellow darker one on the right and above. Yeah, I saw it/them, but the combination wasn't any more spectacular than Venus at close approach. But hey, just a camera after all. TV news later that night showed both planets plus several moons, shot through a telescope.

The next disappointment was in the stress of our switch-over to Dish from Direct. As usual, we got a better offer after our contract with Direct had expired. Repeated mailings tried to get us to switch, repeating their same offer of a cash bonus and a better price with a 2 year guarantee. Direct had given us only1 year of better price, then zoom! Nearly double! We were finally persuaded, after some careful reading of the details.

The installation itself went smoothly... at first. Everything was explained exactly as expected, the good price would last both years of the contract, plus we're to get a hefty bonus in the form of a pre-paid Master card. Spend within 6 months or bye-bye. Not a problem! That would cover about a month's worth of food. Or something else.

Just at the end of his installation, when we were setting timers to make sure we could navigate the process, we were informed that we had only two tuners in this Hopper, aka DVR. This translates into we can record/watch - in any combination - just two programs at a time. Immediate quandary. Most weekdays we are recording three programs at least once a day, and we can't go back and watch an old one while even two are recording if the tuner has only two tuners. Nobody had said there was going to be that limitation.

Hey, there's a solution! According to our installer, we can upgrade to either a Hopper with 3 tuners, or one with 16 along with other unspecified bells and whistles. For free, as far as the new hopper itself is concerned, but some kind of monthly price increase. We should wait for an hour or so, so our account information has a chance to get entered into the system, but we should call and express our displeasure and they would work with us to keep us happy. Well, past experience with Dish has shown us that the work-with-us part is true. And the installer would be happy to bring the upgraded box back tomorrow, even leaving the box this one came in so it would be there for the return.

So we spent some time working on the timers we'd need for the next 20-some hours, getting somewhat familiar with the controls, ran errands, ate, and ran another errand. I finally had time to call Dish and complain about our inadequate Hopper. And guess what? Surprise of all surprises, our installer was fibbing just a little. Yes, they were willing to work with us, but no, the upgraded Hopper would not be free, and no, he would not be out again tomorrow (now today.) The first opening was Christmas Eve afternoon, any upgraded hopper would raise the monthly bill by $5, the three-tuner one would cost $5 to install because it was such a little upgrade, and the 16-tuner one would be $150. Ulp! I agreed to the $5 monthly, and they came down to half the cost of the big tuner. 

The good news is there's very little to miss out on this week, with holiday specials replacing regular programming all over the place. And yes, we'll be home on the 24th. With this pandemic, there's no place else to go anyway.

After returning from my excursion to shoot the conjunction, it was time to watch our first recorded show, the 6 PM CBS news. A graphic of the show was right there in the list of recorded programs, so we clicked on it and ... grey screen. No sound. We exited and went back to it... except now there was no "it" there. And now the TV was telling us we were tuned to #110. 

#110 what? 

We got out of that and tried something else, and now we were on Test 129. What the.......?

Time for the second call in one day to Dish. Their automated machine kicked in and tried to insist  I was calling about our appointment on the 24th, needing to change it.  I'm thinking somebody programmed it it recognize swearing, because it prompted a brief apology message before giving a more open ended question to discover what I really wanted. It was a pretty short wait for the next customer service guy, unlike my first call.

We're hooked up to the internet via the TV with this system, so he asked permission to access it that way from where he was, in order to see what was going on with our system, and I agreed. I tried to explain that we were recording two shows at the time that we didn't want to mess with, and had only two tuners. He finally got that point the third time I reiterated it, after his final solution was to have us shut down and reboot or reinstall or whatever they wanted to do. I could see what he was seeing and where he was moving around to on our screen. The missing program showed up there, but he couldn't find it to give it back to us. (Several years ago Dish had a spot on their menu for doing that if you accidentally fumbled your way into an unwanted deletion. Came in handy fairly often.) We finally agreed to call them back when we were not recording anything to mess up, for the shutdown/whatever.

Eventually we were able to access shows either while they were recording or after, so not sure what's happening, or whether we'll follow through with that shut-down. Gonna spend some quality time winding down first, though. Even the dog was avoiding me for a while.

There was one more incident, but it happened last week. I'm just finding out how much happened now as I work during the day's nicer temperatures to repair it. We had the yard crew out to trim dead stuff from the pine tree so it would only try to support what's left alive, hoping the rest of the tree would survive with more TLC, aka water. While they were out, there was the usual "blowing of the yard" with one of those backpack blowers to finish off the job, including hauling away a pile of branches and other dead stuff I'd been pruning and accumulating. Most times it's all we hire them for. Tree trimming is rare. Previously they've done a fantastic job.

I decided not to complain while they did what I though was over-pruning on the pine. I'd been hoping much less needed to go. In fact I'd asked that only the completely dead stuff be trimmed out.

A lot of green landed on the ground, much of it right on top of my newly planted baby agaves along the fence line. A couple of the chicken wire cages were crunched, one completely removed from protecting the plant. Of course, rabbits had a treat that night. I'm hoping new leaves will come up from the center. The fact it rained nearly an inch that night should help. The two crunched cages were pulled straighter and repositioned, one staked down. Since those agaves were planted because nobody else wanted them, and that was the last likely spot to do so in, I wasn't too annoyed.

But our crew leader brought her brother along to be "useful." His idea of useful was not in blowing the pine straw off the yard, but to rake it. Thing is, the straw, along with shed leaves and miscellaneous detritus, needed to get out of decorative rock beds along the borders of the yard. His use of the rake was so enthusiastic that I've been raking rocks from the middle of the yard back into their beds. Worse, the levels are way lower than before, as many were taken out along with the straw. I can handle working through an area about 10' by 15' in a day, and ibuprofin is definitely needed by bedtime. I've done two day's worth and am still seeing a depressing amount of bare ground in my former rock beds, even after the rocks are returned.

At least there is enough open earth in the center - a good thing, from the doggy perspective - that Heather Too is again willing to get outside and do what needs to be done outside. It's been a struggle. The raking has also loosened the ground enough that doves and quail are coming in to get bits of sand for their crops. 

You're welcome, guys. Well, except for the pigeons.

A Little Argument

Rich and I were at WalMart this afternoon. He was helping me swap out our empty propane tank for a full one. The menu for Christmas is steaks. Of course the parking lot was jammed full so I had to park way out from the store while he ran into the store, paid for the swap, ran back to the car for the empty, and then called me to come pick him and the tank up once the attendant outside had done the exchange.

To pick him up, I came through the parking lot up to the lane in front of the store, where the plan was to turn left and proceed to where Rich was. That lane was jammed too, with all kinds of pedestrians crossing between me and Rich, backing cars up. This included those ahead of me trying to get out of the lane I was in and accessing the main lane. So I had plenty of time to observe while I waited.

While I was approaching my turn, an elderly gentleman (benefit of the doubt) who'd nearly fully crossed in front of me, then spotting some other elderly gentleman he appeared to know, crossed back again to hold a conversation with him, just enough out of my half of the lane so I could approach my turn safely for all of us. It was about 75 out, so windows were down. The men were loud enough to catch some of the conversation.

I could tell it was a disagreement about the Presidency and who really won the election, though I wasn't close enough for long enough, and able to pull part of my attention from traffic long enough to figure out who was on which side. But I clearly heard what one considered the clinching of the argument. "Well, so why then is he sending out all those printed" (emphasis his) "invitations to the inauguration?"

I'm not sure who was taking which side, but an internet search couldn't pull up anything about tRump sending out printed invitations to a faux inauguration so I'm thinking the questioner was working to convince the other  that yes, Biden did indeed win.

Yeah, it's still necessary.

Gotta wonder for how long? And how future generations are going to judge?

Ah, The Christmas Letter....

It starts out as follows: 

"Hello All,

Ah, the infamous Christmas letter, that tradition where you brag about all the wonderful things you and your entire family have accomplished, the wonderful places you’ve visited, and how proud and grateful you are about all of it.

Wait! You remember that this is 2020, right? Adjusting……"

If you're on our X-mas card list, you'll have the rest of it to read for yourself. I won't put you through that twice. It's wrapped around this year's card, another "Heather Special". And like the letter, it has a unique 2020 theme to it. All my cards are unique in having my pictures on them, often themes unrelated to the holiday, but this one goes above and beyond a bit. Covid, eh? Yet hopefully, festive as well.

As long as you haven't moved since last year without letting us know the new address, yours is on its way. It was an accomplishment, and not just because there were 55 going out this year. Oddly, the part which is usually the hardest, getting the photo card right, was the easiest this year. I've gone to Walgreens, Target, and WalMart in previous years, each time fighting with their machines every step of the way. Always a store employee was required to step in. The photos wouldn't go into the right space. They wouldn't get cropped right or positioned correctly within their frame. The messaging wouldn't go right, no font size changing, the switch between capital and lower case a carefully guarded proprietary secret, and lest you learned any of those secrets and managed to remember then from the previous year, the software changed in the last 12 months. Add many years where the scooter wouldn't approach the machine, or the stool etched holes in your hip bones while you squirmed in frustration, making patience even less possible.

Add in covid avoidance, and this year the cards were ordered online. Piece of cake! Found the one collage card with the right number of picture slots in the right shapes for the pictures - mostly horizontal, not vertical - as well as a greeting that said exactly what I wanted, still leaving three lines for personalization, the ability to change font type, size, and location within its space. I had picked those exact pictures with that exact message in mind, and finally got a way to do it simply and quickly. I must admit it was the third company I tried, but WalMart had it.

They must have heard my complaints from previous years, right?

OK, finish the order, go to pay, and find out they will be delivered the ... 17th? That late? But it was done, and turned out they arrived Monday the 14th. By then the accompanying letter was written, - with only 1 typo: can you find it? - so it was time to hit the printer. But hey, you remember that the library was full of everything we had to clear out of the kitchen while it was getting a little refurbishing? It was carefully stacked up on the floor in there, in drawers or totes, precisely in the way between the printer, quite low on paper at the moment, and the shelf holding more paper. 

Good thing I had shelves built in, securely attached, for me to hold on to while leaning way-y-y-y-y-y over to the shelf so I didn't actually fall onto I-don't-want-to-know-exactly-what-but-it-wouldn't-have-felt-good!

The printed letters got folded in thirds, the card inserted, and stuffed into the enve.... Oops. Nope. Too wide. Those envelopes which come with the 4"x8" cards do not accommodate 8 1/2" wide paper. The scissors, of course, are in one of those drawers in the library, so similar gymnastics are in order. Glad nobody was there to grade me on grace and style. I haven't been accused of either of those for, well, decades. Finally, once half the margins were trimmed off on both sides, envelopes were stuffed, addressed, stamped, and checked off the list. (There I go, lists again! Goes a long ways towards making up for aging brain.)

There were way too many to fit the clip at the door where we put the occasional outgoing letter, and it was in time to make the evening pick-up from the big boxes at the post office, so... Road Trip! OK, so not that far, really, but that's about as close to a road trip as it gets these days. I arrived at top rush hour at the post office, which turned out to be much more complicated than expected. Let's see if I can describe it.

Fortunately there is a stoplight at the corner of Bell Road and 98th Ave. Turn left off Bell and... stop. Sit. There is a line ahead of you, just one line serving two locations. The first one is left into the parking lot for those going into the post office. The lot is full. Its drive is a loop, and you can't return into the loop if you've managed to go around without finding a spot. You can exit back onto Bell from the loop, right turn only, once traffic clears enough for those three cars ahead of you to go first. Or you can exit onto 98th. A right turn gets you to Bell at the light, also usually a wait. So exiting traffic backs up. It's even worse when the car exiting onto 98th wishes to make a left because they have to fight through the jammed up line of people waiting to get into the post office. It becomes a vicious feedback loop. They can't give a space because you're the car blocking the exit to make more space so they can move so you can leave....

Then there are the people like me who are in line to go a little further for the left turn into the short curved drive past three humongous boxes for dropping off letters, one box for metered, two for stamped. We are stuck in the first line until we can get past their turn because nobody wants to block all the other neighborhood traffic. You have one wide lane each direction on 98th, half of it for through (or wannabe) traffic, the other half of the lane for those navigating the post office. Once in the curve, there is a wait for those in front of you to dump their mail by the handfuls into the proper slots from their drivers' windows. Luckily for me, the boxes hadn't filed up yet, so my three handfuls went in and disappeared. 

Now I could go fight my way back to the light. Not everyone was polite enough to leave a full space to eke through, or have no earthly idea just how far out their back ends hang over the curb and into the lane while they wait for an opening they knew was going to open right up just when they got there... and didn't. Luckily for me, KBAQ 89.5 FM plays great classical music through the process, and they are thoughtful enough to have just finished their fundraising pleas so all we get is music.

Should all go well from here, your letters/cards should arrive. Sometime. Maybe still this year. But honest, they are in the mail. It's not like the check I just sent up to Minnesota for deposit in my credit union, mailed on the third, arriving the 15th, so with no check there should be nothing to slow them down. Right?