Hello friends, family, and assorted stalkers. You are all welcome (even the stalkers). This year has been eventful. I suppose that’s because some big things are still in flux. I have become enamored of routine lately, possibly because it’s a little elusive in my life. Adventures of a minor but still disruptive — and sometimes entertaining — sort keep happening. I am thankful (and sometimes regretful) that I don’t have even more interesting adventures, like some of my friends. I haven’t moved to Tahiti, Jordan, Scotland, or any other faraway place where it would have been very difficult indeed to carry on my relationship with Alex. There have been no deaths, layoffs, bankruptcies, hospitalizations, spontaneous combustions, or alien abductions in our little teeny family. Things this year have been pretty good. And here are some of those things, most of which were probably not made up:
Alex Graduation
I met Alex when we were both graduate students, and that was a significant factor in our courtship. For a while, life as a graduate student was all our relationship had ever known. Then I somehow stumbled across a stage and ended up with a diploma in my hand. This past June, Alex performed the same maneuver, with significantly more planning and grace. I was with her parents and several friends at the time, all of whom were bursting with pride at even being associated with her. So was (am) I. She is now Doctor Holbrook, though you can call her Alex if you’re nice. As a side note, I discovered (after some embarrassment) that the commencement speaker’s last name is pronounced “coe-burn” although almost every English speaker not living on a very weird group of European islands would agree that “Cockburn” should, by all logic and reason, sound like an accident involving a rooster and an overheated pot of cocoa. I’m just saying.
Canoes and Camping in Algonquin
My Arm Bitten Off By A Javelina
Javelinas, otherwise known as peccaries, are runty wild pigs. Their teeth are capable of gnawing through a human arm—mine, for instance. I was on a recon mission for Friends of the Wild Pigs when one of them surprised me from behind a jacaranda bush. I jumped back, and his buddy was there to trip me. I hit my head on a rock. When I came to, my left arm was chewed completely off above the elbow. The paramedics who eventually arrived found it in a nearby clump of bushes, in great shape, they said. It got sewn back on, and it works okay except for a little twitch in my middle finger that can be embarrassing at times. There’s a faint scar, too. The doctor, having seen this kind of thing before, said, “They could have just eaten the arm, you know, or hidden it. My guess is they’re sending you a message. They don’t want to be spied on.” The only remaining question is what the Javelinas have to be secretive about. I intend to very carefully find out.
Alex Residency & Montreal Visit
My Canadian wife (which sounds like a really stupid Judd Apatow movie) is now a U.S. Resident. She has a green card (which is not that green) and everything. This took us about a year and a half. The final step, in November, right when I was moving, was to have our interview at the US Embassy/Consulate in Montreal. It was stressful getting ready, and a little inconvenient, timing- and finances-wise, but it ended up being happily anticlimactic. All morning waiting in a big scary room, taking numbers, waiting, getting our massive ream of accumulated documents stamped and inspected, taking other numbers, waiting some more, then five minutes in a little cubicle (with really cool coat hooks) talking to a lady who looked like she’d rather be at a cowboy bar doing a line dance. That night we had the best French onion soup either of us have ever tasted, in a super-quaint restaurant in downtown Montreal. A couple of days later, Alex made her first I Am A US Resident border crossing when she took me to the Buffalo airport. More stress, more waiting, but that worked out well, and I even caught my flight. Okay, Americans: don’t blow this. You have one chance to make a good impression on my Canadian wife, and I would really prefer you put your best foot forward, OK? Especially ixnay on the anadianjokescay.
International Intrigue Ends Peacefully
As some of you may know, Alex is International. This is a risk factor for international intrigue, the very type that found her last May while she was biking to class. Long story short: she didn’t know it was intrigue until too late.The lady who asked her to buy just one small baguette seemed pretty normal, and so did the bread, but then there was some sedation, an intercontinental flight, some brainwashing, blackmail, false identities, a little bit of infiltration, and one exciting chase scene. Suffice it to say we had plenty to talk about the next day, including a good laugh at the expense of a certain Middle Eastern dictator. And now the residents of a mountainous desert region that must remain nameless can finally herd their long-haired goats in peace. Plus, there are several extra names on Alex’s Christmas card list.
Moving
My teeny apartment that served me so well for four years was too small for Alex and me and all our stuff. Mostly my stuff. So we moved across town in November. Okay, I moved. She said sympathetic things by phone from Canada. Let me tell you, if you ever need to move, the best way to do it is to have someone else do it and then tell you about it by phone. It went well, despite the fact that the fifteen or so Elders’ Quorum members who Totally For Sure were going to help did not show up. Two did, and they are my 2009 Q3 Heroes. Five hours to help some guy move on a Saturday when you probably had lots of plans? That, my friends, is true charity. Tragically, I think I may have moved us into The Edinburg Hood. It looks nice enough, but I keep hearing scary stories about break-ins, vandalism, etc. I’m currently traveling for the holidays, and I made sure to take my laptop and a portable hard drive with all my valuable data. I made sure my Outlook Exchange account was online and working, so my contacts, work emails, and calendar are safe. I also took my guitars and amps to my office at the University for safe(r)keeping. Maybe I’m just being paranoid. I hope so. But the landlord and owner seem to have begun, even now, to play a little bit of “don’t ask me, ask him” when I ask for things to be repaired or replaced (like locks on the doors), and I’m a bit nervous. Still, it’s a beautiful apartment, and I have hope. Updates will probably follow. In other moving news, Alex and I will be moving her stuff (and her self) down to this new apartment at the beginning of January. This is going to be a very long car ride with two angry cats.
Swine Flu Briefly Cured
Back in October me and some friends decided that we were sick and tired of hearing swine flu this and swine flu that. Enough, already. So we whipped up a cure, cause the CDC sure wasn’t moving very fast. It was just a combination mRNA/nanoparticle solution with pulsed electromagnetic radiation to disrupt the virus’ outer membrane, but it worked pretty well on our test subjects. Great so far, but we didn’t exactly have official permission to be in the hospital at three a.m., and in the middle of the fourth trial session one of the guys accidentally bumped the light switch, and the subject woke up and hit the nurse-call button, and we had to split, like fast, and that was that. We forgot the special refrigerated briefcase, and when we finally ditched the cops and wandered back home we found that our computers and notebooks had disappeared, with small action figures from Men In Black II left in their places. We all got some creepy phone calls in the following week, but Andy thinks his was just an ex-girlfriend and Gladys says she’s pretty sure she recognized the heavy breathing in her phone call. Anyway, we decided to just leave it alone, you know? Pick your battles and all. That’s what new parents are always telling me, and it seems like good advice in this case.
Arizona Trip
Due to the vagaries of our courtship and early marriage, with Alex living in Ontario and me in Texas, it has always made the most financial sense for me to spend the holidays with her. Here’s the logic:
- We wanted to spend the holidays with each other (call us crazy)
- Holidays in Texas would have involved one international plane ticket (around $500) and would have been somewhat lonely
- Holidays with my family would have involved two international plane tickets, plus some kind of arrangement for transportation, even assuming we stayed at a family member’s house
- Holidays in Ontario involved one international plane ticket, with guaranteed lodging and transportation (her apartment and car)
Theater!
Or is that “Theatre?” Alex did yet more plays. She even directed one, called “Eleemosynary.” It’s hard to spell, which is kind of the point (there’s a spelling bee in it). Anyway, she was in, um, three. Yeah, three. Besides the one she directed. She kinda likes that theater stuff, I guess. Also (you may have to take my word for this) she’s very good at it.
…
So that’s some of what we did in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008. Finally, we felt it was important to start spending more time with my family, lest Alex think I was the only person in the world with this particular type of insanity. So, this year we spent nearly a week with my brother and his wife (and their two adorable children) in the Mesa, AZ area. My folks live there, now, too, and my oldest sister and her family (husband and four kids) live three hours away, up in the mountains. As a bonus, my next-oldest sister and her four kids live up there, too. With the exception of my two youngest brothers (and their wives and four children each), who have remained in Washington State, everyone but me now lives in Arizona. Also: I have eighteen nieces and nephews. You’d think that would reduce the pressure for Alex and me to have some bambinos, but my mother showed me her Massive Wall O’Photos, and there are spaces reserved. Seriously. Apparently we are allowed to have either two normal-sized children, three runts, or one enormous baby. That’s all that will fit. We both had a great time in Arizona with the family. We played with the little persons, visited a Hohokam ruin, shot deadly weapons in the desert, basked in (or marveled at) the Family Circle of Talking A Lot, and saw an NHL game (Phoneix Coyotes 5, Columbus Blue Jackets 3). All in all, a great Christmas. Thanks, family!
Darrin and Alex Win Secret Service For A Day Sweepstakes
Yeah, we were all excited when we won, but then when it was time to go jog next to the Presidential limo and look cool with wires in our ears, the supervisor was all, where’s your identification, and then like, wait, she’s Canadian? And one guy said, didn’t they burn down the White House in 1814? And Alex was all, you know it, sucka, and that was it. We got assigned to Rooftop Watch in the next town. Nobody even saw us looking cool, and the earpieces really weren’t that comfortable. I guess not all sweepstakes are awesome.
Thanks for reading! In case you didn’t already guess, several of the above items are complete lies. Happy Holidays! We love you and wish you the best for the coming year.
Truly,
Darrin (and Alex, though she would probably want it known that she had no part in writing this holiday newsletter)
Hello friends, family, and assorted stalkers. You are all welcome (even the stalkers). This year has been eventful. I suppose that’s because some big things are still in flux. I have become enamored of routine lately, possibly because it’s a little elusive in my life. Adventures of a minor but still disruptive — and sometimes entertaining — sort keep happening. I am thankful (and sometimes regretful) that I don’t have even more interesting adventures, like some of my friends. I haven’t moved to Tahiti, Jordan, Scotland, or any other faraway place where it would have been very difficult indeed to carry on my relationship with Alex. There have been no deaths, layoffs, bankruptcies, hospitalizations, or spontaneous combustions or alien abductions in our little teeny family. Things this year have been pretty good. And here are some of those things:
Alex Graduation
I met Alex when we were both graduate students, and that was a significant factor in our courtship. For a while, life as a graduate student was all our relationship had ever known. Then I somehow stumbled across a stage and ended up with a diploma in my hand. This past June, Alex performed the same maneuver, with significantly more planning and grace. I was with her parents and several friends at the time, all of whom were bursting with pride at even being associated with her. So was (am) I. She is now Doctor Holbrook, though you can call her Alex if you’re nice. As a side note, I discovered (after some embarrassment) that the commencement speaker’s last name is pronounced “coe-burn” although almost every English speaker not living on a very weird group of European islands would agree that “Cockburn” should, by all logic and reason, sound like an accident involving a rooster and an overheated pot of cocoa. I’m just saying.
Algonquin
I have learned that Canadian provinces are ridiculously enormously massive. Ontario is at least twice the size of Texas or something like that. Most of that is permafrost, sure, but some of it is great big tracts of land. Land accessible only by canoe. Land covered with trees and lakes and enjoyable furry animals. Land inhabitable by humans for nearly seven weeks every summer. Some of this land is called Algonquin Provincial Park. Alex and I spent a week there last summer with her brother, his wife, and our friend. Then we spent two weeks by ou rselves, paddling, swimming, camping, basking, and eating very good camping food (Alex’s doing). This was somewhat heavenly. You can read more about it, and see pictures, <<here>>.
My Arm Bitten Off By A Javelina
Javelinas, otherwise known as peccaries, are runty wild pigs. Their teeth are capable of gnawing through a human arm—mine, for instance. I was on a recon mission for Friends of the Wild Pigs when one of them surprised me from behind a jacaranda bush. I jumped back, and his buddy was there to trip me. I hit my head on a rock. When I came to, my left arm was chewed completely off above the elbow. The paramedics who eventually arrived found it in a nearby clump of bushes, in great shape, they said. It got sewn back on, and it works okay except for a little twitch in my middle finger that can be embarrassing at times. There’s a faint scar, too. The doctor, having seen this kind of thing before, said, “They could have just eaten the arm, you know, or hidden it. My guess is they’re sending you a message. They don’t want to be spied on.” The only remaining question is what the Javelinas have to be secretive about. I intend to very carefully find out.
Alex Residency & Montreal Visit
My Canadian wife (which sounds like a really stupid Judd Apatow movie) is now a U.S. Resident. She has a green card (which is not that green) and everything. This took us about a year and a half. The final step, in November, right when I was moving, was to have our interview at the US Embassy/Consulate in Montreal. It was stressful getting ready, and a little inconvenient, timing- and finances-wise, but it ended up being happily anticlimactic. All morning waiting in a big scary room, taking numbers, waiting, getting our massive ream of accumulated documents stamped and inspected, taking other numbers, waiting some more, then five minutes in a little cubicle (with really cool coat hooks) talking to a lady who looked like she’d rather be at a cowboy bar doing a line dance. A couple of days later, Alex made her first I Am A US Resident border crossing when she took me to the Buffalo airport. More stress, more waiting, but that worked out well, and I even caught my flight. Okay, Americans: don’t blow this. You have one chance to make a good impression on my Canadian wife, and I would really prefer you put your best foot forward, OK? Especially ixnay on the anadianjokescay.
International Spy Ring Nabs Alex
As some of you may know, Alex is International. This is a risk factor for international intrigue, the very type that found her last May while she was biking to class. Long story short: she didn’t know it was intrigue until too late.The lady who asked her to buy just one small baguette seemed pretty normal, and so did the bread, but then there was some sedation, an intercontinental flight, some brainwashing, blackmail, false identities, a little bit of infiltration, and one exciting chase scene. Suffice it to say we had plenty to talk about the next day, including a good laugh at the expense of a certain Middle Eastern dictator. And now the residents of a mountainous desert region that must remain nameless can finally herd their long-haired goats in peace. Plus, there are several extra names on Alex’s Christmas card list.
Moving
My teeny apartment that served me so well for four years was too small for Alex and me and all our stuff. Mostly my stuff. So we moved across town in November. Okay, I moved. She said sympathetic things by phone from Canada. Let me tell you, if you ever need to move, the best way to do it is to have someone else do it and then tell you about it by phone. It went well, despite the fact that the fifteen or so Elders’ Quorum members who Totally For Sure were going to help did not show up. Two did, and they are my 2009 Q3 Heroes. Five hours to help some guy move on a Saturday when you probably had lots of plans? That, my friends, is true charity. Tragically, I think I may have moved us into The Edinburg Hood. It looks nice enough, but I keep hearing scary stories about break-ins, vandalism, etc. I’m currently traveling for the holidays, and I made sure to take my laptop and a portable hard drive with all my valuable data. I made sure my Outlook Exchange account was online and working, so my contacts, work emails, and calendar are safe. I also took my guitars and amps to my office at the University for safe(r)keeping. Maybe I’m just being paranoid. I hope so. But the landlord and owner seem to have begun, even now, to play a little bit of “don’t ask me, ask him” when I ask for things to be repaired or replaced (like locks on the doors), and I’m a bit nervous. Still, it’s a beautiful apartment, and I have hope. Updates will probably follow.
Swine Flu Briefly Cured
Back in October me and some friends decided that we were sick and tired of hearing swine flu this and swine flu that. Enough, already. So we whipped up a cure, cause the CDC sure wasn’t moving very fast. It was just a combination mRNA/nanoparticle solution with pulsed electromagnetic radiation to disrupt the virus’ outer membrane, but it worked pretty well on our test subjects. Great so far, but we didn’t exactly have official permission to be in the hospital at three a.m., and in the middle of the fourth trial session one of the guys accidentally bumped the light switch, and the subject woke up and hit the nurse-call button, and we had to split, like fast, and that was that. We forgot the special refrigerated briefcase, and when we finally ditched the cops and wandered back home we found that our computers and notebooks had disappeared, with small action figures from Men In Black II left in their places. We all got some creepy phone calls in the following week, but Andy thinks his was just an ex-girlfriend and Gladys says she’s pretty sure she recognized the heavy breathing in her phone call. Anyway, we decided to just leave it alone, you know? Pick your battles and all. That’s what new parents are always telling me, and it seems like good advice in this case.
Arizona Trip
Due to the vagaries of our courtship and early marriage, with Alex living in Ontario and me in Texas, it has always made the most financial sense for me to spend the holidays with her. Here’s the logic:
- We wanted to spend the holidays with each other (call us crazy)
- Holidays in Texas would have involved one international plane ticket (around $500) and would have been somewhat lonely
- Holidays with my family would have involved two international plane tickets, plus some kind of arrangement for transportation, even assuming we stayed at a family member’s house
- Holidays in Ontario involved one international plane ticket, with guaranteed lodging and transportation (her apartment and car)
So that’s what we did in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008. Finally, we felt it was important to start spending more time with my family, lest Alex think I was the only person in the world with this particular type of insanity. So, this year we spent nearly a week with my brother and his wife (and their two adorable children) in the Mesa, AZ area. My folks live there, now, too, and my oldest sister and her family (husband and four kids) live three hours away, up in the mountains. As a bonus, my next-oldest sister and her four kids live up there, too. With the exception of my two youngest brothers (and their wives and four children each), who have remained in Washington State, everyone but me now lives in Arizona. Also: I have eighteen nieces and nephews. You’d think that would reduce the pressure for Alex and me to have some bambinos, but my mother showed me her Massive Wall O’Photos, and there are spaces reserved. Seriously. Apparently we are allowed to have either two normal-sized children, three runts, or one enormous baby. That’s all that will fit. We both had a great time in Arizona with the family. We played with the little persons, visited a Hohokam ruin, shot deadly weapons in the desert, basked in (or marveled at) the Family Circle of Talking A Lot, and saw an NHL game (Phoneix Coyotes 5, Columbus Blue Jackets 3). All in all, a great Christmas. Thanks, family!
Darrin and Alex Win Secret Service For A Day Sweepstakes
Yeah, we were all excited when we won, but then when it was time to go jog next to the Presidential limo and look cool with wires in our ears, the supervisor was all, where’s your identification, and then like, wait, she’s Canadian? And one guy said, didn’t they burn down the White House in 1814? And Alex was all, you know it, sucka, and that was it. We got assigned to Rooftop Watch in the next town. Nobody even saw us looking cool, and the earpieces really weren’t that comfortable. I guess not all sweepstakes are awesome.
Thanks for reading! In case you didn’t already guess, several of the above items are complete lies. Happy Holidays! We love you and wish you the best for the coming year.
Truly,
Darrin (and Alex, though she would probably want it known that she had no part in writing this holiday newsletter)
Hello friends, family, and assorted stalkers. You are all welcome (even the stalkers). This year has been eventful. I suppose that’s because some big things are still in flux. I have become enamored of routine lately, possibly because it’s a little elusive in my life. Adventures of a minor but still disruptive — and sometimes entertaining — sort keep happening. I am thankful (and sometimes regretful) that I don’t have even more interesting adventures, like some of my friends. I haven’t moved to Tahiti, Jordan, Scotland, or any other faraway place where it would have been very difficult indeed to carry on my relationship with Alex. There have been no deaths, layoffs, bankruptcies, hospitalizations, or spontaneous combustions or alien abductions in our little teeny family. Things this year have been pretty good. And here are some of those things:
Alex Graduation
I met Alex when we were both graduate students, and that was a significant factor in our courtship. For a while, life as a graduate student was all our relationship had ever known. Then I somehow stumbled across a stage and ended up with a diploma in my hand. This past June, Alex performed the same maneuver, with significantly more planning and grace. I was with her parents and several friends at the time, all of whom were bursting with pride at even being associated with her. So was (am) I. She is now Doctor Holbrook, though you can call her Alex if you’re nice. As a side note, I discovered (after some embarrassment) that the commencement speaker’s last name is pronounced “coe-burn” although almost every English speaker not living on a very weird group of European islands would agree that “Cockburn” should, by all logic and reason, sound like an accident involving a rooster and an overheated pot of cocoa. I’m just saying.
Algonquin
I have learned that Canadian provinces are ridiculously enormously massive. Ontario is at least twice the size of Texas or something like that. Most of that is permafrost, sure, but some of it is great big tracts of land. Land accessible only by canoe. Land covered with trees and lakes and enjoyable furry animals. Land inhabitable by humans for nearly seven weeks every summer. Some of this land is called Algonquin Provincial Park. Alex and I spent a week there last summer with her brother, his wife, and our friend. Then we spent two weeks by ou rselves, paddling, swimming, camping, basking, and eating very good camping food (Alex’s doing). This was somewhat heavenly. You can read more about it, and see pictures, <<here>>.
My Arm Bitten Off By A Javelina
Javelinas, otherwise known as peccaries, are runty wild pigs. Their teeth are capable of gnawing through a human arm—mine, for instance. I was on a recon mission for Friends of the Wild Pigs when one of them surprised me from behind a jacaranda bush. I jumped back, and his buddy was there to trip me. I hit my head on a rock. When I came to, my left arm was chewed completely off above the elbow. The paramedics who eventually arrived found it in a nearby clump of bushes, in great shape, they said. It got sewn back on, and it works okay except for a little twitch in my middle finger that can be embarrassing at times. There’s a faint scar, too. The doctor, having seen this kind of thing before, said, “They could have just eaten the arm, you know, or hidden it. My guess is they’re sending you a message. They don’t want to be spied on.” The only remaining question is what the Javelinas have to be secretive about. I intend to very carefully find out.
Alex Residency & Montreal Visit
My Canadian wife (which sounds like a really stupid Judd Apatow movie) is now a U.S. Resident. She has a green card (which is not that green) and everything. This took us about a year and a half. The final step, in November, right when I was moving, was to have our interview at the US Embassy/Consulate in Montreal. It was stressful getting ready, and a little inconvenient, timing- and finances-wise, but it ended up being happily anticlimactic. All morning waiting in a big scary room, taking numbers, waiting, getting our massive ream of accumulated documents stamped and inspected, taking other numbers, waiting some more, then five minutes in a little cubicle (with really cool coat hooks) talking to a lady who looked like she’d rather be at a cowboy bar doing a line dance. A couple of days later, Alex made her first I Am A US Resident border crossing when she took me to the Buffalo airport. More stress, more waiting, but that worked out well, and I even caught my flight. Okay, Americans: don’t blow this. You have one chance to make a good impression on my Canadian wife, and I would really prefer you put your best foot forward, OK? Especially ixnay on the anadianjokescay.
International Spy Ring Nabs Alex
As some of you may know, Alex is International. This is a risk factor for international intrigue, the very type that found her last May while she was biking to class. Long story short: she didn’t know it was intrigue until too late.The lady who asked her to buy just one small baguette seemed pretty normal, and so did the bread, but then there was some sedation, an intercontinental flight, some brainwashing, blackmail, false identities, a little bit of infiltration, and one exciting chase scene. Suffice it to say we had plenty to talk about the next day, including a good laugh at the expense of a certain Middle Eastern dictator. And now the residents of a mountainous desert region that must remain nameless can finally herd their long-haired goats in peace. Plus, there are several extra names on Alex’s Christmas card list.
Moving
My teeny apartment that served me so well for four years was too small for Alex and me and all our stuff. Mostly my stuff. So we moved across town in November. Okay, I moved. She said sympathetic things by phone from Canada. Let me tell you, if you ever need to move, the best way to do it is to have someone else do it and then tell you about it by phone. It went well, despite the fact that the fifteen or so Elders’ Quorum members who Totally For Sure were going to help did not show up. Two did, and they are my 2009 Q3 Heroes. Five hours to help some guy move on a Saturday when you probably had lots of plans? That, my friends, is true charity. Tragically, I think I may have moved us into The Edinburg Hood. It looks nice enough, but I keep hearing scary stories about break-ins, vandalism, etc. I’m currently traveling for the holidays, and I made sure to take my laptop and a portable hard drive with all my valuable data. I made sure my Outlook Exchange account was online and working, so my contacts, work emails, and calendar are safe. I also took my guitars and amps to my office at the University for safe(r)keeping. Maybe I’m just being paranoid. I hope so. But the landlord and owner seem to have begun, even now, to play a little bit of “don’t ask me, ask him” when I ask for things to be repaired or replaced (like locks on the doors), and I’m a bit nervous. Still, it’s a beautiful apartment, and I have hope. Updates will probably follow.
Swine Flu Briefly Cured
Back in October me and some friends decided that we were sick and tired of hearing swine flu this and swine flu that. Enough, already. So we whipped up a cure, cause the CDC sure wasn’t moving very fast. It was just a combination mRNA/nanoparticle solution with pulsed electromagnetic radiation to disrupt the virus’ outer membrane, but it worked pretty well on our test subjects. Great so far, but we didn’t exactly have official permission to be in the hospital at three a.m., and in the middle of the fourth trial session one of the guys accidentally bumped the light switch, and the subject woke up and hit the nurse-call button, and we had to split, like fast, and that was that. We forgot the special refrigerated briefcase, and when we finally ditched the cops and wandered back home we found that our computers and notebooks had disappeared, with small action figures from Men In Black II left in their places. We all got some creepy phone calls in the following week, but Andy thinks his was just an ex-girlfriend and Gladys says she’s pretty sure she recognized the heavy breathing in her phone call. Anyway, we decided to just leave it alone, you know? Pick your battles and all. That’s what new parents are always telling me, and it seems like good advice in this case.
Arizona Trip
Due to the vagaries of our courtship and early marriage, with Alex living in Ontario and me in Texas, it has always made the most financial sense for me to spend the holidays with her. Here’s the logic:
- We wanted to spend the holidays with each other (call us crazy)
- Holidays in Texas would have involved one international plane ticket (around $500) and would have been somewhat lonely
- Holidays with my family would have involved two international plane tickets, plus some kind of arrangement for transportation, even assuming we stayed at a family member’s house
- Holidays in Ontario involved one international plane ticket, with guaranteed lodging and transportation (her apartment and car)
So that’s what we did in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008. Finally, we felt it was important to start spending more time with my family, lest Alex think I was the only person in the world with this particular type of insanity. So, this year we spent nearly a week with my brother and his wife (and their two adorable children) in the Mesa, AZ area. My folks live there, now, too, and my oldest sister and her family (husband and four kids) live three hours away, up in the mountains. As a bonus, my next-oldest sister and her four kids live up there, too. With the exception of my two youngest brothers (and their wives and four children each), who have remained in Washington State, everyone but me now lives in Arizona. Also: I have eighteen nieces and nephews. You’d think that would reduce the pressure for Alex and me to have some bambinos, but my mother showed me her Massive Wall O’Photos, and there are spaces reserved. Seriously. Apparently we are allowed to have either two normal-sized children, three runts, or one enormous baby. That’s all that will fit. We both had a great time in Arizona with the family. We played with the little persons, visited a Hohokam ruin, shot deadly weapons in the desert, basked in (or marveled at) the Family Circle of Talking A Lot, and saw an NHL game (Phoneix Coyotes 5, Columbus Blue Jackets 3). All in all, a great Christmas. Thanks, family!
Darrin and Alex Win Secret Service For A Day Sweepstakes
Yeah, we were all excited when we won, but then when it was time to go jog next to the Presidential limo and look cool with wires in our ears, the supervisor was all, where’s your identification, and then like, wait, she’s Canadian? And one guy said, didn’t they burn down the White House in 1814? And Alex was all, you know it, sucka, and that was it. We got assigned to Rooftop Watch in the next town. Nobody even saw us looking cool, and the earpieces really weren’t that comfortable. I guess not all sweepstakes are awesome.
Thanks for reading! In case you didn’t already guess, several of the above items are complete lies. Happy Holidays! We love you and wish you the best for the coming year.
Truly,
Darrin (and Alex, though she would probably want it known that she had no part in writing this holiday newsletter)
