As some of you know, The Amazing Sleeping Man writes our annual Christmas letter. Here it is, in its dubious glory!
Yo! Find your favorite piece of cardboard, break dancing is going to be in the Olympics. I cannot wait to see the Nordic countries break dancing to Abba’s “Dancing Queen.” AM said she will not participate in this event—she’s waiting for Rock, Paper, Scissors to get in. Both of those are too strenuous for me and I will just wait until Bingo becomes an Olympic sport.
You will be happy to know that this spring, we were multi-millionaires. We had three jumbo packs of TP stashed in our emergency supply cache. That is 90 rolls! Yep, no rationing of this most basic product for us. I guess my previous job as a highly-paid government contractor doing a lot of nothing paid off. My question is this: Were people not using TP and washing their hands before the CHICOM Flu hit?
After a late start, spring ski season was going great. Unfortunately, the local ski hill shut down early due to the Sweat and Sour Sicken. Of course, right after that, we got some epic storms dumping vast quantities of powder. Figures. Stupid Rice Rabies.
This year’s skiing is off to a pretty good start. So far, I have managed not to lose any of my remaining 9.3 fingers. Hopefully, there will not be a huge spike in the Kung Flu here forcing another closure.
AM continues to crank out books faster than I can read them. My defense is they don’t have any pictures. Her books are very well received and she really enjoys the work. She was going to a writer’s conference this year, but it was canceled. Damn Bat Flu. (Do you see a pattern forming here? I have lots of names for the Wu Flu, but I will stop now.)
Currently, she is trying to take part in a writing program for a charity effort. There are five authors trying to write one six-book series. AM is charge of coordinating the writing. The authors are spread out all across the world. It is herding cats on a grand scale.
AM continues to work with Team Rubicon. This spring they did sand bagging operations to save a couple of structures from flooding. They also cleaned up two old motels in Missoula to house COVID-positive homeless people. She planned and led several other COVID-related efforts remotely, from the comfort of our home office. Fortunately, it was a fairly quiet year for other disasters in Montana so she didn’t travel much.
Our fur missile, Zoe, has turned into the local ground squirrel population’s worst nightmare. Zoe catches them in the open or digs them out of their underground bunkers. Sometimes she will start digging in the hole the squirrel disappeared down, other times she will move around to another hole and start digging. Apparently, she has figured out ground squirrel tunnel architecture. Her count as of now is 8 confirmed and 3 probables. Just what you want to read in a Christmas letter. Zoe has made friends with a number of dogs in the area and they will chase each other around for as long as forty minutes, crashing into each other, wrestling and trying to hump each other. Brings back fond memories of dating in high school and college.
I left my job in April. I was tired of the long drive. About the time I left, you may have noticed a steep drop in the price of oil and gas. This drop was caused by me not having to change my oil every 5 minutes or buy enough gas every week to fuel the entire NASCAR season. I have been staying busy by cutting down a lot of trees, staining any piece of finished wood product I can find (Super Deck 1903 Red Wood in case you are curious about the color) shoveled the 20 cubic yards of stones Anne Marie ordered 4 years ago (they went around the base of the house, garage, back porch, rear deck, and ten miles along Interstate 90), took the dog on 5 miles of walks everyday (rain, snow, sun, doesn’t matter), threw a billion sticks for the dog, brushed out enough fur from the dog to knit my own dog sled team, and rejoined the Volunteer Fire Dept.
Why the last, you ask? Well, I like to be woken at 0230 because someone thought it was a good idea to store ten gallons of gas next to a space heater. Since October I have been on six structure fire calls. When I was on the department before, I think we had six structure fires a year. Mostly we did car wrecks, medical calls, and wildland fires.
Well, that is about it from here. I have to go. The Larry Welk Christmas Show is about to start. Unfortunately, it is a rerun from 1972. So we wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Happy Kwanza, or Happy dancing around Stonehenge during the winter solstice at midnight while naked. Take your pick. (Guess which one Matt picks? Hint: it involves the Swedish Bikini team.)
The ASM, AM, and Zoe