See, What Happened Was (A toast to '24 - bet it's shorter than last year's)

 

Good riddance, '24 (and yet - we'll miss you)

Here we go again. It's time to toast the passing of another year. If you're unfamiliar with how this goes, see the 2023 and 2017 and 2013 versions. Not sure why I must always wait until the New Year is just a couple hours away, but it is what it is. Hey - maybe the limited time will motivate me to be brief! We can only hope.

Here's to January, another blur of year-end gift processing heroics by yours truly, conducted in the quiet offices of Beloved Employer, in the fashionable West End of Washington, DC. It was exceptionally cold. Then it was SEVENTY, and all the Metro platforms turned to weirdly-slippery death traps, for a couple of days. You should have seen DC's subway commuters, shuffling along like Tim Conway's old man persona in a desperate attempt to remain upright. It was less fun than it sounds.

Cheers, 70-degree January evening!

There was some cooking, as well. Here, because I thought they looked pretty...

Korean veggie lettuce cups. Pretty, non?

Here's to February. Cheers. Yay, February.

My tree! Look what you've done to my tree!!

Here's a sad fact. February 19th was the last time I posted to my poor neglected bloggy space. At least it was a HOBO STORY.

No cheers for March. I lost a water heater and another of my beloved uncles. Yeah, we had the Madness, but it was a bit meh. Better luck next March...

Big cheers to April, though! [Maris] and I trekked to Lake Erie, where we photographed lighthouses for the first time in 13 years - and covered bridges after an even longer drought. We also hung out with family from all over, and oh yeah - there was a total solar eclipse...

I'm ready!

No photos will ever do justice to the experience of witnessing this with one's own eyeballs, but here's what the old Nikon saw...

See ya in a few, sun...

[gasp]

I'll have a corona, thanks.

See? It's all downhill from there. Trust me - it is. Cheers to May for baseball, a nephew's hope-filled high school graduation, and a teeny turtle...

Let's lose to the O's in 12!

What the hell, man? Put me down!

I don't remember anything about June, except that we had a little outbreak of weak Maryland and Virginia tornadoes, and they were too close for comfort. So, no toast for you, June.

Mostly cheers for July. The Olympics were fun. Helping a relative move for the third time in five years was not. Biden dropping out of the election put a bit of a charge into a lot of people. DC was kind of abuzz, really. Otherwise - hazy, hot, and humid.

Cheers, August. You too were hazy, hot, and humid. 

"It's too freakin' hot - even on the white part of the car."

September. meh. Thanks to [Maris]'s employer, we got to experience ballpark amenities to which we're hardly accustomed - and a great view of our scrappy young rebooting Nats...

...and keep 'em comin'

Still not really baseball, to me, but fun!

Predictably (unless you don't know me - hi, I'm Joe!), I can almost always raise a glass to October, because OBX gluttony and sloth vacations are the BEST...

First, fancy drinks. Food not pictured.

Don't wake me for sunrises that don't look like this.

I fell asleep again. What day is it?

Visible aurora in Kill Devil Hills, NC. WHAT??

Mostly, November can just go eff off and die. It knows what it did. Even if I was utterly ignorant of politics and democracy and autocracy and oligarchs and all that stuff - to feel the energy in DC on the 5th, versus every day since is just criminal. We'll see how it all unfolds. As Yoda said, "Always in motion is the future." *sigh*

Finally, let's give December her due. Here's to you, final month of 2024. We got all kinds of busy with trees in convertibles (they know me at the fire station, now), and we took [Maris]'s gnomes to work, and we rocked out with our old friends the Trans-Siberian Orchestra...

Sometimes it's unseasonably warm for this. Not so, today.

First Class, all the way...

"Morale here must be through the roof!"

"Get some big donations - we wanna ring the bells!"

Trying to match Chris' energy...

A lot like the eclipse, it's hard to adequately photograph.

((devil horns for these two on the cranes))

That's all, folks. Raise a glass to 2024. Whether you're saying "good riddance," or "OMG you're gonna look like paradise, a few weeks from now," cheers to you, and you, and you - wherever you are. Enjoy yourself - it's later than you think.

And I'll leave you with these gentle reminders...

(probably)

"We're ready. Keep your hats pointy, everyone!"

Good Night, and Happy New Year!

See, What Happened Was... (A Toast, Probably A Short One)

Here's to you, 2023. You could have been worse.

I've done this sort of post several times before, so I guess it's a tradition, at this point. My favorites were 2013's See, What Happened Was... (which includes the origin story of that goofy title, and 2017... It's Not Me - It's You, one of my many breakup conversations with the inanimate. We have just under three hours of 2023 left, so let's be brief. 

Here's to January, which is mostly a blur of overtime and end-of-year gift processing for Beloved Employer, aided by my trusty endangered black-footed helperferrets...

"Is this really only one day's worth??"

Here's to February, the first half of which [Maris] and I spent with COVID. Yeah, I know. We were at least two years late. All the cool kids had caught it ages ago. What can I say? We've both spent our lives being unfashionably late for every fad or trend, ever. Why would COVID be any different? Our cases were relatively mild, which was still BLEAH, but made us grateful for all those shots.

February was also the month in which we learned that not only had Beloved Employer sold our dingy-but-cherished HQ building (5ish minutes from home), but they had also changed course and would not be finding another suburban space for us in-office personnel. We would be asked to commute to the fashionable but 75- to 90-minutes away "West End" of DC, where we maintain another mostly-empty office. I'm not exactly "cheers-ing" that... yet.

Here's to March, with its requisite Madness, made all the madder by the rapid preparation for leaving our HQ. If you've ever moved out of an apartment or house, you're no doubt familiar with being fully overwhelmed at seeing how much STUFF has accumulated and needs to be packed or thrown away/given away etc.. Yeah - try that with an office building that once held several hundred employees who apparently never got rid of anything over the past 35 years. So that was fun - and it was just beginning.

Wait - you know what? No cheers for March, either! I forgot Mom dislocated her shoulder for maybe the 30th time, and sat in an E.R. waiting room hellscape for about 13 hours. I was literally searching for an open walk-in clinic when they finally called her name. Next time, we're just going to slam her into a door frame, a la Mel Gibson's character in "Lethal Weapon."

Hmm... Cheers withheld for April, too. I grudgingly started shedding cubicle stuff in preparation for a downsized and not nearby cube in DC. Started taking wistful pictures of the old, rapidly-emptying office...

See? Sad.

Here's to May, because I feel bad not clinking glasses with one month after another. I worked my last day in the office right down the street...

Bye, cow painted by famous guy whose name escapes me...

...and worked my first day at the beautiful but distant DC office. To be fair, I love it there. There are some fabulous colleagues who, like me, actually come in to the office quite a bit, so that's been fun. The commute isn't even really that bad (when the weather is good and Metro's not broken). It just takes so LONG to get there. I marvel at you people with two-hour commutes for years and decades on end. Here's to you!

We're *DC* black-footed ferrets, now!

Here's to June! Nothing happened! Worked on my commuting skills, did some cooking and grilling and got a teensy idea for a possible twelfth novel, and a friend said, "do it," and [Maris] said "see you in August..."

Here's to July, during which I managed to crank out over 56,000 words, several of which might actually go together in ways that make sense. I don't know. I haven't reread it, yet - or finished it. I just kind of kept going. I can do that. It's a gift.

Here's to August! Nothing happened! It was hot, or something. Probably humid, too. Kept writing. Got a little bogged-down, but stayed in the fight...

Cheers, September. I'm sure you were a nice month. I appreciated learning of my promotion, which came a mere eleven months after I took on all that important, time-sensitive work. And the continuing wordiness that had my little novel #12 at over 80,000 words by month's end. Also, I was pretty much finished decorating for Halloween by then...

"Help!"

Here's to October, because vacation. 'Nuff said...

That'll do, OBX. That'll do.

Hi bird! Could you just scootch a bit to the right?

Here's to you, November, when I inexplicably decided to have another go at "National Blog Posting Month," and write a new post every day (which here means night) for the entire month. Actually, it's pretty explicable - it's because I am some sort of masochist. I did it, though! And one of those 30 bits of drivel was MY 300th POST!

Is that a lot? Also, do you dig our hats?

Also in November, we found The Last Spider. You can read about it in one of the "Thankfulness" posts from that month...

Hi. I'm not even hiding, dude. Sheesh.

Here's to December, still echoing in my exhausted ears. There was the Trans-Siberian Orchestra...

((Christmas Devil Horns))

There were [Maris]'s gnomes, and their 12 days of shenanigans...

They had a lot of help, this year. Merry Christmas, fellas.

There were downs, there were ups. Sadly, there was NOT peace on earth (not enough, anyway). But in my tiny sliver of the planet, the month ended strong.

So let's raise a glass to 2023, and eat, drink, and be merry. Most of us are keenly aware of what kind of show 2024 promises to be. I'll regret saying this, but tonight I say BRING IT. The good people of this country and others will find our way through this. We shall breathe in, breathe out, and stay in the fight - together.

Cheers...

NEXT! Or, "Encroachment - Next Thing - Five-yard Penalty, Repeat First Down."

 

'Tis TIME!!
No it's not - get out of the bows! Photo by Joe-elf

Happy Thanksgiving, readers. I hope all four or five of you had a happy, healthy, safe and thankful day. This will be quick, because we're all stuffed and exhausted, and because this post is just a little follow-up to TO ONE I WROTE IN 2012, and its central observation is the same as it was eleven years ago, only more so.

If you didn't bother to click on that link and reread the 2012 post, I can summarize really quickly: we as a short-attention span society are being force-fed the NEXT THING, often before we're even finished with the thing we're doing. Christmas-- sorry, holiday music was playing by mid-November, you say? 

2023 says "Hold my beer..."

July. July 14th - and probably a week old. Photo by Joe

Yeah. If there's a limit to how much the next holiday/event can encroach on the current one, we haven't hit it yet. Halloween candy and décor in stores by mid-July. Christmas candy and décor in stores in August. August!! No wonder our supply chains can't handle a little global pandemic. We may soon start selling next year's Christmas before this year's is over - our holiday hype seasons will have lapped each other!

That's all. The next thing is encroaching closer and closer to today's thing. End of sermon. No point or lesson or anything - not even a punchline. 

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to put away the Christmas decorations, to make way for next Halloween... What? Next Halloween is over? Fine, I'll put next year's Christmas stuff up, now...

Happy baseball All-Star Break, everyone!

Thankfulnessapalooza 2023 - Part Two (of Three)

Okay, dear readers, let's see if I can find ten more things for which I'm thankful, and not ten things for which I've previously expressed my gratitude on this here blog. [spoiler alert: I think I can!] If you missed part one of this year's list, CLICK HERE!

Okay - let's do this...

Pretty, and loud. TSO in DC, 2022 - photo by Joe

I am thankful for all the concerts I've been fortunate enough to witness. This could be its own long, long post, but let's just list some of the live acts I've seen... Pretenders, Iggy Pop, Art of Noise, Tangerine Dream, Bon Jovi (at Giants Stadium!), KISS, The Who, BRUCE, AC/DC, Depeche Mode, Midnight Oil, Styx, Ian Hunter, Jimmy Buffett, Rush, Yes, Shriekback, The Cure, Peter Murphy, some others I'm not recalling at the moment, and a whole lot of Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Simple Minds.

It's like 2016-2020 all over again - photo by Joe

My workplace "protesters." Most were rescued from the free table, and earlier this year, when we closed our crumbling-but-beloved suburban office, most of them were given away to worthy recipients (local police took some!). A few made the move to the DC office - a move that they are still officially protesting, although I'm pretty sure they secretly love it there.

Thank you for rescuing us! - photo by Joe

Speaking of the closing of my suburban workplace - I rescued these lights from its abandoned patio and moved them to my own. I'm weirdly proud to have them live on in my backyard.

It's... It's indescribably beautiful! - photo by Joe

Okay, this one's a little odd, but whatever. We have a drink cupboard. It is almost never as perfectly fully-stocked as it is in this picture, but on the rare occasions when this happens, it is kind of a work of art, to this beholder.

Hey - I'm FLYIN' here... - photo by Joe

Not much to say, here. I'm thankful for serendipitous fly-by photobombs by shorebirds, when shooting a sunset. 

"Is that a lot?" - photo by Joe

It had been a few years since I bled out a hasty little novel in a month, and I was urged to go for it again (more on the urging later this month, probably), so I did. It needs a LOT of revision, and it's still not done, but it exists. So, yeah. Thanks for the word count, 2023!

"Why isn't Joe here today?" - photo by K. Schrader

Super thankful for our dogs in the workplace program. We have hardly any PEOPLE in the workplace, so there are precious few dogs, but one of my favorites is this little sparkplug named Mabel. Her human sent me this picture a couple of days ago, when I was working from home. I feel so guilty, I might just have to start going to the office every day...

"I'm hungry, and you're gonna be my new person." - photo by S. McVeigh

Speaking of the office - I'm SOOOOO grateful to mark one year since this sweet dude found the perfect home. He was abandoned outside the HSUS building out in the 'burbs, and sort of lurked in our storm drains for a few days before a few of us mobilized to coax him out, catch him, confirm (via his chip and a helpful local vet) that his owners didn't want him back (dicks), and get him into a loving home. One year later, he's pretty much the king of that castle, so it's all good.

Note the snow-free pavement - photo by Joe

Snow. I'm very thankful for snow. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA no! I'm an adult now. I have zero use for snow. However... I will grant you that it is pretty, and if it could just snow enough to coat the ground and trees, and leave all paved surfaces wet (no ice, please), then yeah, I could consider being a teensy bit grateful for it.

"Where are the hot buttered rum recipes?" - photo by Joe

Gnomes. How can I not be thankful for these dudes? They're a lot like the thankfulness thing, in that it is increasingly challenging to come up with new ideas for them. Will we do it again, this Christmas? Yeah, we probably will.

Thanks for coming, you three. Four? FIVE??? No, probably not five... but a man can dream. See you tomorrow...