The Not-So-Deep South
December 2001
Holiday
Greetings to Family and Friends (not that we mean to differentiate between the
two—see my 1997 Christmas letter for further explanation),
Yes, I’m back!
Your favorite, Christmas-family-epistle writing canine ... DUUUUUUCHEEEESS!!! Hey–wait a minute! What goes on here?! Hold
the keyboard! That looks more like DUCK CHEESE! It’s suppose to be DUCHESS!
Okay, maybe I should explain.
See, last Christmas I asked for the new Model 2001 Canine Keyboard. You can imagine how difficult it is to type
on a human designed keyboard with paws.
Well, instead of a keyboard, all I got was the usual doggie treats. Like, swell, golly-gee whiz. I get doggy treats every day of the year
(except when the family goes on vacation and they stick me in prison). So this year I put my foot...eh, paw
down. “No more typing these Christmas
letters,” I said, “until I get a decent keyboard.” It came down to either a keyboard for me or a laptop for Derek
for school. Anyway, after Derek got his
laptop, we compromised. So now Jim’s
typing the letter to my dictation. That
will explain all the typos, misspelling (like above) and so on. So don’t expect the usual quality crafted
letter like you’ve been getting in prior years. But, hey, Christmas is less than three weeks away (hard to
believe, it was 80 degrees here last week–eat your hearts out Uncle Gary and
Aunt Pat), and maybe this year they’ll be a Model 2002 Canine Keyboard under
the tree… (No, Jim, you can’t
take a break. We’ve only been at this
for five minutes. Sheesh! What a pansy! If I have to dictate one of these next year, I’ll get Derek to
type it.)
Now for the newsy part of the letter. Everything here is pretty much as it was
last year except we’re minus two cats.
Frisco’s health kept going downhill so we had him put to sleep last
January, and we lost Tiger, the senior pet of the family, the day before
Halloween. However, in May a new kitten
showed up–Jellybean, alias JB, alias Target, alias fur-ball from hell. This one is absolutely fearless. He thinks my tail is some sort of cat
toy. It’s now difficult to get any rest
around here as usually several times each night there are these horrific cat
shrieks along with flying cat fur as JB and Zeus go at it. Zeus has discovered that the only refuge is
to get up on some human’s shoulders. I
tried that once but they just looked at me like I was crazy. As usual, when JB starts up Angel just runs for
cover. Then again, Angel doesn’t eat
JB’s kitten food like Zeus does. Actually,
I’ve tried it. It’s not too bad. I’ll have to recommend it to Sean the next
time he visits.
Anyway, Devon’s still at Tuckahoe Middle School
(don’t ask me what a Tuckahoe is), now in 7th Grade, and Derek’s
still at the Governors School. (Don’t
know why they call it the Governors School.
The Governor doesn’t go there.
Heck, he’s never even visited the place.) Jean is still molding future generations at the Baptist Church,
and the guy attempting to type this is still working where he has always worked
at a job he can't explain, although lately he's been talking a lot about a
Kolmogorov-Smirnov test for normality.
It either has something to do with vodka tasting or sadistics…eh,
statistics.
August was a bad month. Devon became a teenager, Derek started Drivers' Ed, Jean had
bunion surgery, and Jim started vodka tasting.
Since the surgery, Jean's taken up sewing as it's
difficult to play tennis on crutches.
That all started when Devon and Jean took a quilting class last summer
(the sewing, not the bunions). So we
got a spiffy, new sewing machine that has a computer in it (?!). I’m still waiting for one of those spiffy
doggy coats for the cold weather should it ever arrive. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen a quilt
yet.
Derek had a part in his school play. Now what would you think would be a good
candidate for a high school play? Would
you believe George Orwell’s “1984?"
I think it was a musical comedy or something. Along the same lines, Devon is still doing Hip Hop. (Don’t ask.
I have no idea what that is. All
I know is that one weekend she was walking around dressed up like an
animal.) Considering my ignorance of
human culture, how come I'm the one writing these letters?
Last Christmas we changed game plans and opened the
presents on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas morning. (Thanks Aunt Polly for that great
idea.) Only problem was that there was
no Model 2001 Canine Keyboard! Then on
Christmas day we set up the big telescope to allow the neighborhood to view the
partial eclipse of the sun. Pretty
neat, huh! Best of all, Santa brought
Devon a George Foreman grill.
Apparently George Foreman is some kind of hamburger because that’s what
Devon makes with it. I guess you’d have
to be a dog to really appreciate what a great gift that was.
In January Derek visited the Big Apple with the
school drama club. I had heard that the
club originally planned to go to New York City. Not sure why they instead decided to visit a large fruit. In February, Jim got to dance with Devon at
the last Cotillion of the season. I
understand that because of Jim’s performance, dads are now forbidden on the
dance floor. That same month Derek
introduced the family to the game of “pickle ball." (It's related to Quidditch, except it's
played on tennis courts with wooden bludgeons and wiffle balls!) Derek’s scoutmaster also took him skiing for
the first time in his life (Derek’s, not the scoutmaster’s). Derek got banned from the expert slopes for
reckless hot dogging. After that
experience, you would have thought Jean and Jim would have had more sense than
to let Derek take Scuba Diving at Scout Summer Camp. He's now scuba-certified to a depth of 60 feet. Jim's planning on building a tropical lagoon
in the backyard so he has some place to practice.
Both Derek and Devon are working–Derek’s still
refereeing soccer and mowing yards and Devon is kidsitting. Personally, except for the screaming, I
don't see what's so tough about sitting on kids. Many teachers at Tuckahoe Middle School who remember Derek (who
could forget!) find it difficult to believe that Devon is Derek's sister. For example, this is Devon's second year in
the school chorus. Apparently, the
school music department breathed a great sigh of relief when Derek decided not
to take chorus for a second year.
(Derek seemed to think that the lyrics to every song were those to
"Great Balls of Fire.")
Vacation this year was a week at a resort in
Williamsburg. (Can't beat the travel
time!) Cousins Shannon and Sean joined
us. We did all the great nearby
attractions—Water Country, Virginia Beach, Busch Gardens, and a midnight visit
to the Williamsburg Hospital (all I know is that the last involved Sean, the
resort swimming pool, a thunderstorm, and Derek saying, "It wasn't my
idea.") Also Shannon won the limbo
contest and Devon the shark race (???).
On the sports side of things, Devon now takes me for
walks while riding her unicycle. She
says the neat thing about riding a unicycle is that she can ignore all those
signs that say "No bicycling!"
Derek finished his last season of tennis eligibility at the Swim Club,
and Jean's out for the season (see bunions above). Devon and Derek are now Judo orange belts. (That's between the tangerine and the carrot
belts.)
At the end of the summer Derek and Dad attended the
robotics competition at the Maryland State Fair with the school Robotics
Club. (Derek was elected club finance
officer as punishment for never attending any meetings.) The Governor School's robot, Peacemaker, was
disqualified after it allegedly went berserk and destroyed a few of the
competition. The lame excuse offered by
the Club for this calamity was, "Golly, isn't this Battle Bots?"
In October we finally headed north to celebrate
Shannon's birthday and visit the Maryland Renaissance Faire on the way home
with Aunt Donna, Cousin Jennifer and Logan.
Then it was the Celtic Festival (where, thank goodness, the family
talked Jim out of getting a set of bagpipes), the Virginia Theater Arts
convention, the Latin convention, the Cotillion Holly Ball, school dances, and,
hey, before you knew it, we had Thanksgiving and are putting up the Christmas
tree.
For this year's science projects, Devon is baking
fifty loaves of bread (she could have picked hamburgers, but NO, she had to do
bread), and Derek built a trebuchet (it's a medieval siege machine—can bean a
neighbor with a one pound water balloon at a range of 200 feet), and I have no
idea what the point of all this is.
This is what we get for having the government involved in education.
So once again, we are wishing you and yours all the
best for the Holiday season and for the new year and hopefully Santa doesn't
have any cats on your Christmas list.
Place paw prints and signatures here.