Geek of All Trades

When I was very young, my dad had the coolest job on the planet.

He worked for McDonald’s.

Imagine it! Surrounded by those fantastic fries and hamburgers! I figured he knew Ronald McDonald personally. He was a font of insight into all the McDonaldland denizens: Mayor McCheese, the Hamburgler and Grimace. I was pretty sure, as an insider, he knew intimate details of their lives, like their birthdates and their favorite colors.

While other kids might boast their dad was a lawyer or an accountant, if pressed, they had no clue what being an “Accountant” meant. These kids might know the word, but, that did not translate into actual insight into what their parent actually did all day. Not me. I could report with confidence. My dad made hamburgers and French fries. Every kid knew what a McDonald’s employee did.

I went to exactly one birthday party at a McDonald’s during this time; in point of fact, it was the only one I ever attended. It was not at the McDonald’s that my dad worked. It was a bigger, shinier McDonald’s. The kid whose birthday it was, is a child about whom I have no recollection, not even trivial things like the tyke’s sex or name. I do remember that the child was blithely smug about his or her own importance having a McDonald’s birthday demanded we display the appropriate reverence for his or her own lofty status.

I was unimpressed. Ronald McDonald was a personal acquaintance of my father. This child may have been able to temporarily buy usage of Ronald’s business, but she (or he) did not have the cash enough to get him to appear, whereas my dad was probably having lunch with him as we played on the freakish plastic representations of McDonald’s icons.

The party was disappointing. I had secretly held out hope that my dad might actually appear as a surprise, bringing Ronald with him to the party. Maybe it was his day to drive the clown around and Ronald had heard that his loyal employee’s child was a guest at McDonald’s birthday and he *had* to meet the irresistibly cute kid. Seriously, I was adorable.

I remember that I was thoroughly uninterested in any of the other children, they seemed unworthy of a child whose father was on a first name basis with Ronald. They were clearly not the important ones in attendance, even if one of them was celebrating a natal day. I played by myself, with only half my attention on the colorful diversions, the bulk of my attention was for a glimpse of my dad and that clown, who, at any moment, would walk in the door, walk past the celebrant and straight toward the most important four-year-old in the restaurant, if not the world.

He did not come.

This was probably my first inkling that my father did not know Ronald McDonald.  I don’t remember the moment I knew for sure, but, I know that it was more devastating than learning about Santa. If I was a more melodramatic sort of person, I might even claim that was the moment my childhood ended, crumpled in a bag of McDonaldland cookies, but, I’m not that sort of person. Instead, I’m the sort that tells you she was a pretty arrogant four-year-old.  But, you probably already knew that.

A week ago, my mom got discharged from the hospital after hip replacement surgery. Since then, I’ve been living with her as she recovers. I thought I knew what to expect after Camp Cardiac a few years ago. The freezer was stocked with numerous decadent pints, a secret stash of bread, and, with work closed for the holiday, I thought I was prepared for another round of recovery.

I really didn’t expect to look back on Camp Cardiac with any sort fondness.

And yet, compared with Camp Hip Replacement, Camp Cardiac was a restful, calm, nature stroll.

All of the same basic challenges of Camp Cardiac were in play. Camp Hip Replacement added a few more wrinkles to the giant rehab elephant. First, mobility is a bigger issue, which sure, is a smack on the forehead with the “duh” stick.  I thought I had a proper appreciation for how large that truck of “duh” was, since I spent months writing about orthopedic surgeries for grants from the federal government. Turns out that my theoretical knowledge did not really translate into the practical appreciation of what all that actually means for humans who’ve undergone joint replacement. Book learnin’ loses yet another battle against reality.

Second, Camp Cardiac turns out to have been free from any of the possible complications of surgery, and Camp Hip Replacement tossed in a chapter on post-operative infection, AND an unhelpful section on the excitement of adverse drug interactions! It has been seldom a dull moment on the shores of Lake Whatsagoingtohappennextasauki.

And then the worst wrinkle, the one which has sent me to the freezer more than once, is that it’s the holiday season and my mom is addicted to the Hallmark channel.

Mom’s addiction was present in the weeks of Camp Cardiac, to be sure, but, it was not that most wonderful time of the year, and it was easily ignored. This time of year, the channel’s programming is at dialed up to maximum schmaltz. And not in the original Yiddish sense.

The Hallmark holiday recipe calls for an attractive white person to have lost a loved one/source of income/sense of purpose who then meets another attractive white person of the opposite sex who happens to have the exact solution for whatever the other person has lost. There’s usually some sort of “Christmas Magic” or “Convenient Miracle,” in which all Scrooges are reformed, the money to save the beloved and benevolent church/school/business/main character magically appears, and the attractive white people fall in love, remember the true meaning of the holiday, have all of their dreams come true and everyone has the Best. Christmas. Ever.

At the risk of being cast as the Scrooge, bah humbug.

I am tired of hearing the message that one day, someone will magically appear in your life and have the perfect solution to all your problems *and* be your own personal soul mate *and* make all your dreams come true. Nothing turns me into a cynic faster than fantasies filled with pat answers and magical solutions.  And there is not enough insulin in the world to successfully metabolize the toxic levels of glucose in my system from a week’s 24-hour a day diet of these confections.

I feel like Camp Hip Replacement is about the perfect set-up for a Hallmark movie – Long-suffering single lady comes to take care of her mom during the holidays while mom recovers from surgery. Soon she meets the guy who recognizes her hidden talents and not only gives her some time away from Camp Hip Replacement, but he has need of a talented writer to head-up a new fiction division in his large, successful publishing house. Not only does he really think she’s hilarious and enchanting and worth knowing, but, he’s brilliant and kind and he gets along with her whole family, including everyone’s dogs, so, naturally, within a few days, they’re in love and all of their problems are solved and the two of them live happily ever after.   nbsp;

That this never happened, nor is it likely to ever happen, well, that might give you some insight into my less than charitable feelings toward the Hallmark Channel. It might be time for another trip to the freezer.

 

This mailing marks the end of the fifth year of this “whatever this is,” which also means it’s the start of the six year of “whatever this is.”

You would think that after five years of “whatever this is” I would have a better name for this than “whatever this is.” You have a very good point.

I’m now wishing I’d not mentioned that this was the anniversary and we didn’t have to have this awkward conversation about “whatever this is” and I could go on pretending that I have a clue about, well, anything at all.

What is it about anniversaries that prompts introspection and reflection and all that bologna that is decidedly serious and painful and not at all conducive to punchlines? It really makes it so I’m stuck with undercutting honesty with awkward rambling. At least it increases my word count.

Where was I?

Right. I was trying to avoid schmaltzy anniversary-prompted introspection with a bunch of obfuscation.

That reminds me! This is the holiday season!

In the spirit of the holidays, I want to share with you one of the things that makes me particularly thankful.

That would be YOU.

I know, it’s a bit schmaltzy in a different way, but, that doesn’t mean it’s not true. I am grateful for all of you who have stuck beside me, through good jokes and bad, through recycled content and episodes of nonsensical rambling, you are still here.

You are still here, right? You didn’t maybe check out after the part where I confessed that I have no clue about “whatever this is” or the part where I might’ve said something about being thankful for you, and that was slightly awkward, so you stopped reading and started looking for the “unsubscribe” link…

…If you ARE still here, thank you. Without you, not only would I have given this “whatever this is” up years ago, but, a third of the content of this particular mailing would be much more pathetic than it already is. You have yourselves to thank for giving me something to not only be thankful for, but for giving me something with which to fill this space.

That means, if you’re tired of reading this, you only have yourselves to blame.

In this season of giving, however, I will let you off the hook, and go back to simply being grateful for you. I will also wish you a season of joy and laughter, and hope you are as grateful for yourselves as I am, and that you are feeling warm and happy and full of gratitude for all that you have. Maybe, just maybe, there’s still a tiny spot within your generous soul that’s also a tiny bit grateful that you are still reading this “whatever it is.”

Dearest Loved Ones (that’s you, my loyal readers),

It is time yet again when I sit down and write the annual Christmas letter. You are possibly wondering why, in the era of Facebook, why I would resort to such a quaint and antiquated tradition as sending you a holiday card with a long info-dump of my fabulous year, copied onto a sheet of common copy paper. Afterall, nobody saves the amazing milestones and accomplishments of their storybook lives for a year-end round-up any more. They just post them in real-time.

Me, I prefer the only slightly less impersonal approach of a physical form letter (we’re pretending that you got this in an actual letter, instead of via e-mail. Work with me here.)  mailed in a festive card which arrived in your mail, to the status update that will probably get buried in your newsfeed, because, let’s face it, Facebook thinks we don’t really like each other all that much and has decided you don’t really want to see my updates.

A feature of the form letter is an overly exhaustive review of all the things the letter writer and their family has accomplished since the last letter. You force yourself to read it even though you are thinking to yourself that the writer is a complete narcissist, and you wish you were done reading it already so you can throw it in the trash. There aren’t even any cute baby pictures in here to make it more palatable.

One of the highlights of my year came in March, where my sister and her family came in from out of state to visit. We did some of the usual touristy things, and you’ve probably already tuned this part out because you don’t know them and I have, yet again, failed to give you cute pictures.

After this was Denver Comic Con, at which I was again a volunteer, and I had the usual adventures in customer service, got involved in a pitched light saber battle with my sister, and had random encounters with celebrities who will not remember them. You might’ve seen the pictures on Facebook.

Then there was the big drama of the year, which was the infamous car accident, which set-off the fight with the insurance company, and the adventure of the rental car. The conclusion of that adventure was that my car was fixed, and is doing great.

(Of course, since we are pretending this came to you in print, you’re probably scratching your head about the randomly underlined bits of text, which are making you wonder if I’ve abandoned my good sense of typography and taken up bad habits from some creator of fanatical propaganda pamphlets. Instead, this is looking like an awkward highlights reel clipshow.)

This is the part where I tell you about my exciting new projects for 2017. I am mostly hoping you ignore this part of the letter.

The good news is that I’m coming to the end of a standard sheet of letter copy paper, and have no wish to spend the money to make these letters double-sided, so, I’ll let you off the hook early, and let you get to the “put the letter in the trash” part of this exercise.

I wish you and yours a wonderful holiday season, filled with light and love, and joy and laughter. Thanks for reading through to the end.