The Christmas Report

Droll.  "Make fun of," says the dictionary.  Winston Churchill said, A joke is a serious thing.  It's the kind of  day when the sum total of waggishness in Kickapoo Center is taking a stool sample to the vet. Not mine, the dog's.  This snit-itus musta been the result of a night tossing and turning on the couch.  No, Dawn didn't kick me outa bed. This throat condition is getting out of hand, hah! Out of hand, get it? Can't sleep, can't eat. What else is there? 

My son, the perennial do-gooder sent his Christmas cards out early.  He didn't grow up on 77th street like I did. One holiday I looked up the chimney flue above the cement logs that never burned down and noticed that the opening was nicely cemented shut.  A recent news report tells of a Texas man who locked himself out and tried to get back in via the chimney.  Musta been in East Texas where folks don't know that chimney's have dampers.

I'm taking a serious look at sending out Christmas cards.  Most of the cards we get in the mail are from people we haven't seen in ten years.  They're not people I regularly communicate with. But they send us pretty cards and letters with news about the kids. The really appreciated cards are from people like neighbors, Gordie and Carol, who wish us well and thank us for the sweet corn last summer. I have to decide between fun and serious. 

In this card I combined fun and serious.  Dawn made the Santa  from a mutated birdhouse gourd. The kid riding a snowball and two skiing snowmen are ornaments handed down from my Grandmother. circa 1910.

One "year in review" we receive in the mail is still printed on an Underwood typewriter with O's and E's so dirty they get filled in with purple ink when the author finds an old mimeograph machine in the back room of PS #421.  She sneaks in a coatroom to run off duplicates after a busy school day.  She's a single woman, substitute teacher and dispatcher for a security service.  She travels in summer visiting lighthouses around the world.  The last time I heard from her, she was stuck in Wales. There is a Wales, Wisconsin,  but this was across the big pond.  Her visa, credit cards and purse were stolen.  In the e-mail to myself and other correspondents, she asked that we send her money.  Just to check if the e-mail was for real, I asked a security question, only she would know.  I never got an answer. When she got back to the states, she reported that her computer also got hacked.

"Barney got promoted off the loading dock. Tricia and Sammy just completed residency at  Lost Souls Hospital in Mittsburgh .  Bubba had surgery on a webbed finger. The dog ate a whole bulb of garlic."

...And we made it through another sub-arctic winter, a raccoon took up residency in Mandy's doghouse, the unvarnished railing to the upstairs is finally completed and I can still make a killer omelet.

 

Looks like a cheese, mushroom, spinach omelet with a side of brown rice for the furry, black and white kid, only nine minutes till tender and nutty.

 I gave the doghouse to Jorge. If he curls up, there's just enough room for him and his mutts.