A homebound holiday

Mark Knutson on his last day.

We've been hermetically sealed in the house right through this Christmas except for Ms. V's dog walks, which so far I have resisted taking part in. I like the dog, of course (the required caveat), but I take the position that he likes and respects me even more because I don't stoop to his trivial needs. 

We had a plan to visit the daughter in Washington DC, but the Omicron variant was raging there and flights nationwide were being cancelled by the thousands, making our own return flight chancy, We didn't like the look of it, so we switched our flight to zoom calls with both kids, and that was a good temporary fix. 

And then we watched the Packers. We should have been reading The Satyricon, or Paradise Lost, or at least the Old Testament, but we didn't want to overdo on self-improvement on what is, after all, just a holy holiday. All of our prevaricating, hemming-and-hawing, and undoing of plans has delayed the annual mailing of the Christmas cards and we are working on that now.  But just in case we fall short, or Louis DeJoy gets mischievous, I'll paste one below. 

Last month (pre-Omicron, post-booster) we spent a few days in Olympia, Washington for my uncle Mark's funeral and related events. He was 80, a retired Lutheran pastor, and had nearly died at least once with a heart ailment, and the gathering was as much an extended family reunion as a way to celebrate Mark, which is certainly what he would have preferred.

So, happy new year to all!

*

Here's our card.

 

Friends:                                                                                                                                                                             

What with all the shooting, voter suppression, covid variants, and the impending end of the planet, it’s best, I think, that we just wander back to bed and lie quivering under a coverlet.

 

Otherwise, it’s been a pretty good year.

 

Ms. V and I diverted ourselves in recent weeks by watching way too much of the Beatles’ 10,000-hour “Get Back” documentary. Ms. V happy-cried through the whole thing, and, speaking for myself, I think some of their music may catch on.

 

Julia is happily retired and spending a lot of her time on yoga, and meeting with friends (outdoors, she wants me to add), and even more time, and way too much of the family treasury, on young Jamison, who is so darn cute. He likes to run – and run and run. Recently at Currie Park he explored a little foliage by the fence and came out with his fur matted with burrs. Turns out, he’d even swallowed one, clever fellow, and he started hacking and crying. This took place on Thanksgiving Day night, when most of your more reputable veterinarians are dining and watching football. Ms. V finally found somebody to take a look at him, and he said, for an astronomical fee, “It’ll pass.”

 

Nothing’s too much for a dog you love.

 

Ahna is a nanny in DC for a couple who work from home. She and the young boy play in the living room, have little lessons, go to the park, explore, and speak French all the while. The parents want their son to be raised bilingually, and Ahna fills the bill. 

 

Ezra is still a grad student at Stanford. He just finished a 116-page thesis, and I read the whole thing! His topic is the contemporary literary anthology from 1912 to 2017 and its place in history and the literary world. It is filled with footnotes, and it’s an impressive testament to his reading, writing and analytical skills. 

 

Myself, I’m just reading and writing and watching “Succession” when I’m not watching the Beatles. I’ve taken to walking, instead of biking, in this gloomy season.

 

We travelled to Olympia, Washington last month for the funeral of my uncle Mark Knutson. It became an extended family reunion, and this was the gift Mark gave us. He was my mother’s brother, the last of that generation. Mark was 80 years old and was fortunate to live that long, given a history of heart trouble, including a heart attack in his 40s that would have been fatal had he not been saved by a person nearby with some medical know-how. He was a Lutheran pastor with an easy laugh and the common touch – a man you could talk to – and he will be missed. In his last minutes he had a glass of wine on his back patio, with a view of Mount Rainier in the distance, and he was gone.

 

So now we crawl warily out of our coverlet to wish you a happy – and safe – new year!

 

           

 

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Jamison: His head abuzz.