End of year review, aka "When was the last time you posted again?"

Delete Delete Delete...That...friends, is how I started this entry.  My non-existent "only-have-2-or-three-consistent-reader"/"who the frass blogs any more?" year end entry.  Because holy shit it was super duper negative.

I love and hate the Faceburg feature "On This Day".  Big surprise, I've loved and hated Faceburg over the last 12 months.  But honestly, 2014...15...16...*Every* year it's been "Well, this last year has been a challenge and I'm putting it behind me!"  Or, "Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out, 20--".  Right?  It's me.  And it's not me.  I try to project an air of positivity, but I'm not acknowledging the blind spot which is how I mindlessly add to the toxic nature of the world at large without thinking.  Boo on me.

This blaug was started ages ago when blaugs were a thing, and I wanted to talk about the house, my relationship, my family.  Everything in an anonymous abstract.  The rambled.  They roamed.  They changed.  And so has the world and how I interact with it.  So I wanted to, for a change, talk about a few things that happened in 2017 that meant a great deal to me and I found immense joy in.  You can find lists of positive things all over the interweb (Probably on Buzzfeed.  Shit like "Hey, the snow leopards are off the endangered species list!"), and I'd like to add some goodness to the world.  Wanna hear about it?  Here it goes:

So...we got a dog...

Blu.  Mr. Blutarsky.  Manjammer.  Dogbeef.  Mr. Farts.  I agreed to my wife's request that we consider a dog, after we get the back 40 fenced in, and after a few visits we made this guy come to his forever home.  He's been a joy.  Frustrating.  Expensive (hello, heartworms).  But there's been nothing like the loving I get when I come home and he hep hep heps up on the couch waiting for scritches.  He is literally my heart, and I'm not ashamed to be one of those people who say "He rescued me..." Metaphorically speaking.

Catbeef remains underwhelmed, but they get along just fine.

After the cockfloppery which was the election, we decided to take part of the first wave of action.  And I can't begin to tell you how good it felt...

This would continue our attempts at activism in whatever way we could.  We gave to ACLU, SPLC, Planned Parenthood.  We spoke up.  And we're still trying to make sense of the world.  Meanwhile, being part of it was an amazing experience that only required the purchase of a light rail pass.


We traveled...

Oh, Orlando.  I had wanted to go park to park to park to the beach, but I won't discount the joy we had being in the bright sunshine in March, and visiting a place I hadn't been in over 20 years.  My wif'e's reaction at seeing Hogwart's castle for the first time was worth the trip 1000 times over.

Yeah.  Terrible time.


Oh...you probably all don't remember my desire to get out of my comfort zone?   I did.  Big time...

1st, was getting into a musical.  A MUSICAL YOU SAY?  Yep.  It was challenging, in a lot of ways.  But my favorite part of theater is building up my framily.  And look at these guys.  I lost my job during this show, but it was literally (next to the mrs.) the one big thing that kept me afloat in early Spring.

Ok, so that last one is from an unrelated production on a website that makes fun of terrible theater PR photos.  But it cracks me up.

Spring gave way to Summer, and the terror I felt at not having a job (in spite of getting severance) was also lightened a bit by scoring a pretty well paying gig.  I'm somehow "winning" at playing fat farmers.  Shut it.  And watch.  "Ayyyyy".

I also engaged in a bit of self-care.  Last time I lost my job, I found my way into remorse and day drinking.  I actively made a self-pledge to (not) do that and to (not) beat myself up if I cocktailed now and again.  My stomach thanked me.  I ran my 5th "Get in Gear" Rite of Spring with buddies, and even though it was a 5K, I felt pretty good about continuing the streak.

And lest you think I traded in my tough guy cred (I had tough guy cred?), I still went to train at Karate, saw my instructor and fellow black belt get promoted to "master", and somehow managed to escape the year injury-free, as well as help up and coming future black belts of America train for their test.

My wife has been doubling down her work outs this year in a display that can only be considered inspirational.  And while I would go the the gym while funemployed, we really tried working on the self-care thing we started the year with. And while I'm not down in weight, taking a break from drinking helped sort of set my reset, so when I went in for my physical I found out that I wasn't the terrible cirrhotic mess I thought I would be.  Yeah, they said I could lose 20 lbs (what?!?) and my BP was still elevated, but cholesterol looked manageable sans drugs.  Beat that.

Lookit these nerds.  Christmas day, before Mikeymas, making use of the Hyatt Downtown's facilities.  We had it to ourselves, so I sort of felt like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson with our own private gym

I was able to play at the family cabin this Summer.  My in-laws got a pontoon boat they christened "The Black Pearl", and the first time out my FIL threw me behind the wheel and had me take her out.  My own dad didn't even let me take our boat out without his supervision, and there I was pirating my way around Balsam Lake.

Blu.  Great as a passenger.  Useless as a co-pilot.

I ended up finding work at the end of the year as a contract employee for an educational testing company, setting up another scary Halloween diorama, *not* hosting Thanksgiving at my home for a change, and really- really ramping up the Christmas joy and spirit for my wife and my 2nd Christmas together as a married couple.  I also managed to find myself cast in a Christmas show and made some new friends...

Spoiler alert!!!  It's the final scene, suckers!!!

Ok.  So I really messed up the year end round up by not posting this in January of this year.  Here we are in November of 2018...TWENTY EIGHTEEN!  And I'm putting on the full stop brakes to change up the format and the direction.  I'll probably wind up archiving all of the inane drivel seen here for the last decade..the wandering and meandering prose, the nonsense and frass.  And hopefully find something more meaningful in the months ahead.

May's coming sooner rather than later.

Yours always, The Happy Christmas Baby