Long Live the Recap

 A Year in Review

Was trying to remember if I used to write annual re-caps, but everything is messed up on my blog, and it's difficult to navigate. There seemed to be some kind of end-of-year post in 2012, when I wrote a whopping 34 entries!!! I am not sure my wrists ever recovered. Two posts in 2015 UGH. Is it too early for resolutions? I RESOLVE AT LEAST ONCE A MONTH IN 2025

This past year was quite eventful, though. It sort of reminds me of 1994, when I moved to Romania for a year and every day was like HOW MANY PAGES ARE THERE IN THIS DIARY BECAUSE MAN I'M GONNA HAVE TO FLIP IT OVER AND WRITE ON THE BACK PAGES MAYHAPS.

(Aside - there used to be this old website called constraind, I think - anyway, it was before blogging, and it had these neat little writing prompts with all sorts of rules, and the one I always remember is 'write a personal narrative without using the word I,' and unless you're Tarzan, that's a fairly challenging exercise.)

Ahem. Alex let me get LASIK. (Is it Lasic? Lasek? I was typing too fast once asking this question in an email and asked about vlasic, true story it was a real pickle). But since I'm old, I now need reading glasses. Honestly, it was worth the change, because I still do so much stuff outdoors. 

Lots of snowboarding in 2023, for instance. 

Not as much running as 2021, but still lots of running.

Way more traveling than I have done in years. I had beignets in New Orleans.

Camping with the fam in northern California.

Soft shell crabs in Baltimore.

Saw the Mariners the day they took over first place! (HINT- IT DIDN'T LAST)

Spent a week fishing outside of Glacier Bay National Park, in Elfin Cove, Alaska.

Moped around DC.

Embarrassingly, I had never been to the San Juans, even though I've lived in Washington for 25 years. Rented a house for my 50th birthday for the whole clan.

Mom turned 70 and rented a place in Leavenworth (and we went hiking with Shari!).

Went to Portland for the funeral of a good friend. 

Moved to beardtown USA

Experienced Barbenheimer.

Boating/Hiking/Mushrooms, like always.

Naya graduated from Fire Academy and Tristan joined my monthly poker game, which I have been playing for over 15 years. 

This is almost certainly the last year with all of our pets. We made the trip to the vet for Butters to say goodbye, as he has cancer, but for some reason, has seemed to make quite the recovery. Palina is 15, blind, deaf and incontinent, but not ready for the rainbow bridge. Mimi is deadly, and that blade cuts both ways. Making the woeful preparations for a dogless home some time in 2025.

As a kid, I was obsessed with dying before I reached 30, and to make it to 50 reminds me of that time in 1987, there was a Rygar arcade game at the rec center in Fort Drum, where we lived, and somehow it was busted into (NOT ME) and the rec center staff never seemed to care enough to repair it, so it was free games all the time. I feel like I have been given a cheat code.

That's not to say the year didn't have its challenges. I had to have a minor, painful surgery. We spent at least 30K on house repairs, car repairs, dental/doctor work and veterinarian bills. Changing careers was not quite as smooth a process as I had imagined, and I found myself stressed out due to work on a few more occasions than I would have liked. I kept catching myself talking to myself out loud, which apparently, is maybe a defense mechanism we enact in order to interrupt negative self-destructive thoughts.

Oh, but just so we understand that it's important to end the year on a positive note, I scheduled my first ever colonoscopy for December 27th. Just in time for an election year.

2023 is dead. Long live 2023.