Wednesday, December 23, 2009

My Christmas Twetter

Following is excerpted from what I mailed to part of my Christmas card list before I ran out of stamps and then ran out of time...

* * * *
Another year flown by, one in which the pace of change is beyond the ability of my arteriosclerotic brain cells to comprehend. We are now the old people at the neighborhood block parties. I’ve never heard of anyone under age 50 in the celebrity birthday lists. My children are both beyond the age Bob Dylan famously decreed untrustworthy. Wallowing in the retrospectives prompted by the death of Walter Cronkite this past July, I realized my sensibilities are so deeply rooted in the last century I must do something to remain relevant in the current one.

So I joined Facebook and opened a Twitter account. The latter, of course, is the social media platform that requires you to speak your mind in no more than 140 characters. You might guess that’s difficult for me, and you’d be right. So why not use the annual Holiday Letter to practice? Thus I present…

Our Year In Tweets

Son Rob moved out of our house and into his own apartment. Took his dog, too. I missed the dog so I got my own.

New dog Otis is a rescue. A sweet Boston terrier who burrows in bed. Don’t know why his previous owners gave him up. Don’t care. He’s mine now.

Rob’s new place is 2 minutes from work (at Boulevard Brewery) and 2 blocks from 39th St. food and fun. Nice!

Jen still nannying, and now has therapeutic massage license. Teaming up with local massage/skin care group for weekend clients. Hooray!

Took Otis to dog school. He learned to sit and stay (sometimes). I learned it’s more about training the person, not the dog.

Tom’s 09 motorcycle trip: Four Corners (UT, CO, AZ, NM). On newer, bigger, noisier motorcycle. Good time had by all, including me by myself at home.

Still going to gym 6 days a week, sometimes 7. Doesn’t work as well as it used to, though. Could it be my addiction to baked goods?

Still singing in the shower, but lately, not in the choir. Too tired by Thursday night to go to practice. This is good news for the choir and the congregation.

Attended 40th HS reunion – my first reunion ever. Beyond gray hair and wrinkles of old classmates, not much has changed. Glad I went. Won’t go again.

Many HS classmates are now retired. How about me? Tired old body says yes. Bank account – uh, no.

Got an iPhone this year and learned to text and play e-scrabble with son. It’s fun! Wreaks havoc with spelling, though.

In my final year in college, a traveling exhibit of the future of personal computing visited our journalism school. In those days we banged out stories for the school newspaper on typewriters and literally cut (like, with scissors) and pasted (or taped) the paper to move paragraphs around – or just started over retyping. Seeing the demonstration of highlighting a piece of text and moving it around electronically made quite an impression on me – it was magic! Never could I have dreamed that 35 years later, not only would I likewise be doing electronic cutting and pasting, I would actually be willing to use “friend” as a verb. Perhaps this is progress, although I’m not sure.

What I am sure of is that even if I don’t often have occasion to see or talk with many annual Holiday Letter recipients, I think of you often and it pleases me greatly that I have the honor of sharing time on the planet with you. I am indeed grateful -- and I do mean grateful, not gr8fl – for many blessings of my life, and knowing you is one of them.

Merriest Christmas and Happiest New Year to you.

1 comment:

Emily said...

I always enjoy your perspective, Linda! Thank you! or should I say "thx"?