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December 2011 Dear Friends,
Our thoughts and prayers go out to you this season as you begin to celebrate whatever holiday you will be celebrating. We hope that this letter finds you in good health and gathered with your loved ones. The comedy and tragedy masks above seem to be particularly appropriate for 2011. It seems to have been that kind of a year. On the happy side of things, the top of the list was the birth of Lacie Ann to Tom and Laurel in September, joining sister Brianna, now 3-3/4.
Unlike her sister, Lacie is a baby who eats well, sleeps lots and hasn't given her parents the worries that Brianna did in her early months. As for Miss Bri, who doesn't really have splotches all over her face (though cheetahs do), she is growing into a lovely, intelligent, funny little kid who is a great 49er fan. On Halloween, these were the costumes....
(Isn't a football the very BEST costume for a newborn baby?) Another happy thing this year was the trip Walt and I took to China, with our friends the Blackfords (with whom we have now been traveling for 50 years!) It was a somewhat grueling trip, which included 8 flights from 7 airports and a 5 day cruise on the Yangtze, but what a fabulous trip it was! And we now know where our happy room is.
(I told Walt that we're going to have to find another communist country next year, since last year's photo was from Red Square in Moscow!). My personal goal was to walk the Great Wall, and I did. We also saw a lot of the "biggies" like the Terra Cotta warriors, the Forbidden City, the Peking Opera and so much more and we didn't eat Chinese food again for at least two weeks after our return! Later in the year, the four of us went to So. California to attend a taping of Jeopardy and watch UCLA trounce Cal at the Rose Bowl (in the stadium, not the Rose Bowl game itself, of course). It proved my hypothesis that whenever I attend a Cal game, they lose. No more Cal games for me! On the sad side of things, we had too many losses this year. Walt's mother died in March, at 97. It was bittersweet -- she had fought for so long and was finally reunited with her husband, who died in 1955. We all miss her terribly, but she would have been proud of the memorial service the kids arranged. If nothing else, we are great at funerals!
The other most difficult loss was the death of my cousin Kathy, one of the "Cousins Day" cousins, who lost her battle with COPD in October. It is good that she is out of her suffering, but she leaves a big hole in everyone's heart. Cousin Nora in Ireland died and her funeral was streamed on the internet from a church in Dublin, so we stayed up until 3 a.m. to watch it and say our goodbyes. The wonders of modern technology! There were also other good friends who died, making this an emotional roller coaster of a year. But thankfully, we seem to be all healthy now, even my 92 year old mother, who still lives independently and though her activities are a bit more limited due to some minor physical problems, she still continues to be the Energizer Bunny and I am glad to have the opportunity to spend so much time with her.
Ned, Marta, Jeri and Phil joined with the other members of the band Preoccupied Pipers and returned to the scene of their former Lawsuit triumphs, San Francisco's Hotel Utah, for one short concert as part of the International Pop Overthrow.
We had no foster dogs this year. Not one. At the end of last year, I talked about Polly, the Chihuahua who came in January of 2010 and as of December had not yet found a "forever home." In January 2011, she found one -- we adopted her. With three dogs of our own, now, we decided to take a break from fostering for awhile and it has been a nice break. I am still reviewing stage shows, about 50-60 a year, and my co-author Alison Lewis and I are continuing interviews for the 60th anniversary Lamplighter history, which may or may not be released in November of 2012. I also re-started "pen paling" this year, discovering how lively the pen pal community is on the Internet. I seem to have lost my Australian friend Peggy this year. She just kind of stopped writing without letting me know why, and I missed having someone to write to. So now I'm doing my bit to save the US postal service. Walt remains on the board of Citizens Who Care, a group which advocates for the frail elderly and their caregivers. He helps with the fund raisers -- a concert in February and a beer tasting in the fall each year. He still works at his old office occasionally and he flew to Boston to spend a week with Jeri while Phil was out here with Ned. He also did a fund-raising walk for Lou Gherig's disease, in memory of his friend Bill Cunningham, who died of it a few years back. As this year comes to an end, I wonder what is ahead for us in 2012. When we get together with friends now, we seem to mostly do "organ recitals" (who is suffering from which ailment) and comparison of who has died. That part is very depressing. But when I look to the grandchidren, I see that life goes on and that gives me hope. Love to all of you this season. ~
The Sykes Family ~ Bev's daily journal: Funny the World
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