Merry Christmas - Midwinter Greetings!

Midwinter Greetings
December 2004

Here’s hoping this letter finds you in good spirits and well. We’re enjoying fairly busy lives here, and have just begun a breather from routine. Let’s cut to the chase and bring you the latest ….


NEWER BUT NOT BIGGER
Kitchen floor. Bad idea to watch Home and Garden television as it leads one to believe renovations take only three days. Took three months. Still married.

Swimming Pool: Winter ce, pool liners and fragile walls bad combination. The pool guy (when they eventually arrived) tried to electrocute himself. Also took months too. Thank goodness for crappy weather.

“EXOTIC” TRAVELS
Jamie and I swam with the dolphins in Cuba. I ruined the film. Thank goodness for a fortuitous exchange of email addresses and a 5 year old with a good eye for photography.

A rather expensive car repair the day after the final pay day of the school year put the kibosh on my trip to King Arthur’s England so…. I went to the movie instead.

There was enough leftover change to get to New York City for the first time. Now I have photos from the Empire State Building in the rain and zero visibility. More importantly, I have photos of firemen taking their clothes off. (okay, so it was just one of those heavy NYFD jackets) The rest of the weekend was around 30 degrees and humid - me with hot flashes, wondering why the hell I’d left the backyard pool. To top it off, the powers that be declared a Code Orange Terrorist alert, so it was just as well to head back home for a camping trip with the boys.

Sure enough, we set up tent and laptop in Fitzroy Harbour just in time for a tornado alert.

It will be nice to enjoy an alert-free holiday some day.

PERFECT KID ??
Jamie and I had a huge fight an hour before his Graduation ceremonies because I tried to stuff him into a goon suit. An hour later, I’m making mental notes of the fashion statement of a young lady wearing Giant Plastic Butterfly Wings and a pair of combat boots. And silently apologizing (or was it squealing?) when Jamie won the Math Award and made the Honour Roll. I’m sure he’ll grow into those trousers one of these days.

Four months later, the Power Ranger controversy was brought back to mind (with a grin) as an imaginative reporter covered Jamie’s silver medal win at the North American Taekwondo championships. You can read the rest for yourself – (provided you have a magnifying glass)





ARTS AND CULTURE:
A tournament I had to miss because I was directing a comedy for South Shore Theatre. And a comedy of errors it was…try casting eight parts with six people showing up for auditions! Some never did manage to learn all their lines, one had nasty temper tantrums, the theatre was full of smoke one evening thanks to a lamp that exploded….

Also did a show “Infidelities” in the spring where I played a couple of small parts (female, for a change) including an Old, Nagging Married Woman and a Fat Broad. If I say so myself, it certainly didn’t take much rehearsing.

Fortunately, a good friend convinced me to take Second City improv courses with him, where my most recent role involved being a model for an infomercial selling low-carb edible underwear that helps you quit smoking and lose weight.

Also have been taking sculpture courses and have made a teapot heavy enough to provide traction for an 18-wheeler with bald tires, a couple of slightly off-key whistles, a wire insect and a bowl that John responded with “50 years of art school and you’re making ashtrays?”

I really wonder about my hobbies sometimes.

John is still very active with the Libertarian Party and Jamie has taken to rock guitar, and they’re both quite sane.

EARNING A LIVING
Well, John does, anyway. He gets a break from ATI to teach Taekwondo with Jamie in Mount Albert, while I’m enjoying my third year at the Aurora Montessori School teaching art and drama.

I’m pretty much keeping my mechanic earning a living too as my car died again last night. Tried to convince John to take his motorcycle to work, to no avail, claiming there was snow on the ground. So, with a rather convenient day off, I took the dysfunctional dog for a walk under a bright blue sky and thought how best to wish you all the best of the season.

On behalf of John and Jamie, may you all find warmth in your soul, humour where you least expect it, and may you stay forever young –