December 2010
Dear Family and Friends,
It is that time once again to deck the halls. This year, instead, we are decking the water heater, the washer and dryer and hoping that nothing else breaks...but it will. The heater is on its last legs and my holiday wish is that after we get a new one that the old would use those legs and walk out of the house. It won’t, it will take grunting and shoving and cursing to get it out the door, much like the water heater, which by the way also had legs. Those legs weren’t made for walking, they were made for scratching, which is what they would have done to the floors had it not been for several hardy boys, who complained as they lifted because they were sore from a rousing game of football. Then off to the gym to lift weights.
This year was a very sad one for us. Dad, aka Pop, decided that he had enough of not walking or eating his beloved steak and mushrooms, (or smelly pork kidneys) or fixing our houses and moved on to the great machine shop in the sky. It is very hard because we all miss him terribly. We not only miss his sage wisdom, “Don’t you have any common sense?” or his way with words, “Should I go down frontwards or backwards?” but we just miss him because he was who he was. He had his own language, as Gram puts it, “it’s all English, but it doesn’t make any sense.” He had his own way of doing things, “if I put it in this way, then no one will ever be able to figure it out, so I will put it in and let them worry.” We also miss his hands that fixed everything and then more, but they wouldn’t let us keep them. Life will never be the same for us, but now Kathy can have some time with him, and he can cringe when she says, “Dad’ll” (as in Dad’ll fix this and that) and I am sure Stanley and the rest of the crew are enjoying themselves with him as well. We all miss you Pop.
My mother is a tough old bird and is hanging in there although she has her sad days as do we all. She still enjoys sitting and reading, mostly true crime which she calls “blood n’ guts.” That always turns a head or two when she asks the book store clerk for the blood ‘n guts aisle. I plan on teaching her how to order her books on the internet, that way it will not make anyone shutter to see a “sweet” little almost 90 year old lady studying how to kill and not get caught. But on second thought, it may alert homeland security to her and one can only imagine the agents surrounding her house to rout her out. She does have a pretty good cover though.
This was a good year for Chris, even though he has not quite finished college; he was offered quite a plum job at Comcast Sportsnet. It is not really a plum job, it is that of a receptionist, but it is a job in his field and that makes it a plum job. He loves working in South Philly and he loves the sports that seem to play on a constant loop on the TV in front of his desk. Sometimes, I would imagine that they have to scrape him off the wall and tell him it is time to leave. He simply loves it. He also works for the Phillies part time and again he is in his glory, even if the Phillies aren’t. Maybe this year! We love his job too. IT IS A JOB and we get free cable and if I whine enough he secures tickets for me to go to concerts for FREE and they feed me as well. Heaven, I tell you. The best was the Paul McCartney concert which would have put me on a cloud, except I was eating too much and might have plummeted back to the stadium. Tom Petty was no slouch too. I also enjoyed the Trans-Siberian Orchestra once they got through the Christmas stuff.
Steve has moved along this year, in fact he literally moved on, to West Chester where he got his first apartment and moved in February, in the
snow. He is directly across from the courthouse and can hang out the window and see the activity going on below. He can also yell at the passing cars if they swing too close to his car, but he doesn’t. That is left for Mom to do, I can yell like a sailor when he opens the window. Oh well, he makes sure it is bolted tight when I come to visit. He is doing well and enjoys living on his own, except that the laundry mat, oops, I mean laundry pat is too far away, in Fort Washington, and he just leaves it and it magically is clean and folded when he comes back. He is also becoming quite a wonderful cook. At least, that is what I hear from those for whom he cooks. Looking forward to a dinner invite though, in the cool weather, with the window closed.
Matt is working his way through college as well as my nerves, but that is what 20 year olds do, and he may even some day graduate. Not for a while though. He works out quite a bit and has a bod like a Greek god, but when I ask him to lift something, he is too tired or too sore or too something and goes back to sleep. He is thinking of studying forensic psychology. I find that fascinating, that he is planning on studying, but he may easily change his mind since he is still unsure of what, other than playing videogames, he wants to do with his life. He still finds time for his friends and when they all convene here; they look like a coalition from the United Nations, plus they are mostly multi-lingual.
Speaking of foreign languages, Bill and I are taking Española. The first class found Bill arguing with the teacher about his name. He did not want to be called Gereramo, he wanted Bill. She claimed that there is no such name in Spanish. So they settled for BEEEELL. I guess that is ok, me llamo Patreeceea. Easy enough. So Beeeell can pronounce the words nicely while I mispronounce each and every one, very carefully. However, I am learning, yeah, I am learning that Beeeelllll has a much better aptitude for language than I, and for that matter so does Steve. He went through my lessons and without any background in Spanish whatsoever, corrected me, he, too has an ear and eye for language.
Jack is struggling with yet another malady. I feed him by hand four + times a day and he eats for me. It is difficult because he is getting old and so am I. It seems though that he is still in control of the household and hopefully has a few more lives in him. After all, he has me eating out of his hand, no, no it is the other way around, but you get my drift here.
Our vacation consisted of one day at the beach, without the guys and one day in NYC at a game with the guys, well a couple of them. After the game, we decided to amble around Times Square, for no reason other than to hurt our feet and to learn that the guys wanted to eat some more. We are generally unaware of what surrounds us. This was certainly true on that day. As we entered the subway station, we heard a siren. Hmmm, we thought, what is that, then the thought moved away as quick as the train. We had slowly and obliviously strolled past a bomb laden car, glanced over at it and kept shuffling on. Ah, that shows the trust of the American citizen, at least the dumbest of them, er us.
So we are winding our way towards another holiday, all in one piece, and hoping for a joyous year to all to come. If not joyous, then comfortable.
Happy Holiday to all, and to all a goodnight, at least for me, I’m tired.
Love,
Beeeellll, Patreeceea, Steve, Chris and Adonis aka Matt.
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