Annual Christmas Letter 2022

Dear Family and Friends, 

I was going to stop writing annual Christmas letters this year but the mail carrier has been leaving me 7-8 requests for charity donations every day since before the mid-term elections and I thought if you get them too you might like something different in your mailbox to throw in the trash. When I moved into my independent apartment here on the lake just over a year ago I had hoped the hounds of solicitations wouldn’t find me but they have and I recently caved long enough to donate a hive of honey bees and a flock of chicks through Heifer International and to buy some dinners to feed the homeless at shelters here in town. Next Christmas I see honey glazed chicken on someone’s holiday menu.

Some of my neighbors compare our place to living on a cruise ship where something fun or good for your mind or body is going on every day. For example, I just got back from a travelogue about hiking in Japan and tomorrow at this time I’ll be in the woodshop learning how to use a lathe to make ink pens. Last week they taught us how to use a band saw to make a gadget for pulling a hot rack out of the oven. If you’re on my Christmas Gift List forget what you just read in the last two sentences.

In addition to the normal lectures, Ted Talks, exercise classes, birthday parties with musical entertainment the holidays added twelve extra things to our calendar. One of which is a gingerbread house contest and, yes, I entered one. By the time the votes are counted---assuming someone will demand a recount---our new-to-us bus will have taken a group of us to the Ball Park to see the Christmas lights and earlier in the month a group enjoyed an outing to the symphony. This month our chef is also giving us a cooking lesson on how to make cranberry jam. You’d think when most of us living here were born in the same decade as Spam that cooking lessons wouldn’t be very popular, but free samples will no doubt be involved and we have good turn outs for anything involving cake, cookies, $2.00 happy hour drinks and pie samples. The food on our menus along with sports and our community jigsaw puzzle are common conversation starters around here. By the way, it’s only a myth that Spam stands for "Scientifically Processed Animal Matter.” If you are serving it over the holidays be sure to correct this unkind acronym that our WWII soldiers came up with.

When I moved to this Continuum Care Complex I thought I’d be doing a lot of painting and quilting but I haven’t found the time for them. Yet. I spend most of my mornings writing and a couple of people here nicknamed me the unofficial Poet Laureate after one of my rebel-rousing ditties went public. Thankfully the label didn’t stick. (Or maybe they no longer say it to my face out of fear I’ll make up a poem about them?) In the afternoons I usually find a class or lecture to attend and on Wednesdays I’ve become obsessed with playing American Mahjong. If you want to see my dark side, distract me during a game.

Although there are a few things I miss about living on the north end (mostly the lack of traffic) my move to this place was a good decision. Last month my brother moved into the next building over from me where the accent is on Memory Care. He is settling in well. And I’ll be able to see my nieces and nephew more often, a win-win for me because my brother and I are also getting to talk often about our early years in the way that only siblings can do.

Merry Christmas, everyone! 

 

Bonus for my internet friends....

This is me wining at Mahjong by drawing the very last tile on the table to get one I needed for a pair and if you play the game you'll know how hard that was to do. Two of the same tiles were already exposed---there are four total in the game---so it was a huge long shot that I could even win and I had just said that before turning the tile over.  P.S. My neck is not dirty. It's a reflection off my shirt.