My Christmas Letter

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to any cyber friends I may still have left after such a long absence from Bloggers. I wish I hadn't neglected my blog for so long but I've been busy with life this past summer and fall, and this winter with posting on a message boards where I enjoy debating politics and other controversies. Anyway, below is the Christmas letter that went out with our cards this year.....

Writing Christmas letters, for me, is like going to the dentist. You know it’s a good thing to do---well, some etiquette experts claim they are tacky but who listens to them outside of Washington D.C. and New York City---but the process is often tedious.

Speaking of dentists, going through our appointment book in preparation for writing this letter, I discovered that between the two of us Don and I went ten times this year! A bummer statistic when you factor in that we lost our dental coverage due to GM’s bankruptcy. But the really scary statistic is that we’d also been to other doctors, hospitals and therapy appointments a combined grand total of sixty times in 2009. And that doesn’t include the months of January and February. For some reason I can’t fathom, I tore those months out of our appointment book. Senior moment? Boring months? Secret life I didn’t want anyone to find out about should I die suddenly? I don’t know but I’ll probably spend the rest of December trying to remember.

To be fair to all of you younger people reading this letter and shuddering that you, too, might be spending your retirement years in the waiting rooms of health care providers, let me explain that my knee replacement took up forty of those sixty appointments. Hint: If you have surgery, don’t pick up an infection in the process. For a while I was taking so many antibiotics and steroids that every night I’d turn off the light while standing in front of a mirror to see if I glowed in the dark yet. It never happened but it was easier to worry about that than to fret about the possibility losing my leg. Okay, so I’m being a drama queen. It wasn’t that bad of an infection, but in my defense when a doctor mentions taking your lower leg off as a worst case scenario the other scenarios fall on deaf ears. I’m fine now, by the way, and pain-free for the first time in years.

Don is doing well, but he does have a new medical issue added to his list things he’d rather not have to dink around with---sleep apnea. But he couldn’t have just the ordinary kind. The sleep specialist says his type affects only three percent of those with apnea and it’s caused by a problem in his brain. He’s only had his two machines---one being oxygen---a couple of weeks but already I can tell he’s getting a better quality of sleep. I need to find him a new hobby, though, because I’m not used to having him up so early in the morning spoiling my treasured Hour of Total Quiet and Solitude.

Speaking of quiet and solitude busters the joy of our lives, Levi the schnauzer, is doing well. He’ll be two in January and is trained to take Don’s socks off at night and not trained to stay out of my mother-in-law tongue which he uproots weekly. I’ve seen these plants listed on the web as both toxic and non-toxic to pets. Thankfully, we seem to have the latter rather than the former variety. But if anyone has any Cesar Millan type tips for breaking Levi’s Sansevieria fetish please call before my Dust Buster dies.

In addition to the Mickey Mouse stuff mentioned above, 2009 has been a hoe-hum year. Or to be more honest, we’ve had better years----the years when we didn’t have to worry so much about issues beyond our control like the country’s and GM’s ability to come back to life and prosperity again. (Don might like being a greeter at K-Mart, should he lose his pension and have to go back to work, but I’d look lousy in their red vests.) Hopefully, the New Year will bring renewed hope and happiness to all of us. In the meantime, have a great holiday season!

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