US Tech Support

Dear World --

The United States of America, your quality supplier of ideals of liberty and democracy, would like to apologize for its 2001-2008 service outage.

The technical fault that led to this eight-year service interruption has been located.

Replacement components were ordered Tuesday night, November 4th, and have begun arriving.
Early tests of the new equipment indicate that it is functioning correctly and we expect it to be operational by mid-January.

We apologize for and deeply regret any inconvenience caused by the outage and we look forward to resuming full service again and hopefully even to improving it in years to come. Thank you for your patience.

The USA

It's the most wonderful time of the year

see Sarah Palin pictures

The Annual Christmas Letter.... verbatim

Dear Friends,

Sooo, 2008 has pretty much bit. That's the way to open up a holiday catchemup letter, doncha think? I know that this is the part where you're sposed to be all thankful for the blessings and such, but I thought I'd be novel and just be truthful. Sucked. Ass.

First of all there's that lovely economic meltdown joy. Then there's electing a president of color in the same year that you destroy the civil rights of all the gay folks. sheesh. A resurgence of the dear old KKK? Sarah effin Palin? Poor temps trampled to death at Walmart? WALMART? What the hell is in Walmart worth stomping some poor bastard to DEATH for? Who needs a mood disorder to be suicidal in this mess? fa la la la la... lala... lala.

I somehow feel better now. Anyhooter, things have not been glorious starting with my week in CrazyCamp, otherwise known as Peer Counselor training in beautiful, downtown Tacoma. Didn't realize how much therapy I really need till I spent 40 unforgettable hours talking about it. Then Richard had what was sposed to be a routine hernia repair... until he developed a staph infection and was almost neglected to death by Dr. Kervork... I mean his surgeon. He's looking like he might just return to his old self but it's going to be a long haul. Not to mention the bill. And my boy lost his second job of the year. Good times.

On the flip, Richard and I both lost a person... (yes, don't we look smashing!) and the perfect child is thriving. Amanda really LOVES Seattle, God help them all, and she's single and burning it down. On Facebook. (No future in politics for her.) John and Steph made it to two years and counting and seem to be really solid. I taught my second Family to Family Class and lived. I'm still working, even if it's slower than I like, and I haven't murdered my husband... yet.

Hope things are better with you and that you manage to avoid the usual psychotic family crap, and instead enjoy the good stuff of the season - shiny lights not brought on by hallucinogens, the smell of evergreen and Starbucks salted caramel hot chocolate in abundance! Uh Huh!

Merry Christmas,