Dear Loved Ones, 

A holiday letter on the actual holiday?  What gives?  As usual with gypsy souls, some of us have a new address.  Lizzy landed a dream graduate program offer from the University of Oregon, so she’s now in Eugene.  Before that, she was house-sitting in Flagstaff and completing a Spanish Immersion program.  She invited me to take her place at the house while her class took a two-week trip to Mexico, enticing me by calling it a Writer’s Retreat.  Which sounded so idyllic, so relaxing, so inspiring—until I arrived at the doorstep of Noah’s Ark:  two large emotionally needy dogs, one indoor cat on prescription tranquilizers, an outdoor cat with a garage litterbox, a pacman toad, a hamster and a small aquarium. 

The first near-death experience was the toad, which lapsed into a three-day catatonic stupor from gorging on crickets.  The hamster went missing before Lizzy ever left, presumably a food chain casualty or electrocuted in the dryer, where it chewed through the wiring.  A week later, scratching noises gave it away as still holed up in the dryer, surviving on midnight dog-food raids.  After the third round of daring escapes, tedious dryer tear-downs, rescues and mounting repair bills, I was ready to ask the cat for a few tranquilizers.  But we had yet to hit rock bottom.  The older of the two dogs, not the sharpest tack in the box, decided to toy with a rattle snake and landed in the hospital.  In spite of a miraculous recovery, he fell gravely ill just days before the family was expected home and the vet declared that he was dying—of cancer.  Lizzy played the Angel of Mercy as he slipped peacefully away, but not before she honored the family’s plea for a laptop Skype session where everyone sobbed wrenching goodbyes to their beloved pet for a full 10 minutes. 

At this point the family needed a perfect homecoming, so Katie and I headed for Flagstaff to lend Lizzy a hand with the final cage cleanings, litter boxes, yard poo pickup, you name it.   Hours before the family was scheduled to board their international flight for home, Katie rushed downstairs with a seizing, gasping hamster cupped in her hands.  We were considering a mercy killing when Mother Nature stepped in just as the radio began to play Bob Dylan’s rendition of “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.”  Someone up there has a twisted sense of humor. Imagine our dread at breaking yet another piece of tragic news.  The mother shot back an email saying this was simply TOO MUCH for her little girl to bear and the hamster could NOT be dead. 

We HAD to find a believable replacement.   This was not a point of negotiation.  What?  She expects us to find a fully grown, specific color and breed in 24 hours?  Against all odds, Katie found a close match in Phoenix and so began the race against time.  The store had not one but three of them to choose from:  young but large enough for our ridiculous ruse.  Imagine our shock when they were all males with super-sized testicles.  Katie came up with the brilliant strategy to explain them as benign tumors—launching into a parody of Arnold Schwarzenegger in defense of his bulging muscle in Kindergarten Cop:  It’s NOT a toomah!   The visual of a rodent defending the dignity of his balls sent me into uncontrollable, laughing-hyena-style hysteria right in the middle of Pet Smart. 

As you may have guessed, Katie is no longer in Boston but has returned to the friends and family, enchanting winters, brutal summers, and reasonable rent that she left behind.  She’s now working for Vanguard, still involved in the financial sector with a large company that offers international placement potential.  In between Massachusetts and Arizona, she spent several weeks with her sister Angie and family in Ohio.  Had Angie and Jim managed to win the lotto, Katie’s first employment choice would have been nanny to her precious nephews.  The entire family is over the moon about those babies. 

On July 18 the Haprian family welcomed Emmett Alan, a whopping 9 pounds and 15 ounces of snuggly, cuddly cherub.  At the post-birth gathering of Angie’s Centering Group, they arranged the newborns in a circle for a group photo.  Emmett looked like Gulliver in the Land of the Lilliputians.  Dominic turned two this November, emerging as a curious explorer, a spirited chatterbox and a wildly avid Snoopy fan.  I meet a new Dominic with each trip to Ohio, so every visit holds its own magic.  This time around, I was grateful to be known as Gramma Swing in honor of our playground adventure instead of Gramma Oatmeal for Brains.  After waiting patiently in his stroller and watching while I repeatedly tried to mate two identical clasps, he finally bent down, reached between his legs and held up the missing connector.  My exasperated scream of “Oh SHOOT!” made him toss back his head and laugh so hard that it became our private battle cry.  Bolting upright in glee, his echo was “Oh YOOT!”  (Consonants kick in later.) 

Bill and I have enjoyed another happy, peaceful year filled with simple pleasures and shared adventures, from a week in the high Rockies to forays into personal growth.  We took a class called Radical Honesty where everyone wrote down their darkest secrets then paired off with a stranger for one-on-one sharing.   I jumped right in, ticking off my entire litany of sins like a drunk in the confessional.  My partner was obviously gay, so I was primed for any and all disclosures, but he had but one shame:  He’s been a member of Unity Church for three years and can’t bear to tell his Catholic mother.  That’s it?  I’m sitting here emotionally naked and his big deal is being afraid to tell his mommy where he goes to church?  I wanted to crawl under the chair and ask him to at least hand over my bra and panties. 

Wishing one and all a most blessed holiday and the brightest of New Years!  We’re still here in Arizona, officially the Hate State.  You provide the mean-spirited prejudice and we’ll draft the legislation!