پاکستان میں Mostbet com ویب سائٹ ملاحظہ کریں، اور آپ یقینی طور پر کھیلوں پر شرط لگانے یا آن لائن کیسینو میں کھیلنے کے لیے یہاں واپس آنا چاہیں گے۔ کھیلوں کے شائقین کو ایونٹس کے ایک بڑے انتخاب، مختلف پروموشنز اور بونسز، مفت بیٹس، مفت گھماؤ اور زیادہ مشکلات تک رسائی حاصل ہے۔ اور کھیل کو مزید آسان بنانے کے لیے، ہم نے ایک موبائل ایپلیکیشن تیار کی ہے جسے آپ آسانی سے اپنے فون پر انسٹال کر سکتے ہیں۔

One Classy Holiday Letter 2020

10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1… January 1st!


Glorious fireworks exploded before us as we stood on the oceanfront balcony of our Atlantis Resort suite.


“HAPPY NEW YEAR! I PREDICT 2020 IS GOING TO BE THE BEST YEAR EVER!!!” I shouted, adjusting my tiara and clearly forgetting my ability to jinx an entire planet. And my jinxing powers are legendary. Back in March 2018, I forced the family to visit Hawaii Volcanos National Park promising, “It’s perfectly safe!” Kilauea Volcano would erupt 49 days later, destroying hundreds of homes and changing the landscape forever. After examining the data, scientists would say, “It appears signs of trouble began mid-March.” So as resort guests continued to cheerfully ring in the New Year around us, the kids placed their party hats solemnly over their hearts and threw their noisemakers into the water below, giving our 2020 hopes and dreams a symbolic burial at sea. Brian recorked the champagne.


Upon our return home, I took crummy January as the perfect time to start the chemotherapy cream my dermatologist prescribed to treat my sun damaged face. Years of basting myself in a tanning solution made of 90% baby oil & 10% iodine kept me looking like a beautifully roasted turkey for most of the 90’s, but now it was time to pay the piper. I knew the cream would blister me up horrendously for about 8 weeks, but that was ok, come March I’d emerge like a fresh-faced butterfly from her cocoon, just in time for our dream trip to ITALY!

Bellissimo


February – Like all of our Februarys, it was spent hibernating and whining about the gloominess and non-Caribbean like temperatures. Despite being born and bred in the Northeast, Brian and I are not people built for this particular adversity, and we’ll never understand the excited Facebook posts of friends tagging themselves in outdoor activities featuring snow and requiring gloves: skiing, snowboarding, sledding, …building snowmen with their children. Yuck.


The one bright spot during those dark winter days was the planning of our trip to Italy. Venice, Florence, Rome! Pizza making, pasta making, wine tasting! The culture, the excitement, our first trip to Europe! As I pushed the “Confirm” button on our final payment, I announced to the family, “I PREDICT MARCH IS GOING TO BE AWESOME! IT’S THE BEST TIME TO GO TO ITALY!” Then I downloaded the Duolingo app, determined to learn Italian.


March – “Arrivederci, Italia.”


Not only did the United States cancel our trip of a lifetime, but our destination turned out to be the European epicenter for the Covid-19 pandemic. Thanks to my Duolingo app, I was able to tell the family of the terrible news in flawless Italian. Not that they understood, they hadn’t bothered to open the app.


Instead of fighting the crowds in Venice, I found myself fighting for toilet paper & disinfectant in the aisles of Costco. I thought back to those doomsday prepper shows. What would our family need to survive? Bulk quantities of top shelf vodka and Double-Stuf Oreos for sure. But what about real nutrition in the face of a possible food shortage? I tossed a year’s worth of canned chicken and tuna pouches in the cart, despite knowing the kids would rather turn to cannibalism.

Canned Chicken & Muscle Milk. No protein shortage in this house.

April – Ana turned 11 and celebrated it in true quarantine style, alone. Actually, we spent part of the day delivering individual cupcakes to friends’ homes and waiving from afar, then headed back home to Zoom with those friends and sing Happy Birthday. Then she shut the laptop and was alone. With us. Again. For the 38th day in a row. She’s expecting big things next April.

Party of one


May – We decided to change up the 4 walls we were staring at and headed to our beach house for the summer. There was so much more to do there without coming into contact with deadly germ-infested people. We hiked, biked, kayaked, played tennis, and golfed. In fact, I did all of that and painted 2 bedrooms in the first weekend alone! That’s how I ended up with two herniated disks in my neck. Silver lining – the pain was so intense that I lost my appetite for weeks and dropped the 10 pounds I gained in March and April.

Look at me smiling…my neck is about to go pop pop pop

June – Some of the quarantine restrictions were lifted and Collin was finally able to complete his driving lessons and get his license! He also bought his first car! And then…and then…he got his first speeding ticket! What a whirlwind 2 weeks that was! Despite our Covid concerns, we allowed him to return to his summer job at Candy Kitchen, but we eyed him suspiciously after every shift, knowing he could be a Corona carrier. The poor kid couldn’t so much as cough in the house without us calling him Superspreader and sending him off to gargle with Lysol.


July – Tired of crying on the couch in pain while my family enjoyed every outdoor activity without me, I finally made an appointment to get Cortisone shots in my neck. Because it involved a “major” body part and was being performed at a “surgical” center by a spinal “surgeon”, I felt it appropriate to tell my family that I was having major surgery and inform them of my final wishes “…should things take a bad turn”. Brian pointed out that it was actually a simple procedure and that I should stop scaring the kids. And I pointed out that if their sympathy had been more forthcoming, I wouldn’t need to take such drastic measures.


August – As the summer was winding down, we had a contractor begin renovations on our kitchen back home. The particle board drawers were crumbling and the laminate doors were peeling. Almost everything was being held together by either Gorilla Glue, crazy glue, or hot glue. Brian knew it needed to be done, and I told him August would be the best time to do it, we even received a quote back in the Spring, but he said he didn’t want to be involved. And I quote “I don’t want to be involved.” And so, I honored his wishes and never mentioned it again…I just went ahead and did it.

We were about 3 weeks into the renovation when I realized Brian mistook my tight-lipped silence as me having put the kitchen project on hold.

“Look,” he said, “I know you don’t want to hear this, but with Covid and how that might effect the economy, we should wait a couple years before redoing the kitchen. ”

“Oh, um, ok”, I replied.

Meanwhile, back home:

I was in a pickle, and he was in for quite a surprise. My mother had plans to turn her guest room into a storage room, but said she’d hold off in case I needed a place to lay low.


September – With Ana’s soccer and Collin’s football starting back up, we moved everything back home. The kitchen was beautiful, although Brian still didn’t want to talk about it. But I know he loves it. The kids started virtual school. Collin loves virtual 11th grade, as it provides many napping opportunities. Ana, however, needs other fellow 6th graders to talk to throughout the day. I can handle only so many Tik Tok discussions in a 24 hour period.


Collin and I had to appear in traffic court this month to answer for his June speeding ticket. I was ready for a judge to rightly throw the book at him, but that’s not how it went. Not at all. I watched as Collin, a man of few words, stood before the court and became an effective orator, capturing his audience by weaving a mastery of a story. This story had it all- semitrucks, rocks, tailgaters, an unsympathetic police officer, fear, love, loss. In the end, the overarching theme was one of self-preservation. After the applause died down, the judge taught him how to use the argument of Mitigating Circumstance and completely dismissed the citation. I walked out feeling both irritation and awe.


October – This entire month was spent either scheduling Covid tests, sitting in line for Covid tests or being in self quarantine for being a “Known Contact” of a suspected or confirmed Covid positive person. Ana’s soccer team was able to get in a few games and Collin’s football team managed to scramble around and find 4 other teams to play who weren’t in quarantine. I never thought I’d say this, but thank goodness for sports! It gave our kids (and us) a desperately needed sense of normalcy and comraderie, even if just for a little bit. Collin turned 17 on Friday the 13th (of course, 2020), and we hesitantly let him hang out with 3 friends gasp to celebrate. And then we observed him for 2 weeks for signs of the ‘rona and never let him out again.


November – November was a rinse and repeat of October, only colder. For Thanksgiving, it was only the 4 of us at the beach. The menu consisted of grilled burgers, zucchini, potato chips, jalapeno margaritas, and a pecan pie just to keep it traditional.


December – December has been October & November, only even colder and now darker. The kids’ sports are over, there’s no dining out, no holiday parties, no hanging out with friends, but hey, at least we have all this quality time with our family, right? Hahahahahaha. As I write this, we are at day 284 of 24 hours a day togetherness. I can assure you that our time ceased being “quality” somewhere around May. Half-played board games and unfinished jigsaw puzzles litter our dining room table, abandoned in a moment of “Oh my god, is this pandemic really still happening?!?!” Time is only measured in “quantity” now. HO HO HO.

I like to call this picture “How It’s Going: Virtual Schooling in a Pandemic”

I’d like to finish this letter by doing the world a favor, trying to fix what my family believes I started New Year’s 2020. Here it goes:


I PREDICT 2021 IS GOING TO BE THE WORST YEAR EVER!


I hope that worked.


As this year is coming to a close, we want to say thank you for being a part of our lives. Whether near or far, yesterday or yesteryear, you are always in our hearts. May your 2021 be filled with an abundance of love, laughter, health, and happiness, but not Covid.


Love,

Brian, Kim, Collin, and Ana

Dysfunctional traditions are still traditions.

I was cleaning out my inbox when I came across this email to my Aunt from a couple years ago. Here’s an excerpt:

Hi there and Happy New Years! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season! I wanted to thank you both for your kind words about Collin and Ana’s pics.

We all had a great Christmas with one exception (which is the same exception every year)…Mr. Bojangles. Here’s the problem, every Christmas Brian buys his mother expensive Godiva Truffles and every Christmas Eve the dog finds and eats all 18 of them. Every. Damn. Christmas.

The scene that plays out is always the same:

1. Brian yells at the dog for being so stupid.
2. He pulls out the Godiva receipt and calculates how much money Bo just cost him.
3. He utters the phrases,  “Just who do you think you are?”  “I’m calling the SPCA to come get you!” and my favorite…

“I brought you into this world and I can take you out!”

*which is ridiculous because, while he does appear to have my blue eyes and Brian’s dark hair, he is not biologically ours.

As he’s going through his tirade and grimacing like he’s taking a painful crap, I’m setting up my cleaning products. And while everyone is peacefully sleeping on Christmas Eve I’m cussing and cleaning up, what can only be described in both smell and color as hot cocoa vomit. I call it….hot “Bo”coa. I swear to god it smells exactly like hot chocolate which makes me feel so confused and conflicted. One minute I want to puke and the next I’m looking for marshmallows.

I have to admit that over the years I have become resigned to this and have even begun to consider it another cherished family tradition.

I go on to write about our kids, parents, blah, blah blah. The point is this…

After reading this it occurred to me that we didn’t buy truffles this year, hence no hot “bo”coa.  Though he did have diarrhea, so there’s always that. I know I should be ecstatic that he didn’t vomit, but it sorta saddened me that another holiday tradition has disappeared.

I worry about the loss of other traditions like, my holiday zit, Christmas parties where I make an ass out of myself, and losing my credit cards at least twice while shopping. These are the unwelcome traditions of our family but they are expected, dealt with, and then laughed about. No matter how dysfunctional, when they’re gone something seems amiss.

P.S. Don’t worry, the zit is still making an appearance.

P.P.S. I also realized that our dog requires more maintenance and bodily fluid clean up than our children.

What dysfunctional tradition does your family have?

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