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There’s an old saying that if you want something done right, you should do it yourself. But there’s a less well-known adage that I think of as the first adage’s redneck cousin, which goes, if you don’t want to do a job again, do a crappy job. This is a philosophy that my sisters will tell you I put to good use in high school to get out of doing the dishes. I thought I had achieved a similar goal with last year’s Christmas letter, but it turns out, you people like snarky Christmas letters and lo and behold, the job was given to me again this year. So once again, strap in for the Kessler’s year in review.
The one piece of good news is, given the election results, I may not have to do this again, seeing as the world will be ending in an apocalyptic nightmare before then. Well, maybe not, but the odds are pretty good. It’s sad to think the world could be destroyed because of some late night tweet about Kim Jung Un’s ugly wife or something. It’s like a teenage girl with nuclear weapons. At least the election is over. Let the circus begin. Based on the cabinet picks so far, I’m awaiting my nomination to the Olive Growers Advisory Board since I despise olives with all my heart. That coupled with my absolute lack of government experience makes me a shoo-in I would think. Although I’m a few billion dollars short of the ante so maybe not. Anyway, enough said about that.
On to more important things, sports. It was a disappointing year there too for our teams. The Seahawks underachieved. The Mariners didn’t make the playoffs (again). The Phillies sucked (again). And the Portland soccer team that won the title last year didn’t even make the playoffs this year. Not that we cared. I mean it’s soccer. The only minor bright spot was the Trail Blazers made it to the second round of the playoffs for the first time in forever, despite replacing nine of twelve players. It may be that was thanks to some timely injuries to the two best players on the Clippers. But this is what amounts to a victory around here now.
We are clearly living in Bizarro world. The Cubs won the World Series. The Cubs?! What? And Cleveland won the NBA title! And the Detroit Lions are winning. What’s next? Superman is evil? Spock has a goatee? Up is down? I mean Trump’s victory was unlikely. The Cubs winning the World Series? That’s a miracle.
My company, Care Innovations, continued its valiant fight to remain a non-profit. But it’s becoming increasingly difficult and 2017 may be the year it actually fails and makes money. Customers insist on buying from us and we’ve managed to ramp up to meet demand. It’s actually pretty exciting. I was up for a prestigious end of year award but came in second. What you have to understand is the winner gets $5000. Second place gets you a secret email from someone in the know that you were the other choice not picked. So, as Jerry Seinfeld says about the silver medal, amongst all the losers, I was first in that category. Although honestly it feels pretty good. About 5000 times less good than it might have. But still good.
Marion continues her volunteer work at SCRAP (a recycled materials store). She is the queen of fabrics and can tell you what any material of any size is worth. Folding is her well-known super power. When the apocalypse occurs and we are left to barter for food with scraps of material, or have to work in a laundry, we’ll be all set. Marion also made teeny tiny dollhouse furniture from discarded jewelry parts for SCRAP’s holiday gallery sale. Perhaps of less use post-apocalypse, but for now very cool.
She was honored as volunteer of the month for November, which while maybe not as prestigious an award as the one at my company, it’s certainly more prestigious to actually win. Sadly, the honor did not come with a substantial cash award (the drawback of working for an actual non-profit). But it did include prizes made from (surprise, surprise) recycled materials.
This summer we took a 2-week trip back East to visit Philadelphia, Pottstown, PA (my hometown), Princeton and New York, because we don’t really grasp the concept of ‘vacation’. Actually, we do go to cities now and then for trips to visit museums and see theater etc. New York was the big attraction but the other spots were for family reasons. I’ve been doing genealogy research and I was able to find my great grandfather Kessler’s marriage license at City Hall in Philadelphia as well as various relatives gravestones in area cemeteries that we visited in 90 degree heat and 90 percent humidity (do we know how to party or what?). We stopped in Pottstown and Princeton to spread some of my Dad’s ashes at various locations he wanted. Something I had been putting off since he died in 2009.
Daniel and his then girlfriend Eve, (she of last year’s Christmas letter but not this year’s) met us in New York where we saw the sites and topped it off by seeing Hamilton (with the original cast!). People asked how we managed to get tickets to Hamilton. But it’s really quite easy. All it took was a willingness by some of us to part with an obscene amount of money and willingness by others of us to let her. Even though I was seated behind “Big Head Fred”, and was bobbing and weaving like Muhammad Ali to see anything, and his family knew all the words to the songs and sang along, it was still the best theater we’ve seen in quite possibly forever. It turns out we actually do like hip hop, so long as the song isn’t about hos and gang bangers and the bass isn’t loud enough to melt your eyeballs.
This year we became real-estate moguls by purchasing a condo in Seattle. The Seattle market has been hot for some time and Daniel convinced us we were fools not to take part. The fact Daniel needed a place to live probably had nothing to do with it. Thanks to Daniel’s research, we got a good deal in an up and coming neighborhood, and in fact, the place has already been assessed at well above what we paid for it. So chalk one up for the boy. Our true mogul dreams were somewhat dashed however when Daniel moved in at well under market price rent. But what can you do? We will have to wait to exploit the poor and downtrodden until later. There’s likely to be more of them soon so that will make it easier.
While we’re on the subject of Daniel, he has a new job in Seattle, working for a media company as a video production manager. It sounds like a fun place to work based on the Facebook posts we’ve seen and the stories of Nerf gun target shooting. We armed him with a 16-shot weapon for Christmas. There’s a new girl in his life too. Her name is Rebecca. We haven’t met her yet but she sounds nice and we’re looking forward to getting to know her.
Daniel and I took our annual baseball trip in September. This year we went to San Francisco for the last two Giants games of the year and got the chance to say goodbye to Vin Scully when he broadcast his last game. We are now 2/3 complete on our quest to go to every ballpark.
I mentioned last year about my ongoing back issues. Well, after utilizing the American health care system to the fullest extent possible, I can tell you that this year, after hours of treatment and exercise, it really is no better. We may have the most expensive health care in the world but at least it doesn’t work. The process follows four distinct phases as follows:
• Phase 1: “I see this all the time, I’m sure we can fix you up in a few visits”
• Phase 2: “Your case is a bit more stubborn than most, but 6 or 8 more visits and we’ll have a breakthrough”
• Phase 3: “I really don’t know why this isn’t helping”
• Phase 4: “I’ve done all I can, you should try
It’s sad really to see the enthusiasm and light fade out of their eyes. I leave them broken and questioning everything they thought they knew. My work there done, I move on. The good news is I haven’t had a major “can’t stand up straight” incident like I used to. So that’s something. It’s just a daily irritant that is worse or better some days. Like Donald Trump. If both of us can avoid an ‘incident’ next year, that’d be good.
Marion struggles with pain issues as well but since she doesn’t complain about it, I don’t know what they are. I can just tell by the grimace on her face when I ask her to get up and make me a sandwich or get me a drink. She’s really a trooper.
I’m sure our aches and pains have nothing to do with how long we sit watching TV. When the TV season ended in May, we made the mistake of watching a West Wing episode on Netflix because nothing was on, and the next thing you know, we were watching all 7 seasons. Then Stranger Things. And season 1 of Bosch. And Bloodline. Then Daniel came home for Thanksgiving and got me hooked on Man in the High Castle. We don’t even have cable. Damn Internet.
We do get outside now and then though. Marion keeps the yard and garden looking great. I encourage her from the window. I enjoy telling my neighbor when he asks why I’m never out helping that it’s “woman’s work”. I love the look on his face. We don’t really like him much.
I’ve been walking every day (well almost every day) while listening to Podcasts. I especially like a couple from NPR (Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me and Bullseye) and TED talks. We still have our theater season tickets at Portland Center Stage but abandoned the other theater that was a bit too ‘what the hell was that’ for us. And quarter season tickets for the Blazers. We get out to the comedy club now and then too. Our favorite was Alonzo Bodden. If you’ve never heard of him, check him out. He’s hilarious.
Marion’s solar panels generated 4.6 Megawatts of power this year. It won’t get your DeLorean back to the future, but still, not too shabby. Next we need to get one of those Tesla home batteries so when the zombie apocalypse comes, we’ll still be able to watch Netflix (priorities). (And remember, baseball bats are the preferred zombie defense tool.)
Last but not least, we exited the year with the same number of cats (3) that we started with. So that’s a win. Although one, whose shall remain nameless (but his name rhymes with bike) is skating on thin ice. A good chunk of Marion’s day involves feeding cat A while keeping cat B out of cat A’s food and preventing cat B from attacking cat C when he comes in to eat. Or putting cat A in the laundry room so he doesn’t keep waking her up, etc. They say having pets lowers your stress level. They should rerun the experiments with these pets and get back to us. On the plus side, two of the cats like to sleep on me when we settle in for TV watching in the evening which allows me to ask Marion to get up to get stuff so I don’t have to disturb them.
Well, that about sums it up. More than you wanted to know? Probably. But if you made it this far, thanks for reading. Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it. Happy Holidays to those who celebrate something else. And a heartfelt “burn in hell” to those who don’t believe in holidays at all (I think that’s the politically correct way to put that, but I’m not sure).
Most of all, to everyone a happy, healthy and safe 2017.