And So This Is Christmas

                 And So This Is Christmas




December 23, 2014

Dear Mom and Dad,

And so another Christmas has come.  It’s kind of debatable right now whether it’s going to be a white one this year.  There’s a chance of a little snow, sure, but today feels more like a spring day right before a storm – warmish and with gusty winds.  An odd prelude to Christmas.  The weatherman says that’ll change before long when a fast-moving front comes through.  I kind of hope it brings a little snow with it. 

Christmas is somehow always a bit better if there’s snow outside the windows.

You’ll be glad to hear we’ve decorated again this year at our house.  The tree is up and lit, the Christmas nick-knacks are placed in their customary homes for the holiday and all the stockings are hung with care.  Tony’s at least is.  It gets a little harder bringing all the Christmas finery down from the attic each year you know.  And then to put them all away afterward.  Old bones and old muscles like to protest the exertions, but we managed again this year with a lot of help from our son Tony.  If you’re curious, he’s 33 now.  I know, I know, it’s hard to believe, even for us.  Mom, you left us long before Tony came along so you missed out on all his “wonder” years.  I think you’d have got a kick out of watching him grow, seeing him go from an infant to a boy and finally into the man he is today.  There were rough patches, of course – all of us have them on our journey through life, but he’s doing all right. 

He’s doing just fine.

Dad, you were lucky enough to see him in some of his early years.  You left us when he was just a pre-teen, but I’m sure you could see he was growing up to be a fine young man.  Please know that he remembers you fondly.

You guys have missed a whole lot in the world since you crossed over.  Some awfully bad things happened since you left, most of them better left unspoken, but there were very good things that happened also.  The Wall came down in Germany.  That was a surprise and a wonderful thing.  Along with that the Soviet Empire dissolving too.  Very unexpected.  We got a black president some years back and he’s done quite well in the office which surprised some and didn’t others.  But along with that we’ve had lots of gridlock in Washington also.  Maybe that’s not such a startling thing though.  I’m sure in your lives you saw plenty of things from that bailiwick that were not in the interest of the nation.

So much more history has happened in those years, too, but I’ll try to not bore you in this letter with all that.  Suffice it to say a lot of things happened, some would have made you cry and others you have stood up and cheered.  It was what it was.

Technology has come a zillion miles in the last few decades also.  We have stuff that we take for granted now that would have been considered impossible in your day, pure science fiction.  Phones in our pockets that we can use to talk around the world.  Computers that help us do almost everything.  Hell, a lot of our phones are computers that do most everything!  The tech today is soooo cool!

The world has changed so very, very much from your days.  The world is as different since you’ve been gone as it was different from the civil war times to your days. 

Perhaps even more so.

Your son and daughter-in-law are doing all right too, I hope to tell you.  I retired last month, as unlikely as that sounds, and Judy will follow me early next year.  A milestone for us for sure!  We’ve grown older as the time has past, older than you might even guess.  I’m almost of the age that you were, Dad, when you had your last illness and I’m way older than you ever were, Mom.  It’s so very odd being older than your folks, so very unnerving.  Yes, to boil it all down, we’re not “spring chickens” any more.  We don’t have our doctors on speed dial right now (don’t ask, it’s a new telephone thing), but their numbers aren’t too far away.  The wife and I have typical ailments for our age group I suppose, but we’re handling them as best we can.  As I’m sure you did in your day.

Your other son Chuck is doing all right too.  He’s still out on the West Coast and living the life of a Californian.  It’s home for him now and has been for many years.  We visit occasionally and talk fairly frequently on the phone or text each other.  (Again, don’t ask.  Texting is…  naw, ya don’t need to know.)  He’s my lil’ brother and will always be family.  He’s a good man, Mom and Dad.  He, also, has his demons to battle, but he continues to fight the good fight and wins more than he loses.  You’d be as proud of him as I am.

Judy and Tony and I are still in the same house we moved into in the late ‘70’s and have diligently labored keeping it looking decent.  We’re comfortable here and hope to remain here as long as is possible.  It is our home, with all the connotations that word contains, and I wish you could stop by and say hello some day.  Maybe for just a cup of coffee and some good conversation.

We’d really like that.

We’ve got a new dog, too, don’t you know.  She’s a mutt of uncertain heritage, but seems to be a good girl.  She’s a rescue, a bright 4-year-old whose past will forever be a mystery to us, but her future will be one of love, comfort and companionship.  Some bad habits will need to be rectified, sure, but that will come.  I think you guys would like her!  We call her Trixi.

And so it is Christmas.  Time again to let our thoughts fly to memories of family, friends and celebrations of days gone by.  Rooms full of husbands and wives, aunts and uncles, grandparents, children, evergreens decorated with treasured ornaments, gaily-wrapped gifts calling our names. Dining room tables groaning with wonderful meals made by the skillful hands of loved ones.  Smiling faces of relatives and friends basking in the glow of another holiday on this good Earth, another Christmas.

I remember how much you guys loved the holidays.  How, even though on many years the money was very, very tight, Christmas was always a priority, always a high point, and always the pinnacle of the year.  Money was somehow always found.  I remember how Dad would drive over to Gram’s house Christmas morning and bring her over so she could share the day with us and how she would bring her famous, freshly baked breakfast rolls.  We all sure liked that!

I think about you guys often, you know, but never more than around the holidays.  Our present family Christmas traditions are distinctly ours, of course, and that is as it should be, but their roots are always, always yours. 

Thank you for that.

In only a few more hours it will again be time to wake to the magic of Christmas morning, to bid each other tidings of good cheer, to immerse in the ties of family.  To relish a good cup of coffee and to enjoy the opening of the gifts which were so enticingly spread under the Christmas tree.  To enjoy the smiles and happy faces of our loved ones.

I wish you could be here.  I wish it so much…

And so this is Christmas…



 

Tuesday. Mid-December. A Workday.

Tuesday.  Mid-December.  A Workday.

The rain was coming down on Tuesday, not in driving buckets or torrents of storm-lashed water, but in misty cold veils and swirling eddies of raindrops and vapor.  The sky was a leaden-gray color and the wind blew - now in gusts and later in lazy zephyrs and whirls.  It should have been colder as it was mid-December, but it wasn’t.  The 48-degree temperature more resembled a day in early March – fitful in its unpredictability and unable to be nailed down.

I should have been a little depressed, I suppose.  I’ve been known to mimic the weather with my mood on occasion – sunny on bright days and morose on days such as this one.  But I wasn’t.  I was perversely in a good mood and feeling quite optimistic.  I had the radio tuned to my favorite classic rock station and was enjoying its offerings at a higher volume than normal – pretty doggoned loud, actually, as I sang and hummed along with the familiar tunes to the best of my ability.

My quest for the day was a lunch with a friend of mine at a restaurant north of Akron to be followed by a stop at the office where I used to work to drop off some Christmas cards and a platter of cookies and candy for the troops.

The parking lots of the businesses and factories that I passed that day were full and the work of the world was being accomplished as I rumbled past, glancing occasionally in their direction as my pleasure directed me.  This was the start of my fourth week of retirement and the business of business was starting to seem a bit removed from my new norm, the workers seeming an odd bunch as they scurried and hurried here and there doing whatever it was that they did.  I observed without comment or much thought.  The world was as it was and I was now removed from that portion of it.

For that I was glad.

And it was a workday Tuesday and I was off for a relaxing lunch.  That still seemed a remarkable thing.

The rain was not quite strong enough for the intermittent setting on the wipers, so I had to reach up and hit the handle now and again to clear the view.  The miles drifted by under my tires, hissing with that wet road sound that we’re all familiar with and the radio kept me rockin’ with AC/DC, The Stones, Jimmi, Zep, Queen, ZZ Top and all the other immortals.  I was cookin’, I was grinnin’ and the miles were passing by.

I arrived at my restaurant destination at the agreed upon time and soon was sitting in a booth with my friend Larry.  We’d not seen each other much in the past three years and we had oodles to talk about.  He brought me up to speed on what had been happening in his life since his retirement and I caught him up on what interesting things had gone on at the office during that same time period.  We gabbed and laughed and enjoyed each other’s company, each one of our stories triggering similar tales from the other.  The food was also excellent, Larry’s filet steak and whiskey, my honey-glazed chicken and lemonade.  Our sitting there as equals was a situation a little different than it had been in the past as we were no longer supervisor and subordinate, but two old retired friends who were comfortable in each other’s company and who wished each other well.

It was kind of odd and kind of nice at the same time.

Several things that Larry said that afternoon hit me as important enough to remember – insights, perhaps, on the way he thought and the way the world worked, at least to his eyes.  He recounted one of his last trips to the office – on a visit about a year ago perhaps – and a question that he had asked his replacement.  Dave was the name of the guy in question and he had worked as Larry’s assistant for many years before Larry retired.  He was assigned to Larry’s old supervisory job and had been performing those duties with expertise and competency during my last several years on the job.  The position in question was that of County water department supervisor. His responsibility was to operate, maintain and, when needed, expand the county municipal water system.  Larry had worked there long enough to truthfully state that it was “his” water system.  He’d build more than half of it while he was employed there and it was, in all respects other than formal title, his baby.

During that last visit to the office and during his conversation with Dave, Larry had asked him, “Is it your water system now?” stressing the word “your”.  He was of course referring to the invisible reins of responsibility that would fall on the new supervisor when he was, at last, comfortable with the myriad facets of the job.

Dave answered simply, “Yes.”

Larry said he was happy with the answer and the underlying meaning that both men knew the answer entailed.  Dave was, at last, “The Man”.

It’s funny how certain things strike you.  That statement packed a lot of meaning in a very few words and I’ll remember it for a long time.

After a few hours of good food, good drink and good conversation, Larry and I bid each other adieu and I adjourned again into the wet windy afternoon.

I drove the next 40 minutes or so, feeling fine and enjoying the world going about its workday around me. I passed through the various neighborhoods and communities between the restaurant and my former workplace in a bubble of contentment, enjoying my present role as observer and not participant.

I arrived there, totally by coincidence, at about the same time I used to arrive when I was working second shift.  I dropped off the goodies which were well received and distributed the Christmas cards to my former work-mates.  I chit-chatted with the folks, the first-shift ones who were heading off to home shortly and the second-shift ones who were settling down to their long evening of work.  It had only been three weeks since I’d been an employee there, but the disconnect was obvious.  My desk was now someone else’s, the furniture was somewhat rearranged, the work I had once done was being done by others.

I was now a visitor and it was obvious.  They belonged to the class of the gainfully employed.  I no longer did.  I was the visitor, the retiree, the Old Guy who used to work there.  Only three weeks separated my station from theirs, but it was as big a divide as day and night, plus and minus.

The quick and the dead.

But when I left, my mood was not sad or mournful at my change in station, my new place in the scheme of things.  I wasn’t melancholy or wishing I could return to the ranks of the wage earners.  Through the corner of my eyes I thought I could see the envy written on my former fellow employee’s faces, the subtle urge for them to also call it quits, to also return to their homes as I was now doing and to be done with the toil and turmoil of work.  To call it a day…

To join the ranks of the retirees as I had done.

But perhaps what I thought I saw was only a reflection of my own smiling face in a shiny piece of metal in the office.

I bid them all a fond farewell as I left and again motored south into the rapidly approaching December night, again grooving to the old rock songs and the hissing tires on the asphalt, again retracing the route I’d taken hundreds of times in the past from work to home.  Before I knew it I was again pulling into my driveway and saying hello to my wife, my son and my eagerly appreciative dog.

I was again home, I was still retired and all was well with the world.

It was a Tuesday in mid-December and a workday.

The Secret

The Secret

He came up to me, startling me at his silent approach, and whispered in my ear.  His voice was raspy and hoarse and caused an unexpected shudder to run through my body, as if an evil spirit had just then walked on my grave.  I thought the gesture was a bit odd.  This whisper in the ear was taking place at my retirement party and most of the conversations taking place in the conference room were loud and totally understandable by all the folks there.

But this wasn’t a conversation.  It was a command.

Let me step back for a minute.

I just retired a couple weeks ago.  My last workday was a Thursday and my retirement party was the next day, a Friday.  I’d been a loyal employee for the government office where I worked for a little more than 13 years.  Before working for this place I had been a refugee of sorts, a victim of a massive downsizing from my previous job.  I’d held various computer-related positions in a huge telecommunications company for almost 20 years.  I’d figured I’d finish my career there and retire with, dare I say honor after a respectable time employed there.  Then I had become downsized – cast adrift in my mid-50’s from the soulless behemoth that had employed me and left to fend all alone.  I knew it would be gruelingly tough getting another job at that age and it was.  Or at least I thought trying to get re-employed for the three months I was between jobs was a long time, but apparently three months was rather quick in that job market and at that age.  Anyhow, I was taken aboard at this county government office, given a job and made to feel welcome.

For that kindness I was very much grateful.

That was over 13 years ago and those intervening years had flashed by like the time between two of your breaths – inhale, work almost a decade-and-a-half, exhale.  Done.  Almost that fast.  That time period, although in retrospect it passed by extremely fast, also contained 20 percent of my life with all that entails.  New friends, different jobs and tasks, people leaving my life by choice – retirement, better opportunities, promotions, and by fate - discharges, illness and death.

I could tell you stories…  Oh the stories I could relate…  Ah, maybe later…

My retirement party had been going on for a while, everyone having cake and cookies and punch, kibitzing with each other, shaking my hand or patting me on the back, wishing my wife and I well and saying good things about me whether they were true or not.

I like to think most of them were true.

I was enjoying myself.  It wasn’t often that I was the center of attention and this time it was in a good way!  It was a bittersweet party though, knowing it was the last time I’d be seeing a lot of those people every day.  Yes, we’d see each other from time to time, at parties, lunches, doing some hobbies together perhaps.  But it would be the last time as members in a fraternity of fellow co-workers and friends.

But I was a bit mistaken on the fraternity aspect.

There were also at the party about a half-dozen previously retired employees wandering around the conference room where the festivities were taking place.  They were apparently invited there to welcome a new member into their hallowed fraternity, namely me.  Most of them were quite familiar faces – men and women whom I’d toiled with over the years and who had “pulled the plug” when they deemed it time to retire.  They mingled with the other folks – the currently employed folks that is – the group I’d just emigrated from.  I glanced at the retired ones and received an occasional measuring glance back as if they were sizing me up for a new suit of clothes.

Or a burial plot.

Not long after the congratulatory speeches were completed and a little before the party participants began to wander off, either back to their jobs or home, one of the retirees sidled up to me and whispered in my ear, “Meet me out in the hallway in five minutes.”

I nodded, as the invitation seemed innocent enough.  Or, I thought, as if I had been waiting for just this person to whisper just those words to me all along.  As if it were as inevitable as the graying of the hair and the decaying of the body.  Perhaps it would have been better, much better, if I’d grabbed my wife then and we’d sprinted back to our car and raced home, never looking back.  But I was quite innocent at that time and meekly acquiesced to the upcoming meeting.  Or was I unable to refuse?  I later fond out that if this meeting had not occurred then it surely would have occurred not much later.

There were things that I needed to be told.

I slipped into the hallway at the appointed time and saw my old retired acquaintance standing there.  He motioned me to follow him and I did so.  We slipped into an office not very far away.  The room was almost dark as it was past quitting time and the regular employees had already left for the day.

My guide did not turn on the lights.

His shadowy face turned to me and said in that raspy voice, “There are things you have to know as a retiree.  Things that cannot be shared with anyone still working.  Not even with your wife.  Not a whisper!”  He glanced around making sure we were alone, making sure his words would not be overheard.  I involuntarily held my breath. 

“Everyone who retires…” he said after pausing for a second.  “Everyone who retires is told a secret.  It’s something that cannot be shared with the working folk.”

“It. Can. Not.  Be.  Shared.  Do I make myself clear?”

I nodded, a tightness expanding in my chest and a headache beginning right at the base of my skull.  “I understand.”  A shiver crept down my spine with the sick anticipation of the man’s next words.

“OK,” he said, “here’s what you need to know.”

And he told me the secret.

I soon returned to the gaily-decorated conference room, heard the laughter of my friends and saw the knowing looks of the retired ones.  The ones who now were my forever allies.  The ones who were forever entwined in my life, closer than a husband and wife, closer than blood, closer than the bond between brothers of the Skull and Bones Society.

I chatted with the people some more, swapping stories and smiling at their responses, but the day was drawing to a close, the light was about gone from the sky and everyone knew it was time to call it a day.

My special day was done.

Not too long afterward the party broke up.  The employed scurrying off to begin their weekend, knowing they’d be back there in a couple days to resume their hurrying and scurrying, the retired ones heading out to their homes to return to their private lives.

Whatever that meant now.

My wife and I said our last farewells, gathered up the remains of the retirement cake and headed out to the car.  My wife said, “What was that all about – when you slipped out of the conference room for a bit?”

I replied, “Nothing.  Just needed a little ‘me’ time away from the party.  Got a little emotional.”  I gave her a small almost sad smile

She brightly returned the smile and patted me on the back.  “It’s OK, big guy.  It isn’t that often that you retire.”

I nodded sagely back at her.  “You got that right, sistah.  It’s definitely a once-in-a-lifetime moment.”

As we drove home in the gathering darkness of the late autumn day I wondered who would be giving her the secret when she retired in four months.  Who would impart those momentous words to her and change her life forever.

I’m still wondering.

Birds in the Basement and Doggy Mayhem

                       Birds in the Basement and Doggy Mayhem


As some of you may remember, our old dog Barney joined the alleluia chorus a few weeks ago.  He was an old dog, 14 plus years on this earth, and had been suffering for quite a while with diabetes and blindness.  He’d toughed out the last half-decade and we’d grown quite fond of him, but we knew his days were numbered. Finally he called it quits and shucked off this mortal coil.  We were saddened, of course, and mourned his passing, each of us in our own way, but after a week or so without the patter of doggy feet in our house, it was time to find a new pal to help keep us warm at night and to liven our days. 

Our search started on the Internet where I poked around a bit and located a number of rescue sites.  We’d decided that we didn’t want a puppy and also didn’t want a purebred as a lot of them were subject to some pretty nasty diseases and we’d just come off being the “parents” of a special-needs dog. 

It was time for a mutt.

I ended up looking at hundreds of pictures of dogs online – big ones and little ones, shaggies and smooths, fidgety part-Jack Russells and sluggish Basset-mixes.  And, of course, LOTS of whatjamacallits and fuzzy whothehellknows.  I soon picked a likely black-and-white fellow from a group called Paws and Prayers and put in an application for adopting him, but I was too late.  He’d already been shuffled off to his new home.  I plugged onward, looking again and came across another rescue group called One-of-a-Kind in Akron which had about 150 animals pictured on their web-site.  A lot of them were cats, nice enough I guess, but we were interesting in a dog, so I paid more attention to the canines they had available.  I wrote down the names of eight likely looking dogs on a scrap of paper and that Friday my wife and I took a drive to Akron for a look/see.  The two dogs in particular I wanted to see were available, but when we did a meet-and-greet with them, neither one seemed too interested in my wife.  That was a deal breaker, of course as the new mutt needed be accepting of both of us from the get go.  We asked to see a few more and one of them seemed immediately friendly to both of us.  We played with her for a few minutes and decided that she was the one for us.  After we signed some papers and wrote a check, the dog was now ours!  We were booked solid with activities for the upcoming weekend, so we decided to pick her up on Monday. 

The dog was named Trick as she had been rescued sometime in October and they were apparently commemorating Halloween with the name.  We changed it to Trixi to recognize she was a girl and to keep it similar in case the dog had grown used to the name Trick.  She is a 40-pound mix of Shepherd/Terrier/Boxer, a brindle-brown color with a white blaze on her face with white throat and chest and white paws.  And she had the biggest ears you ever saw!  One usually was sticking straight up and the other one lying sideways on her head.

A real cutie!

Since my wife was at work, my son and I picked her up on Monday and brought her home.  She rode in the car beautifully and took to the house like she was born there.  She was totally happy with the three of us and everything looked fine. 

Of course, there was a LOT of learning to do on both of our sides – hers and ours.

Trixi is an active 4-year-old and the old dog was a sedentary 14.  Two totally different kinds of animals with two totally different lifestyles.  Barney, the old dog, slept 20-22 hours a day and was slow, set in his ways and, other than giving him his insulin shots each day, quite easy to take care of.  Trix was bigger, stronger and way, way faster!  We all were hustling just to be able to keep up with her.  She was luckily crate-trained, so when we put the crate in our bedroom she took to it quickly.  She ate the first kind of dog food I’d picked just fine and was settling in well.

Of course, we realized later, she was just toying with us…

Two days ago, about 7 a.m., I heard a noise coming from our attic – a kind of scratching, ticking sound.  We’d had, what I thought were squirrels up there a year or two ago and I shuddered thinking they might have come back.  I surely hoped not…  A little later my wife noticed our new dog being super attentive to the back wall of her closet.  There seemed to be noises coming from inside the back wall.  Trix was VERY inquisitive about that.  A short time later, while I was doing some cleaning upstairs, I heard a screech coming from the basement.  My wife had gone down there to take a shower.  I wondered at the sound, as my wife does NOT screech! 

Ever.

I apprehensively descended to the first floor where I could hear her screeching more clearly.  She yammered something about mmmfwggled yachitnakerlak.  Well, at least that's what it sounded like.  When I finally arrived at the basement I saw my poor wife, naked, dripping water with a towel wrapped around her head.  I said, “what???”

She replied that there was a bird in the basement. 

Sure enough there was!  A full-grown starling was making swoops and barrel rolls and Immelman loops in our basement!  And the wife was still squawking every time it headed her way.

So now, what to do? 

I had no butterfly net and nothing else came to mind quickly.  The dog was going bananas about that time racing from one end of the basement to the other, barking and leaping for the intruder in HER house.  I suddenly remembered I did have a big landing net for fishing hanging just around the corner in my workshop – hell, that might work.  I grabbed it and started swinging it wildly around for the birdie as it was still doing its swooping and diving, the dog was still racing around like a nut-job and the wife was still screeching. 

I missed it totally, but eventually got it moving the right direction and it finally headed upstairs.  The dog and I followed the avian menace at a gallop and I soon saw it had become stuck behind the curtains on the kitchen window, flapping around and trying to escape. I lunged around a bit, poking my net into the space between the curtains and the window and finally trapped the bird in the landing net. 

Quite a lunker!

The dog had passed the point of exuberance by then and was approaching full-on basket case jumping for the bird and trying to crawl up my back to reach it.  When I opened the door and flung the poor thing outside, Trix squirmed her way out with the bird and began to chase it.  Uh-oh!  Not a good thing.  I immediately hollered for her and, to my utter surprise, the dog stopped and returned to me!  I grabbed her collar and soon she was back inside. 

I knew I was lucky that day.

So you might think that was enough excitement for a while, wouldn’t you?  Well partner, you’d be wrong.

So you see, the very next day…

I had driven to a doctor’s appointment early that afternoon at another town and had been gone from the house about an hour and a half.

You first should probably know that this is the time of year when my wife bakes her Christmas cookies and makes her Christmas candy, so there was baking and candy making “stuff” here and there in the kitchen and dining room.  Unfortunately the chocolate bars that were destined to be melted and transformed into yummy candies were lying on the dining room table, surely unreachable by canines.

Surely.

When I returned to the house from my appointment I could immediately see several things.  Number one was that my wife had left. She’d mentioned that she needed some more ingredients and was planning on a run to the store.  That had apparently occurred.  The second thing I noticed was torn paper on the dining room floor – torn Baker’s chocolate wrapper. 

I thought to myself, OH SHIT!

I looked into the living room and there was good ol’ Trix tearing the wrapper off of her SECOND Baker’s chocolate bar.  The first one had been devoured already!

I grabbed the second bar out of her mouth and thought OH SHIT again.  MY DOG, OF WHICH I’VE HAD FOR ONE WHOLE WEEK IS GONNA CROAK FROM EATING CHOCOLATE!

I immediately called my vet, expecting a command to race her up to the office for emergency whatever.  She was calm, though, and told me I would have to make the dog puke. 

Fun, I thought, “and how,” I asked, “was that to be accomplished?”

Put about 1-½ tablespoons of table salt down her throat was her answer.  Do it outside.  It’ll make her puke.

Oh boy, I thought.  I have to take this big ol’ beast that I’ve only met last week, grab its mouth (beware of the razor-sharp teeth!), yank it open and shove salt down there. 

Uh-huh. Yeah. Sure…

So I did.  The first big load of salt went in OK, as she was unaware of what was happening at that point and what was heading down her gullet.  The rest of the salt that I wanted to get in there was mostly delivered onto her face, her flapping big ears and the ground.  But I got enough in her, apparently, as about two minutes later she was garking and hacking up about what looked like a gallon of glutinous brown gunk – it looked like mostly chocolate.  A few more hacks and smaller regurgitated glops came out and then she was fine.  She even seemed to forgive me for pouring that nasty salt down her throat.

She was fine the next day and all seems well at this point in time.

So far…

So after all this excitement of the past several days I’m beginning to wonder what other diabolical pleasures await us in the upcoming days?  The only thing I can say is that life will be INTERESTING with our Trixi around.