It's been a busy season for us movers and shakers (meaning us west-coast, earthquake-prone folks). It's still about 80 degrees on a cold day, so it doesn't really feel like Christmas. And in any case, nobody on my list is getting a present, thanks to a "surprise" root canal I had the pleasure of experiencing just the other day. (Normally I convert to Judaism about this time of year and avoid both holidays, but Hanukkah is too close to Christmas this time.) In case you were wondering what's happened to us over the past year (since you never call), here's a quick run-down:
- Yes, we're still stuck in this cesspool known as L.A., we still drive about 45 minutes one-way to get anywhere, and we still have Pete Wilson as governor. Dawn and I thought about packing up the iguana, sending the fish off to boarding school, and moving out to a dude ranch, with nothing but fresh country air, clear, blue skies, and weeds and horses as far as the eye can see. Of course, Dawn's already told me what "fresh country air" smells like, we can't afford a house so the clear, blue open would be really clear and really open, and with my allergies the eye would be swollen shut and not able to see very far. So here we stay.
- We have had a couple of accomplishments in 1995. After finishing two courses in "automotive technology" last December, I am now qualified to do my own oil changes. However, after doing my own oil changes, I am quite positive it is worth the 15 bucks to have someone else do them. I also did Dawn's brakes and, yes, she is still alive, thankyouverymuch. I even changed my own alternator, which I've found is a lot less painful if you disconnect the battery first.
- My after-hours have also been kept busy restoring my mother's rocking chair. One day, the legs started to wobble, so I knocked it apart with the idea that I could refinish it that weekend. That was two years ago. We've taken pictures of every step, so there will be a multi-media presentation on CD-ROM making the national circuit sometime in the near future. (What do you mean you don't have CD-ROM??)
- With my new job, Fish Updates have suffered considerably. Until I can get my new co-workers accustomed to the fact that they have a repressed writer with a strikingly singular sense of humor on their hands, I've had to lie low. One problem I've had is that I tend to write little snippets and save them here and there, and the organizational activities involved in pulling these together into a single unified Fish Update are more daunting than the Middle East peace process. Fret not, however; I should have an open schedule sometime between now and next December. I hope. (The only noteworthy item is that the frontosa are alive and well, but still a far cry from 14 inches and the cash-cow baby-making machines we were hoping for.)
- Alex gave us quite a start earlier in the year. He had not eaten much all winter, which is normal for an iguana, but he was not eating much in spring, either. He did not look thin but we took him to the vet anyway, who promptly diagnosed him as "having an acute case of female genitalia, replete with eggs." She was spayed two days later, and the doctor gave us the eggs, which he said tasted a lot like chicken. Some of the eggs had broken and, according to the doctor, it wouldn't have been much longer before they had caused a toxic reaction and killed her. This almost made me feel good about the $370 operation for our $30 pet.
- It took me several months to get over the fact that my "macho stud" iguana was now Dawn's "petite flower" iguana. Dawn, however, has gotten much closer to Alex since the discovery. Even my mother, I think, is more comfortable with the idea of Alex as a female. (Alex's favorite person is whoever happens to be feeding her.) We moved her cage into the garage and have given her free range of the house, including Dawn's dresser. She is now potty trained, which is good because along with eating normally she is also passing it normally. I have of late become quite convinced that cats have descended from iguanas: They are aloof, enjoy sitting in the sun, have sharp claws, wag their tail when annoyed, and have the absolute worst smelling bowel movements.
- In March, we made an impromptu visit to Dawn's parents in Pennsylvania. (We'd been planning it for months but, due to a certain lack of organization on my part, we got charged "impromptu" fares.) We took my mother with us, and she instantly fell in love with everything. Okay, she wasn't too thrilled with Philadelphia (we took her on a twelve hour walk--how were we to know she had a pinched nerve in her spine??) but she loved the 200 year old home, the wolves, the 135 acres of forest, the country market, etc. I guess it's true: "You can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl." So this time, instead of just dragging Dawn back kicking and screaming, I had to drag them both back, both actively flailing me.
- In June, thanks to some more bad organization, I took Dawn (again kicking and screaming) out to Georgia to meet the rest of my family. Suffice it to say, the bad luck that is associated with every Hesling-Morin member increases exponentially when members congregate. Still, despite the 110 degree/110% humidity, the tornadoes, the freak thunderstorms, the cockroaches that ate Cincinnati, and the grandkids, we survived the trip. We've even thought about going back. Not this century, of course, but someday.
- Just to round off our travels, in August Dawn and I drove my mother to Las Vegas to get her taxes done. (Long story.) The day just happened to coincide with the Perseid meteor shower so I rented a convertible with the full intention of driving it to Vegas with the top down, watching the meteors cascade overhead. I packed the trunk with one bag, stuffed the other three bags in what they euphemistically called the back seat, strapped my mother to the fender with duct tape, and was on the road for all of maybe fifteen minutes before Dawn said, "Put the top up; I'm cold."
- Dawn graduated in June with her Associates Degree in Legal Science, to much fanfare. She had been hinting for some time that she was interested in a new diamond ring, often by leaving her old diamond ring in awkward places and then saying, "Oh, you felt it? It's so small I didn't think you'd notice it there." (Actual locations are left as an exercise for the reader.) So once I'd determined that this was not a hint for an engagement ring ("As long as you give me your money voluntarily, we don't need to get married.") we went downtown to the "Jewelry District." There Dawn immediately found several rings she liked, all in the neighborhood of two grand. After many long discussions and about a dozen more trips over the next three months, Dawn finally found...she could wear down my defenses and get whatever she wanted. She now takes great pleasure in comparing her "graduation ring" to other women's engagement rings, and shaming them for accepting such trinkets.
- Dawn planned to take a year off from school before pursuing her Bachelor's in paralegal studies, but the new school requires a great deal more "general ed" than she has. So we may be back at the community college next Spring, taking a course in Spanish. C'est la vie. At least we'll be able to talk to our neighbors, and ask them to turn down their music.
- Towards the same end, Dawn and I have been saving our pennies toward a down payment on a house. We now have a full Mickey Mouse bank and a half-full coffee can. Hopefully this will be enough to buy us into a nice neighborhood somewhere within three hours' drive of work and school. Dawn's already decided she wants a three bedroom/two bath on a hill overlooking the ocean and a forest. If we can survive this experience, we can survive anything! (I know I said that about my relatives, but this time I really mean it.)
- In October, my mother was informed she needed back surgery immediately, and she had to vacate her home by December. (These were not related.) She had her surgery on Halloween and, six weeks later, she still hobbles around like someone in search of a shuffleboard tournament. Her home was condemned for earthquake repairs and asbestos removal (and I thought I had trouble breathing because of the dog!) but we found a cute little house in a nice neighborhood, and she moved in on December 1. Three days later, none of the door locks work and one of the toilets is backed up. But that's the worst that's happened this year. (So far!)
- In case you want a preview of the coming year, Dawn and I will continue our jet-setting lifestyle, but without the jet. We plan to swing by the Grand Canyon on the way to visit my great uncle in Tucson between Christmas and New Year's, and we're thinking of going to San Francisco next year, maybe around my birthday. We'll be in Pennsylvania in the middle of February, but you won't be able to recognize us because we'll be under eight feet of snow! Hopefully by that time we'll have found our dream home and be comfortably moved in. More likely, we'll still be at each other's throats, bickering about a half-bath. Dawn will probably change jobs in the first half of the year, and hate her new job by the second half. She may also open a home office; we're still bickering about that. We may get some resolution about this inheritance thing in 1996, but I doubt it. And now that I've lost interest in fish keeping, iguana husbandry, gardening, car maintenance, and furniture restoration, I'm thinking about getting into photography. One person I talked to said you could set up a darkroom in your bathroom. Dawn immediately changed her dream home to a 3 bed/3 bath.
I'd tell you more, but I run the risk of requiring extra postage. I hope everyone had a similarly good year, as I'm sure I won't hear a word out of any of you.
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