2006: The Year In Review

I got this idea from my sister-in-law Kate, and I tweaked it a little. Here’s how it works:

You take the first couple of lines from the first and last post for each month. Feel free to edit stuff out, or add stuff that wasn’t there in the first place, to make for more entertaining reading. Run them all together chronologically and you have your year in review, all in a neat little package. Go ahead. Try it for yourself. Reduce all of the last 12 months to a few random lines of print.

So, without further ado, here’s my 100% accurate, mostly complete, totally concise

YEAR IN REVIEW

May: I'm finally going to follow my kids' examples and start a blog. What I hope to do is have a place where I can spout off to a potentially large audience (much larger, anyway, than family campouts, holiday meals and parties) and also to connect folks with widely varying interests and backgrounds.

Hah! Lance Armstrong is cleared of doping. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, France.

June: Robert Kosilek has been serving a life sentence in prison since 1990, after being convicted of strangling his wife. Now going by the name "Michelle" he's suing the Massachussets Department of Correction for the 2nd time, trying to get the state to pay for a sex change operation.

It's no longer chaos here at the compound. Almost all of the errands are done.

July: "Anyone who idolizes a zombie dope fiend is going to burn in hell."
--James Denson, also 78, whose mother was Elvis' mother Gladys' good friend.

You know that distinct briny taste you get in your mouth when you go to the beach, or go snorkeling? It's the taste of BACTERIA!!!!

August: I miss Andy Kaufman. What can I say?

MizBubs and I recently returned from fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada, where we:
-belatedly celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary,
-said goodbye to summer and sunshine, and
-spent some good time alone, together, to steel ourselves for the hubbub of school and MizBubs' return to full-time employment.

September: This is the farm owned by some of MizBubs' extended family (her sister's in-laws) about an hour west of Dubuque, Iowa.

This is from Viva Las Vegas VIII in 2005. I thought hurtling down a parking ramp in one of these looked like a swell time, but Miz Bubs assured me that was the beer talking.

October: Dig my suede vest. I was very groovy. And studious.

"Kill the brain and you kill the ghoul."

November: This is me, about to light the fuse, and I have that same sense of fierce determination and anticipation.

Check out this picture:
I get home from work at eleven o'clock, after driving through what's turning into a pretty intense ice storm out here in the northwest suburbs.

December: Today started with having to deal with the consequences of District 214's truly sh*tty and backwards-ass decision to NOT cancel classes for today: by 7:30 the car was dug out, cleaned off and the driveway was shoveled, and I had deposited one unhappy daughter at school. MizBubs, girl dynamo, cleared off the sidewalk and helped the neighbor dig out before I got home.

Happy New Year!