The Not-So-Deep South
December 1998
Greetings Holiday Fans, Family, and Fiends, ah, Friends,
This is your friend and mine, Duchess, again bringing you our annual Christmas update of happenings here at the Miller-Younkin household in the Old Dominion. But first a few disclaimers for our legally minded readers. Being all paws, I now avow that I am not responsible for any typos, misrepresentations of the facts, or dispersions on the character or reputations of anyone mentioned, alluded to, or who think they might have been alluded to in this epistle. (Of the latter, I'm reminded of Jesse Jackson's outrage at J. C. Watts' reference to 'poverty pimps' although Watts didn't mention any poverty pimps by name. But then again, if the shoe fits…) But I digress.
Overall we had a very good year except that Jean's mom passed away two days before Thanksgiving followed by her grandfather. We'll certainty miss Nanny. It's been hard on us especially since this was the first time the family was not together for Thanksgiving.
Devon continues to work on earning her Cougar patch for the YMCA Indian Princess program. At the spring Indian Princess Longhouse (that’s camp out to you pale faces) she received the coveted Beaver patch. On the down side, Jim was elected chief of the Powhatan tribe, but faces the first possibility of impeachment in the history of the Indian Princess program. Unlike Bill Clinton, we’re not looking at perjury and obstruction of justice here, just simple old megalomania run amok.
Devon continues with piano lessons. This will be her third and final year (or so both Devon and Jim swear). Then next summer she’ll start learning the flute, although she really wants to get an oboe and take riding lessons (horses, I think). Devon’s beanie baby collection continues to grow. She wants another addition to the house to properly quarter them and swears that she’s never moving out.
Derek continues to advance in Boy Scouts earning both the ranks of Star, then Life this year. That only leaves Eagle. Despite all the hard work, blister-producing hikes with full pack (but still not as heavy as his backpack for school--why does the average school textbook weigh 20 pounds?), and camping in -5 degree weather, both Derek and Jim agree that the best part of scouting is paint ball, especially when you sneak up behind someone, ask him to surrender and then in the split second before he can answer, empty the full magazine into his back. It doesn’t get any better than that.
Derek’s also doing band (trumpet like his Uncle Gary), chorus (like no one else in the immediate family), drama club (ditto) and SPARC (local performing arts program) this year (none of which are easy with braces) as well as playing soccer. He made County Chorus, probably not on account of his voice but on account of they were desperate for boys. Derek’s also doing Cotillion where they learn all the important social graces for the upcoming teenage years like how to insult the opposite sex without opening your mouth.
The highlight of my year was that last Christmas Eve I managed to dig under the fence to wish the neighbor’s two dogs a Merry Christmas and to discover what scrooges all the human adults around here are as no one except the canines seemed to appreciate the gesture. The low point of the year was July when I spend most of the month being lodged at the vet’s while everyone disappeared something about seeing the great American West. They claimed to have driven over 7000 miles seeing the Badlands, Black Hills, Yellowstone, Tetons, Jackson, St. George, Zion, Bryce, Grand Canyon, Mesa Verde and a really neat pet shop in Mitchell, SD, home of the world famous Corn Palace. You say you never heard of the Corn Palace. Me neither.
Anyway the day they finally returned to pick me up Jim up and asks the vet what has to be the worse question one can imagine–“Do you have any kittens in need of a home?” and the vet pulls out this grey bundle of feline fury with an attitude. Devon says, “We’ll take him,” names the holy terror Zeus and it’s been all downhill from there. It’s bad enough that Derek’s cat Tiger helps himself to my dinner. Angel’s okay because you never see her (the neighbor who was cat sitting while the family was out West didn’t catch a glimpse of her in four weeks), but Zeus is..., is..., I don’t want to talk about it, let’s just say that he’s such a pest that we have to lock him up at night although in my opinion locking him up 24 hours a day would be a better idea. Among other things he likes to nest on your head when you’re trying to sleep and even Tiger is annoyed because Zeus is constantly ambushing him.
The summer wasn’t a total lost however as a group (pack?, tribe?, pride?, herd?) of beavers built a dam on the local stream behind the community pool. We took some dam pictures of the dam beavers.
Jean continues to teach preschool at the Second Baptist church creating much local animosity as parents continue to fight it out trying to get their kids into her classes. She is also continuing to improve her tennis game although Derek can beat her if weather conditions are right (Derek prefers the 3-hour match in 90 degree weather forcing his opponent to collapse with heat stroke).
Jim is still at Virginia Power filling out paperwork and sitting through long meetings waiting for his turn to report that there’s nothing to report. Although the company sent him to Monterey, CA, in June for a week long meeting they made up for it by sending him to Gaithersburg, MD (also known as the sink hole of the Beltway) in October and putting him on an aptly named Dilbert team. (No kidding, some company manager was actually dumb enough to name them Dilbert teams!) But Jim just smiles and continues to count the days until early retirement (less than three years)!
Cousins Sean and Shannon payed us a week long visit again this summer. (Other than Grandpa, they’re the only kin who ever come to visit, all you non visiting-kin take note.) Wait, I forgot that cousins Jennifer and John dropped off new daughter Logan the weekend of Mother’s Day, so Logan visits too. Anyway, the visit by Sean and Shannon went quite well this year as no one called the police, the fire department or the FBI. In August Logan returned for another visit (I don’t remember seeing her parents so I guess she has her drivers license already) and Derek and Jim took off for a fossil hunt at the Chuckatuck Pit and Chippokes State Park (neat names, huh) where they no doubt broke several federal and state laws collecting illegal fossils, or maybe that should be illegally collecting fossils. But since it was sponsored by the Virginia Museum of Natural History and they had a professional paleontologist in tow, it was probably okay–at least he said it was as long as you didn’t get caught (must be more of the Clinton influence on our morality).
The family also discovered a really neat zoo near Richmond called the Metro Richmond Zoo (somewhat misnamed since it’s about 15 miles outside the city on private land). Since dogs aren’t allowed, Derek and Devon smuggled me into the zoo cleverly disguised as an aardvark and everything went well until we got to the kangeroo exhibit. One of the roos took my comment about his nose being even bigger than mine the wrong way (honest, I meant it as a compliment) and as a result of the ensuing ruckus, we got thrown out of the zoo.
Except for the two bank robberies within a mile of Devon’s school, the police barricades, roadblocks, and dragnet through the woods next to her school, the neighborhood remains pretty sedate. (Oh, except for what happened when Derek and two of his friends went trick-or-treating with the emphasis on the trick part–but why get into that.)
We’re looking forward to a great Holiday Season here–Devon wants some hermit crabs. Once again we all wish you all a great Christmas and fabulous New Year, even you northern kin who never come to visit.
Place paw prints and signatures here.
P.S. As part of the Holiday spirit let me give you some timeless wisdom from the canine creed on how to achieve Peace On Earth and that is, “Even a single cat is one too many.”