From Our House to Yours ― Our Annual Letter
As I write, and wanting to wish family and friends the happiest of holiday seasons, I can only say, we buried the cat this morning with neighbors standing round and cake.
But that’s no way to start our annual holiday letter, is it? Here’s the good stuff:
We took a grand tour of Spain, all the best places, the Prado in Madrid, Toledo, Barcelona, Gaudi, Picasso. And churches. Glorious cathedrals plastered floor to ceiling with the golden spoils of conquistadors. I guess I was tired, footsore, beaten down by too many tapas and sagging mattresses in our out-of-the-way Airbnb’s, because, gazing at the stained-glass tableaux on the walls of these magnificent behemoths, I began to see the faces of indigenous people from our earlier travels, the blood of disembodied Aztec, Mayan, Incan men, women and children morphing into the gifts of the Magi. But we loved the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Jeff Koons doggy, the surreal Gehry hodgepodge rising out of a sleepy factory town.
When we returned, Persephone was not herself. Her fur was sparse, she limped. She wasn’t interested in food or us.
Anyway, the boys are great, Jack in his senior year at UCLA. He wants to act, but to please us he majored in Electronics and is looking for a job in Silicon Valley. Billy and Joan are happily ensconced in Florida life, trying to get pregnant with no luck so far and new laws making it impossible to find help in that department. They actually are not “happily ensconced.” They are miserable, but of course one shouldn’t say that in a Christmas letter so forget you read it here.
And they are grieving the loss of Persephone. After all, when she strayed into our kitchen that day in 2015, Jack and Billy were the ones who begged and stomped and insisted that we keep her. And now she is gone. We buried her today in a weedy plot in front of our house. Our neighbors formed a human wall to shield us from HOA purists who would pounce upon such unlawful activity. Marnie brought cake, a vanilla pudding concoction, Vanessa brought compostable forks and plates and we hummed a hymn.
And now it will be Christmas and Jack and Billy and Joan will come home and we will open gifts, enjoy a Whole Foods feast and revel in being together again.
But Persephone will not be among us.
Merry, Happy, dear friends. May the New Year bring you good health, joy, adventure and the best of pets.
P.S.: Good News – Jack just found a job in Silicon Valley; he’s going to manage the box office in a San Jose theater; and off we go . . . .