Christmas 2000 newsletter

January - I got off to an early start on my Christmas letter this year--January 3rd, to be exact. Memories of last year’s letter are still haunting me--it was a six-week search for my artistic soul, punctuated by Dawn’s stinging critique: “There isn’t anything about me!”

Y2K did not get off to an auspicious start. We flew to Pennsylvania the day after Christmas; within two days everyone was in bed with a really nasty flu bug. We slept right through the Millennium celebrations. I hope all of those people protesting that 2001 is the real millennium will put on their own celebrations, but somehow I doubt it: People who let a little reason stand between themselves and a good party, probably didn’t want to party in the first place. Besides, half the world’s population goes by different calendars, on which 1/1/00 didn’t mean squat, but they still participated.

February - For Dawn’s birthday, she got a whole new front-end for her truck. Unfortunately, the old front-end was removed by someone making a left turn into her. Except for a nasty bruise and a sore back, she was fine, but the truck went to the shop for about a month. The other driver was a sixteen-year-old boy who got his license three months ago. Dawn called a tow truck; he called his mom.

March - In the last Christmas letter, I mentioned I was going to quit my job and go independent. Less than a week after I wrote that, another project came up at my company that was local and where I would have some management responsibilities, so I decided to stay. Big mistake. My boss and I had a difference of style--I thought she should help and support me, and she thought she should harass and insult me. After three weeks, I accidentally quit. I didn’t intend to, I only intended to get some support from her boss, but he thought he should harass and insult me as well. Fortunately, Dawn and I had saved up enough money so that I didn’t have to worry about being unemployed for a few weeks.

April - Dawn announced she was going to quit. Her boss has always been a yeller, but he never yelled at her. (And speaking from experience, you never yell at her.) Well, he yelled at her. So now Dawn and I were both imminently unemployed, and the savings were looking pretty slim. Still, there was enough there to sponsor a few weeks of carefree abandonment, so I proposed a road trip--we take the convertible, in the middle of spring, and head out to see the country. It’d be like “Travels with Charley,” except with showers and stuff. “Can’t,” was all Dawn said, “school.”

We did go visit my uncle in Lawrenceville, just outside of Atlanta, however. At 74, he still has the most important thing a man can have--his hair. (He may still have his wits, but nobody was really sure about those to begin with.) Still, since my mother got her hearing aids, he’s the only family member I can torment with impunity. (I was only distracted briefly when I crushed a seven-year-old child at a game of checkers one night.) In response to his bragging about Lawrenceville, a town straight out of the '50s, I made my aunt a T-shirt that said “Lawrenceville sucks!”

The most memorable moment was when we wandered into a church (it was the only thing open on Sunday) and he pretended to be blind, suddenly exclaimed he could see again, and yelled a few “Hallelujahs” before we were dragged out. He claimed he didn’t realize it was a Presbyterian church, that they should have marked the church more prominently, and he was considering suing them. This apparently distracted them from noticing the collection plate shoved under his shirt.

May - My bid for unemployment made a bizarre U-turn. The person who was supposed to replace me, quit. Since I didn’t have any jobs lined up at the time, I agreed to extend my last day for two weeks. They found someone else but he couldn’t start until the end of April, so again I agreed to stay. The client was grateful, but I really annoyed the payroll department. By that point I had a couple of good offers in the pipeline, so I wasn’t going to extend again. Then, quite unexpectedly, the client quit! That is, the guy who was leading the client team gave notice. His boss approached me and asked if I wanted the position.

This put me in quite a quandary because, for the six years I’d been consulting, the one thing you never did was go over to the client. I struggled with this for a week, telling myself that I hadn’t approached them, that I was going to quit anyway, etc. Dawn, ever the pragmatist, kept saying “It’s close to home, you don’t have to travel, it’s more money, you like the people, don’t be a schmo, etc.” My last day was on a Wednesday; I started my new job on Thursday--except I was sitting in the same chair at the same office on the same team doing the same thing. The only way I could think to demarcate the “old” Gregg from the “new” Gregg was to shave off my beard. Nobody noticed.

Dawn finished school, marking an end to her 12-year bachelor's degree. She'd been taking five classes while working full-time in a feverish attempt to graduate before her school lost its accreditation. She has been augmenting these classes with College-Level Exam Program (CLEP) tests, which her school accepts in lieu of actual courses. With almost no studying, she achieved passing scores in business management and social sciences. Unfortunately, she missed the history test by 2 points, so she has enrolled in a televideo course with the community college.

Dawn, having had one interview, apparently ran out of steam and stopped her job search. I’ve been trying to encourage her to go independent, and this seemed like an ideal opportunity. She just fixed me with that look--you know, clenched eyes, drawn mouth, furrowed brow--and said, “You have zero job security and zero benefits, and you want me to do the same?” “Yeah,” I said, then ran from the room before her fire-breath could overtake me.

I also visited my aunt and uncle in their new house. I still can't believe they gave a 74-year-old man a 30-year mortgage. He now lives in Carl, a place straight out of the '30s, and now agrees that Lawrenceville really did suck.

June - Dawn had a very important paper due in her history class, which was her final class required to receive her bachelor's degree. Now I won't say she procrastinated--in fact, she informed me in April that I would be writing this paper--but after a two-month standoff, I finally sat down to write the paper two days before it was due. The task was to compare and contrast viewpoints from two different history books, but instead I decided to do what I do best--lambaste both books. This was not dissimilar to the last paper Dawn asked me to write--a review of a musical performance conducted by one of her teachers. I think he was in tears by the end of the review. I don't know what grade this paper will get, but Dawn has already cancelled her graduation plans.

July - We lost our iguana this month. Literally. We reconstructed the crime scene but all we could find was one of the window screens was loose, where we assume she made her egress. We combed the neighborhood, put up fliers, looked high and low (mostly high), but to no avail. It was a quiet separation, because we are sure she will return.

Meanwhile, we had a roof guy, a gutter guy, a spa guy, a door guy, and a plaster guy all come out during the same month. Four years ago, we talked about replacing the roof, two years ago we needed to replace the roof, last year we resolved to replace the roof, and this year we finally had enough money saved to either go to Europe, or replace the roof. Luckily, there was a new shingle on the market that Dawn liked which was much cheaper than the faux wood shake we were going to use, so we had some extra money to play around the house. I found a used hot tub in the Penny Saver for under a grand (the cheapest new spa I'd found was $5,200!) which we bought immediately--even though we didn't have any place to put it at the time. (Let's just say that Dawn had to park her truck on the street for a month, and I was limping for about three days.) After the roof was done, it took the spa guy just three days to accomplish what I'd been waiting four and a half years for.

If you'll remember from Christmas '97, we bought a new set of sliding french doors to replace the crumbling french doors leading out to the spa, but decided not to install them until after the spa was in--which was before I could conceive it would take me four and a half years to get my hot tub. Also, if you'll remember from Christmas '98, we had replaced two doors with windows, but decided not to repair the plaster until the spa was in--which was also before I could conceive it would take me four and a half years to get my hot tub. Hence, the door guy and the plaster guy. The plaster guy ran the stucco right around the rim of the hot tub so you would never know it was just installed. (At least not until I whipped out the photo album.)

August -- Ever paint french doors? We painted two sets. The second set was an accident--we decided to replace one small piece of molding around the doors to the back deck, not realizing that to match the paint to the door, we'd have to repaint the entire door.

We also fixed the deck. When we bought the house, there was a huge pine tree growing through the deck, which was really cool. Unfortunately, the tree died and we had to cut it down, leaving a huge hole in our deck, which was not cool. After years of covering it up with boards, planters, chairs, and once just leaving it open with a roll of toilet paper beside it (that did *not* go over well), we finally replaced the boards. Which, of course, meant we had to paint the new boards, which meant we had to paint the rest of the deck to match, which meant that all the boards warped before we could nail them down. So with chisels, clamps, hammers, and some hefty brawn provided by yours truly, we straigtened the boards and screwed them in place. Let me tell you, Dawn's pretty scary with an electric screwdriver. I have the pictures to prove it.

We also had to paint the new deck around the spa, plus build some lattice to go around the bottom of the deck. Ever paint lattice? It's less fun than painting french doors. We got to try out our new table saw that we bought at a garage sale, which worked pretty well until we hit a staple in the lattice and it shot a glob of molten steel at warp 6 towards me. Dawn had to finish the job by herself; I was cowering in the corner.

We laid bricks along the entire west side of the house, which was also an accident. One of Dawn's co-workers announced he'd taken down a brick wall and was trying to get rid of 600 used bricks. (After Dawn had agreed to take them, he decided to charge us, but that's another story.) It took three trips, four weekends, and over 1,000 bricks to cover the area, but at least now, instead of completely neglecting the side of the house we never see, now we have to sweep it once a week.

And then we were done. We'd spent over $17,000. Dawn got a new roof, a new set of doors, a new deck, a ventilating skylight, four new dining room chairs, the back deck was fixed, the stucco was repaired, the side yard was paved, and the carpets were cleaned. But the only important thing to note was I GOT MY $%*^&(! HOT TUB!!!

September -- Amazingly, Dawn did graduate. But more amazingly, her mom came to visit, exactly as she'd promised twelve years ago when Dawn started taking classes. It was unfortunate that she couldn't meet Alex. We also had a heat spell that week, so I think Dawn's mom (who we were always bragging to about the weather and our iguana) was starting to wonder about us. We took her to the Huntington Library, the South Bay Botanical Gardens, the beach, and Disneyland. She was quite impressed with our freeway system.

Two days after Dawn's mom left, we got a call from our neighbor two doors down. He was having some trees cut back, and the workers found an iguana in the jacaranda--so they moved it to the magnolia tree and continued working. Fortunately they told him about it when he came home, and were able to go back up and capture her again. By the time I got there, Alex was in a pretty foul mood, but she quickly calmed down. The vet gave her a clean bill of health and so, after her two and half month adventure, she is back home, safe and sound. (Yes, we do know how lucky we are, thankyouverymuch.) We immediately called Dawn's mom to tell her the good news, but she didn't sound very excited. She suggested we get professional help.

October -- Several years ago, I'd salvaged an old 386 computer and given it to my uncle, assuming he’d never become computer literate enough to use it. He promptly started barraging us with e-mails. Unfortunately, Irving (as he named the computer) started crashing on a regular basis. When I visited, Irving behaved just fine, which led to speculation about Munchausen by proxy being applied to a computer, but in the end we decided to throw out the baby with the bath water, and start again. Rather than send him a new computer, I sent him my old computer, and got a new one. (Of course he doesn't know this yet…)

I also got DSL with the new computer. Which is to say, for six weeks the phone company told me I had DSL, but the computer just sat there like a stump. The first time I called the help desk I was put on hold for thirty minutes, then the tech told me to turn the computer off for five minutes and try again, and then hung up on me. When I called back, I got a much more helpful tech who asked me to verify the green light was on, and then transferred me to the advanced support department. In the first two days I spent 15 hours on the phone, 13 on hold, before Dawn announced she was taking over. I don’t know what she said to them, but she had a tech at our house that day! Unfortunately, they neglected to tell us they would have a tech out that day, so we found a note on our door that since we weren’t home, the problem must be resolved and he was going to close the case. After two more visits and six weeks of constant phone calls, Dawn finally got it working. This was quite a feat—of the other two people we know of that got DSL, one took three months and the other took six months! This explains the service manager’s comment, when Dawn asked about a refund, that he couldn’t do that because we “should have expected it to take two months to get it working.”

November - We went to New Orleans for Dawn's brother's wedding. We got the invitation in June, then didn't hear from them again until we arrived. He recommended a travel agent so I called her and, once I confirmed that she didn't know what she was talking about, I went on-line and researched the airlines, hotels, restaurants, car rentals, and city info on my own. Then, just to be polite, I had her make the reservations. Imagine my surprise, then, to find later (on my credit card bill) that she had charged me $40 for the "service"!

It rained all week, the wedding was a disaster, and because I was with three women we spent half our time shopping, but one thing salvaged this vacation: Preservation Hall. This place looked like a burned-out bomb shelter, but the music was just amazing, and at $5 for all the jazz and blues you could listen to, it couldn’t be beat. Dawn and I closed it down our last night, even snagging a couple of seats on the two small benches in the otherwise SRO crowd.

December – My great-uncle passed away. He was 90 years old and still had full use of his faculties, but he'd survived his wife by 12 years, had no children, and was a very lonely man. I keep thinking that there's nothing that prevents me from ending up in the same situation. But I'm still young; I'll worry about it in 40 years, when it's too late to do anything about it.

It also got me to thinking about my family. My family has never been close and, hopefully, never will be. (As George Burns said, happiness is a loving, close-knit family in another city.) But to get them together would be…disastrous. I think the government even keeps tabs on such things. Still, the thought kept rolling in my head, what if they were together but could get away from each other? Thus, I announced to Dawn that I was going to take my family on a cruise.

When she was revived, Dawn immediately nixed the idea on the grounds of cost, logistics, and common sense. I argued that a 3-day cruise wasn’t that expensive, and wasn’t that long. But, Dawn said, what about your uncle who won’t fly? I countered that Miama wasn’t that far from Atlanta and, both of us being quite ignorant of geography, she finally agreed. Unfortunately, a quick trip to the on-line atlas showed Miami was about 14 hours from Atlanta. Dawn nixed the idea again.

Some random musings at Yahoo! turned up a cruise that sailed out of South Carolina twice a year, when it was repositioning itself between New York and Miami. That was only a six-hour drive, so I was back in business. The spring sailing was already sold out, but I was able to book five cabins in October. I neglected to tell Dawn that it was a five-night cruise, however. I’m hoping she won’t read this.

Christmas '99 Newsletter

Are you still reading these??

1999 was a total loss. At least that's what I'm reporting to the IRS. I turned 30, Dawn's education went ballistic, my career gambit went up in flames, and we visited the Canary Islands. We could have done without any of it.

For some reason, people ask me why Dawn is still going to school, and the best answer I have is that she wants to. That is to say, I have no idea either. But she's been moving about two classes per semester towards a bachelor's degree and was about fifteen classes away from graduating when her school announced it was losing its accreditation next year. The options were fairly simple: Forget about the degree, transfer to the only other school in LA offering a degree in Legal Studies (about 60 miles away), or try to take fifteen classes in one year while working full-time. Dawn chose the latter.

Fortunately her company let her step back her hours, but unfortunately they forgot to step back her workload as well, so now she has to do 40 hours of work in 30 hours while taking five classes. So if you haven't heard from Dawn lately (or if you have heard from her and were wondering why she seemed manic-depressive), now you know.

Meanwhile, I've been busy grappling with my own future. Like most people, I didn't want to be a "suit" until I realized that was where the money was. So I was given a "manager" title and I offered advice, gave opinions, tried to act "managerly," but none of it was even remotely helpful or useful. Then one day, I got it: Self-actualization, understanding ourselves so we can leverage our strengths to become better. Not the "that which doesn't kill me makes me stronger" better, but the "I accomplished something worthwhile" better. Eastern religion meets Western capitalism; I loved it. My company thought self-actualization was something dirty, and I eventually quit.

I joined a company with the understanding that I would not have to travel, and spent the first six months in the Bay Area. While this was a fairly bleak time, one good thing came out of it: I got to know my brother. You hear stories about family members falling out, but I don’t think we never came together in the first place. If it weren’t for pictures, you'd never believe we grew up together. I hadn't even planned on telling him I'd be in the Bay Area, until my mother squealed. Mark's girlfriend, I'm sure, thought I was a nut, but her two kids liked me so it was okay. Dawn and I even made a special trip to see them when they moved to Sacramento.

In March I opened discussions with my old company. This may seem a little strange, but I still had credibility there, which was what I needed if I wanted a position of influence. In July I flew out to Chicago and spent the entire day talking with my would-be boss about the future, especially mine. I left with a verbal job offer but for various reasons I would not start until October. Meanwhile I was gainfully employed, although terminally bored, and I just treaded water for a few months. On the last day of September I called my new boss to formalize everything, only to find out he was quitting. I could have still come on board, but it was clear that would be a mistake, and I was, I realized, in exactly the same place I had been fifteen months ago.

That's not entirely true: I'd read several books which reinforced my beliefs on self-actualization, but left me in a conundrum: If I was going to utilize my strengths, I should be pursuing technical roles, even though I was more interested in management. After much soul-searching, I finally admitted the only reason I was working was for money, and that I'd finally come full-circle: All I wanted from my first job was a good paycheck, then I pursued all sorts of other intangibles: type of work, career opportunities, co-workers, company mission, etc. Now I'm back at the beginning, looking for a job that pays the most. Next year I will be pursuing independent consulting because, in addition to the money, there is often free time between projects which I hope to use to start some projects of my own. (There's a 200-year-old house in Pennsylvania with my name on it. I don't know where it got my name, but it's there nonetheless.)

Now I'm sure my revelation that I work for money won't become the 11th Commandment (although I’d nominate it for the Golden Rule), but I think it's easy to lose sight of such basics on a day-to-day basis. Perhaps it's because I've turned thirty, perhaps it's because my ex-girlfriend called out of the blue after eight years and said "I didn't ruin your life, did I?", or perhaps it's because I've just been bored, but I've become very moody and introspective lately. Life, I've realized, is on a need-to-know basis. So if you haven't heard from me lately (or if you have heard from me and were wondering why I seemed manic-depressive), now you know.

We went to the Canary Islands, off the coast of Morocco, which helped me to both appreciate America and revile Americans. The stated purpose for the trip was to see the Leonid meteor storm, but since we were cut off by cloud cover, I won't dwell on that. But the trip, my first abroad in ten years (ignoring a one-day stint in Ensenada), forced me to contemplate the nature of America. Especially in Morocco, where the standard of living was very low, it was very easy to look past the history and the culture and just think, "there, but for the grace of God, go I." Economists, politicians, and bigots could explain at length why these people are the way they are, but what it all comes down to was that they were born into these circumstances, and anybody else would be in the same predicament. Life really is a blind crap shoot.

And finally, this was almost the Christmas Letter that never was. I find I only appreciate two types of writing: emotional honesty, and cleverness. So I tried to be honest and witty; to share my thoughts and reveal my soul (except for all the twisted and perverted stuff, of course; this is a Christmas letter). After about twenty drafts I was miserable, despondent, and ready to scrap the whole thing. Fortunately my uncle set me straight when he said, "Quit grandstanding, you jackass. Don't compare yourself to the great writers, because you're never going to be one of them. Just be you, and screw 'em if they can't take a joke." Now that's what I appreciate--emotional honesty. He also said to forget about putting Alex on the Christmas card. Blaspheme.

So here’s hoping we all get it right in the next millennium. Or, at least, that our toasters are Y2K compliant.

Christmas '98 Newsletter

Dawn suggested I write the Christmas letter from Alex's point of view, but it came out something like this:

I don't know who you are, and I don't care. I've suffered from two low-grade infections this year, but otherwise I'm fine. I was locked in the guest room for two weeks during the height of summer--when I get most of my sun--and when they let me out I found a large hole in the ceiling above where I sleep. Given that an iguana's main predators (besides humans) are birds, this is my worst nightmare. Two weeks later they took out my tree, so now it's a 15-foot drop into a small pond surrounded by rocks. Somebody call the ASPCA, please.

While I thought this was appropriately self-involved, it was way too short...

The worst news, of course, was Dawn's father passed away; he'd been fighting cancer for over four years. He passed away on June 30; we were coming to visit on July 2. Dawn was really looking forward to seeing her dad again, but it was good that we'd already scheduled vacation time and so were able to stay with her mom for about 10 days. It was very hard to leave. I'm very glad Dawn went by herself one weekend in February to see her dad, but neither of us expected it to be the last time.

Dawn changed jobs in April, which I don't think anyone expected, least of all me. She received an offer from an exclusive law firm in Brentwood (former home of O.J. Simpson) as a family law paralegal. The good news is she only has to work 37 ½ hours per week; the bad news is she now spends an additional eight hours per week in traffic. She never understood why I was so temperamental when I got home; now she walks in the door and starts screaming at the wall, just like I used to do.

In June, our water heater started leaking. We discovered it in July. By then it had completely destroyed the floor of the water heater closet, and the mildew was unbearable! We still had our homeowner's warranty but, as the plumber was quick to point out, it only covered the water heater, not the incidental damage. Since we knew we had to take out the water heater if we ever wanted a door into the garage, we gave the plumber a large chunk of cash to replace the water heater and move it into the garage.

I changed jobs in September, which I don't think anyone expected, least of all me. I just got fed up with the politics and decided to go somewhere I could "lay low" for awhile. Of course it took me six months to get to that decision, but then I've never been one of those spur-of-the-moment, burn-your-bridges, get-some-emotional-satisfaction kind of guys.

I also bought a new car...well, new to me anyway. It's a Pontiac Sunfire convertible. My logic here was that I'm only going to be in Southern California for a limited time, so I'd better take advantage of the weather while I can. And what better way to appreciate Los Angeles than when I'm on the road for two+ hours every day? Dawn just said, "A new job, a convertible...aren't you a little young to be having a mid-life crisis?" I think it mollified her somewhat that the car was green and not red.

As chance dictated, the best time to quit my old job was at the end of August, but the best time to start my new job was mid-September, leaving two weeks of "forced leisure." We'd already been talking, on and off now for three years, of putting in a door to the garage, and these two weeks seemed an ideal time, so…we put in a skylight.

Not just any skylight, mind you, but a monster 4' x 4' skylight in a 6' x 8' hole in the ceiling, right above the atrium. The ficus tree we had planted two and a half years ago was barely hanging on--between Alex jumping on it, a major attack of scale and other insects, and the perpetual twilight on the northern side of the house, it was not happy. So Dawn somehow convinced me that putting in this huge skylight would save the tree. Two weeks after we finished the skylight, Dawn cut down the tree, telling me she wanted to replace it. Two weeks after that, she announced that she preferred the atrium without a tree. Personally, I feel used.

We also put in the door to the garage, "we" being John the neighbor, with me watching and occasionally taking pictures. (One day John almost fell off a ladder while cutting through the wall because I took a flash picture without warning, and he thought he had cut through an electrical circuit!) We were careful to keep the garage door shut in case any city inspectors wandered by. When we were finished, there was a spot about two square feet that did not have linoleum. I said it was good enough; Dawn overruled me. So I spent about six hours with a belt sander taking off the old linoleum, and one weekend we rolled new linoleum down. We also repainted the entire room to cover the new drywall, and replaced the light fixture which had gotten broken in the process. So ignoring for the moment the fact that Dawn got a completely new laundry room out of this, I would just like to gloat for one second and say, I GOT MY DOOR TO THE GARAGE!! Now, where's my hot tub?!

One of those days I had a few extra hours to kill, so I ripped up the front yard. Dawn, of course, was pissed, because she knew she would have to put it back together. I must say we did a great job--instead of the straight raised-brick borders, we now have a smooth curve of sunken bricks around the grass, surrounded by many different ferns, palms, and other plants. The best part is, Dawn no longer has to trim the lawn before cutting it. We also sank two hammock posts, his and hers, for when we finally find time to relax and enjoy our house. Next year, we're going to replace the roof. Dawn insists we're going to hire professionals, but I'm working on her…

(By the way, the day before we were scheduled to start all of this major work on the house, someone at my old company pointed out that I would not have health insurance during that time. Fortunately, I only needed a couple of band-aids. John, on the other hand, went through half a roll of gauze and three tubes of neosporin after he took out one finger with a utility knife, another finger with some diamond lath, and two fingers in a freak accident with a tape measure.)

I finally started my new job in September, spending the first two weeks in Massachusetts for "orientation." In seven years, Dawn and I had only been apart for a total of two weekends, and now I was gone for two weeks! We were both miserable but we expressed it in different ways--I stayed in my hotel room and sulked, while Dawn went shopping, to the movies, and visited friends. (That's not entirely true--the first few days I was in Boston I ate lobsters until I was sick, and then spent the rest of the time in my room. And when Dawn got home every night, she turned on every light in the house and slept on the couch.)

I grew a beard, my logic being that since I had a month off work (two weeks at home, two weeks in training) that I just might have a chance to grow a decent beard before I had to face people again. (Let's just say I'm "folically challenged.") It didn't work. I had to shave off the sides to keep from looking like a burn victim. Dawn just said, "A new job, a convertible, a beard...you are having a mid-life crisis!"

When I interviewed with the new company I told them I did not want to travel. When I started with the new company I told them I did not want to travel. Needless to say, my first assignment was travelling. I thought I was going to be in San Francisco, which was cool, but it turned out to be halfway to Sacramento, which is definitely not cool. It was relatively close to where my brother was staying, so I got to spend some time with him, his girlfriend, and her two kids. The therapist says I'm doing much better. I'm still stuck here, but I've been given a "tentative promise" (whatever that is) that I'll roll off by the end of December. Dawn has told me, in graphic detail, what she plans to do to my managers if they try to keep me here longer.

At the end of October, Dawn threw a birthday celebration for her truck--it turned one this year. Of course she cleverly disguised the party as our annual pumpkin-carving get-together, but I knew better. I think we had a record turnout for pumpkin carving, although we had one guest who boycotted the carving for humanitarian reasons.

For my birthday I asked for a leather jacket, my logic being--oh, who cares; nobody believes my logic anyway. Dawn bought one for me and announced, "Okay, that's it; your mid-life crisis is over. Get back to reality."

We let Alex watch "Jurassic Park" - big mistake! It took us nearly two weeks to get her to stop making "rap attacks." Now we've strictly curtailed her TV regimen, and you can bet she'll never see "Godzilla."

We made our annual pilgrimage to Tucson for this Thanksgiving. Since I've been spending so much time traveling, there was no way I was going to drive for twenty hours, so I booked a flight. (If I flew directly from San Francisco to Tucson, my company would have picked up the tab, but being a complete idiot, I flew home first.) Unfortunately everything was sold out and we ended up arriving at 6pm on Thanksgiving Day and leaving at noon Saturday. All things considered, though, it worked out quite well-- there was a police shootout at the LAX on Sunday evening. We love LA.

On a similar vein, this year we'll be flying out Christmas Eve to visit Dawn's mother; we should arrive at 10am Christmas day, assuming we don't hit any reindeer on the way. Then we're going to visit my uncle in Georgia for New Year's. Other travel destinations this year included our first cruise (a 3-day weekend cruise to Ensanada), Albuquerque for the annual balloon fiesta (I'm serious about going back in '99; anyone else who wants to go should let me know), and Yosemite. Travel plans for next year include (tentatively) Washington D.C., New York City, Dallas, and "someplace in Europe" for the Leonid meteor storm next November, which is supposed to be spectacular.

Christmas '97 Newsletter

Front:

Inside:

You may have wondered why I write the Christmas letter instead of Dawn. Well, the sad truth is that after five years in the law field, Dawn's letter would begin, "Seasonal non-denominational greetings to the party named above." Also, Dawn has a sense of pride which tends to inhibit her writing. I, on the other hand, have no such pride. In fact, some people say I revel in all of the stupid, compulsive, anal things I've done throughout the year. This is simply not true. I objectively report on everything that I've done throughout the year -- that it is all stupid, compulsive, and anal is just sheer coincidence.

Travel has been big this year. We went to Savannah, Georgia twice within six months for the absolute worst reasons imaginable. While the savings in postage on the Christmas letter has been dramatic, it is hardly justifiable. When my father passed away, I realized it was way past time to get to know my relatives. Something tells me I should have just stayed in bed.

We went to visit Dawn's parents twice this year. The first trip was in Spring, or at least I thought mid-March was Spring. It was a painful lesson about the seasons, but one I won't soon forget. (Can you tell I grew up in Southern California? We have four seasons: fire, flood, riot, and earthquake.) The second trip was in the Fall. In last year's letter we were thinking about using Pennsylvania as an excuse to visit New England, and it seemed like perfect timing. We decided to go in mid-October but several people told us that was too late in the season. so instead we went mid-September. It was a painful lesson about Fall foliage, but one I won't soon forget. On the bright side, we have lots of pictures of green trees and we missed the crowds. (By the way, foliage was late this year and it peaked around mid-October.)

For those who weren't subjected to the New England World Tour letter, our itinerary was as follows: We flew into Albany NY, drove to Bennington (nothing), Brattleboro (nothing), Grafton (restored colonial homes--actually, everywhere was restored colonial homes), Cornish-Windsor (longest covered bridge in America), Quechee Gorge (big train bridge), Woodstock (Simon Pearce glassblowing, Billings Farm, and the Vermont Raptor Center, not hippie concerts), the Mad River Valley (nothing), Waterbury (Ben and Jerry's ice cream factory), Burlington (some college, no coat factory), Shelburne (Vermont Teddy Bear Factory), Franconia (Old Man of the Mountain), Moultonborough (Castle in the Clouds), Wolfeboro (nothing), and Portsmouth (nothing). Dawn specifically forbade me from going to Salem at night, so we drove straight into Boston. We walked the Freedom Trail, which is a brick trail in a brick sidewalk along brick buildings, which made me pine for stucco. We saw the Old State House, the Old South Meeting House, the Old North Church (do you see a pattern here?), the USS Constitution, the Public Garden, Boston Common, and Faneuil Hall. We ate lunch at Durgin Park ("founded before you were born") and had dinner at Ye Olde Union Oyster House, "the oldest continuously operating restaurant in America." We drove to Connecticut and visited my mother's cousins (my second cousins?) and saw the house where my mother grew up. We tried to get to Pennsylvania via New Jersey but somehow landed ourselves in New York City--Yonkers, Manhattan, Yankee Stadium--we were there. Fortunately a guy at a toll booth told us how to get out of New York City. We gave him twenty bucks--that was the toll. We got to the farm on Saturday at 4:30am. We left Tuesday at 9am. I'm sure there was a visit somewhere in there, but I can't really remember it. We also missed our flight and had to wait in the airport for three hours for the next flight. I remember that all right. Everybody in the airport will remember that.

It was what I like to call an "extreme" vacation. Two months in advance I had not only made hotel reservations and car reservations, but dinner reservations as well. I was confident that if the trip was a disaster, it would not be my fault. Well, okay, it would be my fault, but at least I could figure out what went wrong. Fortunately the trip went pretty well. Lots and lots of big, green, beautiful trees.

I gave up soda during the trip. I have no idea why. It's been almost three months now, and the twitching is barely noticeable. I could probably even take off this "CQ" patch. I asked Dawn what she was going to give up since I had given up soda, and she just said, "Don't drag me into your own personal hell."

I almost got promoted again, but I talked them out of it. I don't know what the hell I was thinking. If anyone in a decision-making capacity is reading this, I'm sorry. And I'm ok now.

Dawn bought a truck, finally. This has been in the works for about four years now; I still have the "Consumer Reports 1991 new car book." This all started when she announced one day, "I want a truck so I can run people over." (This from the person who thinks an anti-theft device should be something that blows up if someone tries to steal it.) She test drove several trucks and then picked the most expensive. (This is also not unusual for her.) Over the years I have tried to talk her into a base model truck, with such amenities as a 4 cylinder engine, manual transmission, and no air conditioning. She bought the extended cab, 6 cylinder, automatic, with air conditioning, power windows/locks/mirrors, keyless entry, alarm, cruise, tilt wheel, you name it. The dealer took one look at Dawn and started salivating. I dragged her over to a fleet dealer and I think we got a decent price. Dawn even badgered them into giving her an extra hundred on her trade-in. I expect we're going to get a pretty nasty phone call from them the first time they look under the hood...

In February, my mother started hinting she wanted a computer. In April, I started hinting that I would get her one. In October, I made good on that promise. She started talking to me again. Then I installed Windows '95. She stopped talking to me again.

In the span of two weeks, we had some mail stolen from our mailbox and my car was broken into. Our mail was used to make payroll checks, and about four grand was cashed out before the bank noticed something odd (like a payroll check being cashed against a personal checking account??) Four months later I'm still getting "bad check" notices and filling out affidavits with the bank. From my car I lost my briefcase and my shaver. (Go figure.) I had to immediately go buy another briefcase and stuff it full of papers, to make sure people at work didn't think I was slacking off.

The Mulhalls, our only friends who have not fled L.A., finally decided to flee L.A. Fortunately they are only going to San Diego, so we can visit them on short weekends. All of our other friends are either a long weekend or a short week away, neither of which we can spare anymore. We promise to visit when we're retired, though.

I still don't have a hot tub or a door to the garage this year. I have a big cement wall between our house and the neighbor's, I upgraded my computer, I bought a bunch of lenses for my camera, and I paid off my student loans, but no hot tub. I'm hoping Santa will bring one for Christmas. I'm also hoping Dawn hurts her back so we can deduct this as a medical expense.

Well, that's about it for this year. At least, that's all I wrote down. Dawn and I got Franklin-ized in April, so we both carry around our day planners and we do power breakfasts to plan our day. It's pretty disgusting.

Once again I can enthusiastically suggest everyone call, write, or e-mail us, knowing that nobody will call my bluff.

Christmas '96 Newsletter

Front:

Inside:

Well, as you can tell by the excess postage, there's no dearth of news to report this year. Still no kids, no wedding ring, and no religion, but Dawn and I made a much deeper commitment than all that: We bought a house.

Not just any house, mind you, but the best house in Los Angeles, at the foot of the Palos Verdes mountains, in a beautiful suburb called Lomita. Okay, okay, Palos Verdes is just a hill and we're on the wrong side of it, we're less than two miles away from the cesspool of Harbor City and less than two blocks away from an apartment building. But it sure beats the hell out of Lawndale, and it's a really cool house.

Since almost nobody came to our housewarming, I'll include a brief description. In the early 70's, a late-blooming hippie with a penchant for working bought a small house in Lomita. It was apparently the first house built in Lomita, and it looked it. John, the new owner, spent a great deal of time restoring it, including the bathroom. He built an eight-foot, all-wood, raised bathtub, and celebrated its completion by lighting a sand candle and hanging it over the tub. Later that night, the sand candle burned through the base and fell into the tub, burning the house to the ground. John got out safely, and he probably could have saved some of his possessions, but he was too busy in the backyard, destroying some...plants...before the police arrived.

One neighbor told him this was a warning from God, but the other neighbor (whose father was a general contractor) offered to help re-build the house. John pitched a tent in the front yard and, nine months later, had built his baby. Downstairs was a huge split-level living room with fireplace, a large kitchen with built-in hardwood cabinets, a separate dining room, a utility room, two bedrooms, and a full bath (including another oversized tub--this time in porcelain!). The master bedroom was a huge loft upstairs, with en suite and another fireplace. There were three decks--a large deck in the back yard, a small deck off the dining room, and a little alcove off master bedroom, plus four sets of french windows. In fact, the house had more windows than legally permissible; some had to be sealed over until after the inspection. And the crowning touch was an atrium that extended to the second floor, which was perfect for Alex the iguana. (I know John wasn't thinking about this when he designed the house, but I am amazed at his perception.) There was a huge two-car garage with lots of storage space, although oddly there was no door between the house and the garage. John had planted two pine trees and one pepper tree in the front yard, one pepper tree on either side of the house, and a pine tree in the middle of the back deck. He also planted bougainvillea in both the front and back yards to add color to the ivy that was already there.

One of the people who helped build the house was gay, and John let him "borrow" the house one weekend when he was away. Apparently, there were throngs of naked men on the back deck, right outside the bedroom of the neighbors who had warned him the fire was a sign from God. A week later, the neighbors put their house up for sale. John decided he wanted to decide who his neighbors were, so he bought the house and rented it out.

His parents and sisters had all left Los Angeles and moved to Oregon, and one day John decided to follow. His house sold immediately, but he could not find a buyer for his rental so he just continued renting it out. Two years later, he found he couldn't make a living in Oregon so he kicked out his renter and moved back to Lomita. Then he discovered what a horrible neighbor the new owner of his house was. 

Eighteen years later, after the market fell out of the Los Angeles real estate market, his neighbor abandoned the home (it was worth less than was owed). It was apparently quite the mess, so the bank cleaned it up and put it on the market. Eight days later, we went on our first house-hunting expedition and it was the second house we saw. It was much bigger than I wanted, much more expensive than I wanted, and Dawn thought it was perfect. I agreed on the condition that we could put a hot tub into the deck off the dining room and a door into the garage. A week later, the bank accepted our offer, which included $5,000 in termite damage and $4,000 in closing costs, and we had a three-week escrow.

In the middle of all this, Dawn and I took our planned trip to Pennsylvania for her father's 70th birthday. This year, we flew into Baltimore instead of Philadelphia and got to stroll around the inner harbor for one day. The week was over far too quickly, but we had to come back to close escrow. Our financing came through, but the bank hadn't finished the termite work and we were delayed a week. I had already told our landlord where to stick his last rent check, so it was with great remorse that I called him back and told him we'd be a week longer. He took great delight in this, even nailing a "For Rent--Please Come In" sign on our house before we'd moved out. (We actually took him to small claims court, but the judge refused to award damages. Apparently "being a jerk" is not a crime.)

Escrow closed on February 29, we moved in March 2, and we were hard at work on the house by March 4, painting the eves that the termite company had replaced. We didn't let up until September 15, when we had our housewarming. We had removed about 30 years' worth of ivy from the back yard, replacing it with ficus trees, a grass strip, some hibiscus bushes (iguanas love the flowers), and a little vegetable garden. In the front yard, we replaced the front fence and planted some passion flowers and a lawn. Inside, we tore the decking out of the atrium and put in a koi pond and a large ficus tree. Outside, in front of the atrium, we planted some ginger plants and tree ferns, and then we covered any remaining dirt with mondo grass. (We'd actually had a garden designer come in; I wouldn't have known the first thing about planting.) It was a lot of work, and we wouldn't have been able to do most of it had it not been for -- John, our neighbor and original owner of our house. It turned out, after building this house, he went on to become a general contractor himself, and he helped us every step of the way.

In October, we crashed. I had been doubling and tripling my asthma medication for six months and my nervous system was wired to blow. Dawn was responsible for yard maintenance, because if I looked at a blade of grass I went into anaphylactic shock. About the only thing we hadn't done was the hot tub and the door to the garage.

As if this weren't enough, Dawn decided to start her own business. She had already passed the Certified Legal Assistants exam, and along with her Notary Public she felt she was now ready for public appreciation. She bought a beeper, a message service, a fax machine, and an ad in the yellow pages. Then she gave me two weeks to buy a new computer. (I had sold my old computer just before we bought our house, not realizing that my future earnings would be tied up through 2026.) I scoured the magazines and the mail-order houses, and finally pieced together the perfect system from four different vendors. The stuff from three vendors arrived on time; the package from the fourth vendor was six weeks late, and when it finally arrived it was incomplete and they had over-charged me. I sent the package back and refused to pay for it. I felt I had stood up for myself and done the right thing. Dawn just pointed out that I was four weeks late and she still didn't have a computer.

My work was going very well. I was promoted, given heaps of new responsibilities, and even selected for the Presidential Quarterly Award. Dawn keeps pointing out that if I am a good employee, then the company is in big trouble. Dawn is still working in family law; it's amazing she hasn't gotten blown away by some disgruntled petitioner yet. She is slowly trying to wean her way into another field of law but finding that, like any professional job, it's not what you know but who you know.

Alex is doing fine; she only gave us one fright this year. Dawn finally talked me into hiring someone to clean the house once a month. After their first visit, Alex did not eat for two weeks. Dawn finally took her to the vet, who explained that iguanas are very territorial and can become extremely upset when their environment is violated. Otherwise, she loves the atrium, and has even discovered that she can jump down from the second story into the ficus tree. So now most of the ficus is broken, but I'm sure it will recover next year. Alex even goes into the pond for a little swim. I'm not sure what the koi think about that.

In November, Dawn and I went to San Francisco for a long weekend and managed to squeeze in Alcatraz, the Golden Gate bridge, a cable car to Nob Hill, the Fairmont, Lombard Street (twice, but the second time was accidental), Golden Gate Park, a ferry to Vallejo, a day at Marine Park/Africa USA, and a tour of a WWII submarine. We had breakfast at the Mark Hopkins Inter-Continental, lunch on Fisherman's Wharf, and dinner in Tiburon. On the way home, we shot over to San Simeon and took two tours of Hearst Castle, then ate dinner at the Madonna Inn. So much for these "relaxing" mini-vacations....

We made our annual trek to Tucson, Arizona for Thanksgiving, and I finally got to meet my mother's cousin and cousin-in-law. Unfortunately, Dawn discovered Kachina dolls while we were there. Not the $40 "tourist" kind, mind you, but the $2,850 "collector" kind. It took a very large stick to beat her out of some of the shops, but the only things we took with us were pictures. Of course, Dawn reminds me daily of my promise to visit the Hopi reservation next summer for another "mini-vacation"....

We're going to be back in Pennsylvania this spring, and maybe we'll do an extended vacation around New England. I still plan on flying my east coast relatives out to L.A., no matter what their doctors' say. We're talking about fencing in part of the back yard so Alex can wander outside when she wants. And I am going to get my hot tub and a door into the garage.

[addendum]

When I sat down to write this year's Christmas letter, it was with the assumption that everything that could have gone wrong, already had. I had completed my Christmas shopping, our weekends were filled with Christmas parties, and Dawn was going to cook the Christmas dinner. We had a beautiful tree in the garage (we bought it one night just after it had rained, so we were drying it out.) It looked like smooth sailing through Christmas.

We inspected the tree the next day and found half of it was dead. We put it up anyway, with the dead half against the stairway. The next day my face broke out in hives. Then while Dawn was inspecting the tree, she noticed the brown watermarks on the ceiling: Our upstairs shower was leaking.

I had just started a new project at work and hadn't quite stopped working on my last project, which was pretty stressful. I was putting in twelve-hour days, which Dawn wasn't happy about. When I got home at ten o'clock one Tuesday night I was expecting a tongue lashing but instead Dawn said, "I don't know how to deliver bad news, so I'll just tell you: Your aunt had a stroke. She's dead."

The funeral was for Friday at two o'clock. I tried to get a flight to Savannah but they were all booked because of the holidays. I finally found seats on a TWA flight for Thursday night. Meanwhile, on Wednesday I had a client release deadline that I was responsible for. I was still learning the system and everything was blowing up in my face. I nearly broke down and started crying. I couldn't even bring myself to tell my client that my aunt had died and I would be taking some time off. It's amazing how quickly the sensibilities go under times of stress.

On Thursday, I put in a few hours at work, and headed home after lunch, only to hit holiday traffic. I was late and my throat was sore from yelling at other cars. We couldn't get an airport shuttle, again because of the holidays, so we drove to the long-term parking, which I'd never done before. When we got there, there were no signs so Dawn went and asked someone and told me to park by the blue and white building. I am ashamed to admit it, but something snapped and for no reason at all I yelled at Dawn: "I don't see a $%*&ing blue-and-white building!!!"

In five and a half years I'd never raised my voice to Dawn, and now I did so over something as stupid as parking directions. Oh, and did I mention my mother was sitting in the back seat? I'm amazed I still had a relationship after that trip.

Christmas '95 Newsletter

This photo was an homage to E.T. See if you can spot the iguana.

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.

In 1994, I started sending Christmas newsletters to replace my fish updates. Partly this was just practical -- I'd said all I had to say about fish -- but mostly it was an excuse to send photos of my iguana, Alex. I alluded to - but could not mention - that my father passed away that January, just a few days after the Northridge earthquake destroyed my parents' house. (He died of heart failure. It had nothing to do with the earthquake and it was just bad luck that my mother lost her house of 10 years and her husband of almost 30 years within the same week.) 

Christmas '94 Newsletter

We are sending you this letter because: (check one)
___ It's Christmas
___ We want to annoy and harass you
___ We had to send a letter before postal rates went up

We are all looking forward to the new year, if only because the old year was so terrible. Santa knows what I want, and I know he can't do it. So we go on.

As always, I'll concentrate on the good news, so this should be quick. It seems rather pointless to include a tree of the Hesling-Morin clan; the apples keep falling and there aren't any more roots...

In 94, I moved into a new home and got a new job, but enough about me. Dawn was *this* close to finishing school, so the school changed the rules. One more semester, 9 units, while working full time, and either A) Dawn will have her associate's degree in legal studies, or B) Dawn will go bonkers and no doubt take half the city with her. Watch your local news to find out...

(By the way, Dawn and I were contemplating marriage on the grounds that it might save us some money for health insurance, but with my new job it would cost us more money--so we'll continue to live in sin, thankyouverymuch.)

Hope you enjoyed the picture of Alex the iguana. He's topping four feet now and we expect his hormones to kick in sometime next spring. I also understand they pick up on women's menstrual cycles. Should be interesting.

We had a couple of aftershocks yesterday, but it was 65° and sunny in December. Any questions?

Plans are still on for the GA-PA visit in April. It's wedged tightly between spring break and D's mother's birthday. If we survive, I'll tell you all about it. (Except the parties we're visiting, of course--I may want to be invited back someday.)

There's more, but I don't want to bore you, so I'll let you get back to your thrilling lives. Oh, and Uncle George--please stop sending me death threats. Nobody here wants to know how you'll kill yourself if I send you one more Fish Update.

Dawn and Gregg's Spring Fling

Continuing in the same vein. (I included MapQuest screen shots simply because Google Maps was not launched until 2005!)

In May 2002, Dawn and I embarked on a cross-country drive with the stated intention of delivering a car to Dawn's mother in Pennsylvania. (This was the same car we picked up last year on the infamous Four Corners trip, with Dawn sick as a dog and me telling her that Four Corners was en route between Tucson and Los Angeles when it's 220 miles and 3.5 hours out of the way!) Well, the trip was successful, the experience was memorable, and we're both very glad to be home. Here is the trip by the numbers:

• Number of states visited this trip: 12 (although Michigan and West Virginia were both for less than 20 minutes)
• Previous record: 7 (Our New England tour)
• States left to visit: 24
• Number of different state license plates seen during the trip: 42 (including Hawai'i)
• Total miles driven: 4,382
• Gallons of gas: 152
• Number of "driving" days: 9
• Number of "tourist" days: 3 (Salt Lake, Denver, Chicago)
• Number of days in Pennsylvania: 2.5
• Longest drive: 666 miles (Sacramento to Salt Lake)
• Best drive: Through Arches National Park (near Moab, Utah).
• Worst drive: Denver to Kansas City (648 miles in the pouring rain, sometimes with zero visibility)
• Most unusual activity: Renting remote-controlled race cars with my brother in Sacramento.
• Exceeded expectations: Tie between Salt Lake Temple and St Louis Arch.
• Biggest disappointment: Driving an hour out of the way to visit Fallingwater, the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house built over a waterfall in western Pennsylvania, but running late and arriving just after they closed.
• Second biggest disappointment: Driving the Trail Ridge Road through the Rocky Mountain National Park (12,000 foot mountains aren't so impressive when you're driving at 9,000 feet). However, I had just bought the Lord of the Rings soundtrack and that was the perfect accompaniment.
• Best meal: Morton's of Chicago, in Chicago.
• Most expensive meal: Morton's of Chicago, in Chicago.
• Most disappointing meal: Morton's of Chicago, in Chicago. (Between making the reservation and arriving at the restaurant, I had gone vegetarian!!)
• Best animal sighting: Bison at Antelope Island, in the Great Salt Lake.
• Worst animal sighting: A turtle on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. (It was a short sighting.)
• Most embarrassing moment: Calling our hotel in Salt Lake and asking them to mail our pillow to us.
• Second most embarrassing moment: Getting our pillow at the front desk in Denver.
• Most annoying moment: Paying the hotel more for the shipping than the pillow was worth.
• Most spontaneous moment: Staying overnight in Moab so we could get up at sunrise and take pictures of the arches.
• Best Kodak moment: Full moon rising over downtown Denver at sunset.
• Worst Kodak moment: Dawn passing a big rig at 95mph down a steep grade because she wanted a picture of its grill (it had teeth).
• Wish we could have spent more time: Sacramento with my brother, Ohio with Dawn's sister, and Chicago.
• Wish we could have spent less time: Driving (it's a *big* country!)
• Funniest moment: Going to our hotel room to change for dinner, hearing it start to rain heavily, and deciding to stay in for the evening. We later realized it was the sprinklers.
• Most awkward moment: When one of the Mormons asked if we had accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour.
• Sweetest moment: My niece "loaning" us a teddy bear because she couldn't go with us and wanted him to see the sights.

Day 1:

 

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 Day 15 (flying home):