Well, hindsight is behind you, almost anyway. Soon enough Mr. Floyd and Dr. Joe with the needle. And isn’t that good? You do know he doesn’t work there anymore, right? What will it be next year? When you start counting, how do you know when to stop? How confusing it will be!?! How many Gs will there be anyway? Will Bill Gates be counting? Will anyone fly or flu?
You know what they say about hindsight, it's 2020, and it's almost over, thank goodness. Richard and the rest of us are looking forward to Pfizer (his former employer) and the rest getting approval for the C-19 vaccine. That will be great! Perhaps inappropriately, he still feels some sense of pride that the company has worked so well and quickly to get to this point. Next year will be 2021, you know, Richard wonders how many of us will forget what we are doing and just say, "20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25" before someone stops us and accuses us of being senile. Let's leave politics out of this.
Some of us still like the bugs, broken up as they
have been for eons. Will she send me a valentine, a birthday greeting, grape
juice, leave the door open, knead and feed me when we start counting? There is
always Lovely Rita after the song is done; please don’t give me a parking
ticket, but get the band back together, even if only virtually. It was a long
and winding road that led to the huge tree stump. At least that’s what it
looked like. Unfortunately for Dr. Joe, at least, there wasn’t a close
encounter of the first, second or any other kind. There’s that counting theme
again. But at least they didn’t steal his brain. That didn’t matter to
Rochelle. Monotonicity is over-rated; much happened before that, except it
didn’t seem like it because it all happened at the home office, or from the
Montana basement and the Highland bedroom. Or at least most of it. Even though
it wasn’t by the bugs, Richard really never thought he’d live to be a million,
and soon it will be four of them in just one year. That’s almost to Hudson Bay
or San Diego? How’s that for climate change? Yes, indeed. Doc Martin is a fine
fellow. So is his nameplace. Great sun, great hiking, paddling. Is the iguana
really blue? If your tree gives you lemons, poison it. If you go head to toe in
tennis ball yellow, maybe it will learn a lesson.
The Beatles broke up, if you haven't heard, but their songs are still pretty good - many of them anyway - and some have a touch of prophecy in them. Richard turned 63 the other day and is wondering whether in the coming year, what it will be like to be 64. If you owned the Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album (what's an album?) you will get it. Lovely Rita followed after the referenced song. Richard actually performed live (with others) singing a moderated Christmas Carol at his firm's holiday party this past year. It was more fun than he expected, and they are threatening to do a digital reprise. Who knows how that will go. Because of Covid, Richard and Rochelle drove out west and spent about 6 weeks in the homes of grandchildren, with Rochelle doing Cousin Camp for part of the time. Now that's out of order, as is much of this, but as I said, monotonicity is over-rated especially with regards to time. So there. Along the way, they stopped at Devil's Tower in Wyoming. It was awe inspriring, even without the UFOs. I hope you are a Richard Dryefus movie fan. Along the way, after a long day of driving, Richard experienced a dizzy spell and an atypical migraine that interrupted his vision for a while. Rather than drive partially blind, he decided to pull over and let Rochelle drive. But he survived, and had an MRI to make sure nothing was really wrong (it wasn't) so he is now confident his brain is still in good order. You know, the Moody Blues had a song, "I Never Thought I'd Live to Be a Million." Richard has always thought the song was interesting, if not very melodic. When Covid shut down his office and eliminated his commute, he set a goal to walk 3,650,000 steps during 2020. He was so productive working from home and away, that he has exceeded his goal. He will have walked more than 4 million steps before the end of the year. That's about 2,000 miles, which is about how far it is to San Diego and Hudson Bay from his home. Fortunately, before the Covid outbreak, we managed to spend a week on St. Martin and had a smash of a time hiking, swimming, kayaking and doing other fun things. We even chased a huge iquana on a deserted island off the coast of the main island. Fun and games. Finally, Richard tried to grow a lemon tree this year, or maybe he tried not to grow it. After a first successful season, with 2 small lemons that never turned their appropriate color (they stayed green, but were sweeter than most lemons), he overfertilized the tree and pretty much killed it. He is trying to nurse it back to health, but it's struggling. As he walked this year, he donned neon green/yellow clothes much of the time, and for Halloween, he bought a head to toe neon suit. That's what he did during Covid 2020.
Rochelle has always been musically inclined, but not really on a rocket-ship until this year. Now it’s almost every day, going really fast, but not very high. How many cousins at the fire? Or was there a fire? Probably just kick-the-can sorvete, row row row, stroke stroke stroke. There’s nothing you can swing that can’t be swung. Love is all you need. She thought she would like Tahiti or Greece for 39, but given the circumstance, Paris had to do. But she, with Richard, walked _every_ street in the town. She won’t make the four million, but farther than counting backward. Sew, sew, so, so much, kindness for dear friends. Along with the thread, she used plenty of graphite seeking perfection on parchment, in what style? Paris is in the country, so why not that? Will it be built in the middle of the way? If so, on which side of the corner? How will she see the princess? How will she avoid sunburn? Will the kids drive over the river and through the woods, or just over the mountain?
Maybe I should have more to say about Rochelle, but since she doesn't like to write this (or even read it I think) I guess she gets what I offer. She has taken on the role of being a Zoom teacher for some of her grandkids. Especially the Allen younger ones (Gus age 5 and Coen age 3). They have learned a lot from her and have had fun doing it. And Rochelle has fun too. As mentioned above, while we were in Montana during the summer, Arrin's family came up from California (en route to Utah) and Rochelle did a Cousin Camp. Lots of activities - going to the lake, going hiking, playing funny games of skill and daring, cooking noodles over a campfire, spinning until they were dizzy, melting flavored ice, making ice cream in a can, and many other things. We had ideas of doing a really nice anniversary trip, but then there was Covid. So we found Paris, Virginia, on the map and drove there. It's a pretty small town, so in about 30 minutes, we managed to walk up and down every street in town. That didn't contribute toward the 4 million very much, but then that's not Rochelle's goal, so no problem. She also put together two large and very beautiful quilts for two of her close friends, with the help of other friends, and she put together a Christmas pillow gift as a craft experience for some of the women in our church community, and friends. That was a Zoom thing too. "Zoom a little Zoom on a Rocket Ship, off we go on a trip..." One of her favorite songs. We also finally decided to buy a building lot in a development we've had our eye on in Midway Utah for several years. That process put her to work drafting preliminary building plans to figure out if we really wanted that lot and if we would like the hose we could build there. We think so, but we'll see. Able was I ere I saw Elba. Do you know that that means?
Among the youngsters, the least got out of town and
worked from a sewing room. The toil was remote and dinner was good and fun, but
even the most excellent company diminishes in appeal over time, so back to the
town it was and work from the wide street, or near it anyway, way up north. For
a while, the work was four of five, which seemed fine, especially when the Big
Uncle and the Novel Shirt chipped in. Things are back to normal now, or even
better.
Ben moved down from NYC early in the Covid days and worked from our house. That was dandy. He occupied what has become Rochelle's sewing room. There was a stretch when his firm asked employees to go to 4 days a week, which was OK for lots of reasons, including the State of New Jersey providing unemployment benefits for the time off - maybe supplemented by the Federal Govt? I don't know. But dandy, as I said. That didn't last, and neither did his stay with us. We eventually became less entertaining than we initially were, and things seemed to calm down Covid-wise in NYC, so he went back home to north Harlem working full time again from his appartment. (The blog editor doesn't have spell check you know.)
Speaking of new normal, the next up the rank left
the cove and decamped to princeps terram with a lengthy camping trip in between.
Why not move there? Sell that casa, buy this one, or that one. Paint it, pick tomatoes,
blackberries, cantaloupe, and squash, make salsa, send 2/3 of the boys to
school, put the other in the office. Order stuff, draft the family paint and
tiling crews. Have them and some other folks make lots of noise and build more
stuff. Bounce some, run some, roll some more, even the pretend way, find some
lost teeth under a pillow.
One day in the late spring, Arrin called and said they were thinking of moving to Utah. What? Utah? You work in San Francisco, we said. Right, she said. But we are working from home anyway so we are going to clear it with our employers and think about it, but it looks like Utah is in the future. So they did. Highland is where they landed. We are still amazed at it all, but that's how Millenials do things. We older types have a hard time keeping up. They bought a house with a great garden already in production phase when they got there so it was harvest time from day one. Jonah and Lucas have been able to attend school and make new friends, and life is much better. Though when they arrived in Utah (in July) Jonah (age 5) said, "where's the snow?" I guess the only times they had come to Utah before (at least that he remembered), it had been winter. Funny. There are lots of good things to do in the new house, even lose teeth.
The most numerous are also the farthest from McMurdo,
but which place has the better weather? Hard to say, I suppose. Maybe one
should write it on the sidewalk. That’s were camp was. A virtual viola concert
is good in the situation. And a ride in the rocket ship with Grandma Shell is
good most days for at least two passengers helps. Legomania rules for one, but school
calls too. It is in the Mountains, after all. What’s the news? What’s the right
thing to say? How to say it? How do you paint a horse? Is it named Old Paint? How
about a cow, or a flower? With water?
Rachel and fam still live in the Montana tundra, though in the summer it was quite nice for Cousin Camp, etc. It was a nice place for Richard to expand his step count, and a great place to play around, draw with chalk on the sidewalk, hear Harper play the viola, help or mostly just watch Sam build Lego things and ask Gus and Coen crazy questions. They all like riding horses, one in particular, at the Allen Grandparent's business establishment that was on its last leg. And Rachel spends lots of time and effort writing thougtful essays on matters of faith and current events for the local newspaper, and teaching watercolor painting at a community thing. She's very popular. She should be. They also do karate and other skills. Don't hurt your knees or back. Monotonicity? Who cares about that.
Richard and Rochelle wish you love, peace, and joy
this season and always.
True, that.
