Just another Auld Lang Syne*

With Christmas and all the drama of buying poor presents for my wife and maybe only Nastia (now Anna) and myself needing or really wanting the presents (Sorry, Elena, you were quite when the gifts were opened and I'm sure you appreciate them.)in the rear view mirror New Years is rushing up upon us. New Years is a holiday like Thanksgiving that usually doesn't require purchasing gifts. You just have to show up to eat or drink or maybe stay home and be safe. When I was younger we had a friend who'd throw parties and New Years was one of them. If it wasn't for him I might have rarely gone out on New Years. Since Covid Eric has not had any New Years parties and look who is staying home. I guess that's not totally true. I went to the movies on New Year's eve yesterday. I saw 'Avatar, way of the water' ' or something like that. I hope all of you future people don't know what 'woke culture' is, but right now I am very aware of it. So aware of it that I count the types of people Disney has put into their films. I'm a live and let live person, but Disney has a check list when it makes a movie these days and they have to check all of the boxes. Make sure they include a little bit of everything, except when it comes to the bad guys, they're usually middle aged to old white guys, like in Avatar. Enough on the soap box.

This picture is from last January. This year New Years Day it was 51. Nastia, told her new job she could only work mornings, so it is no surprise when they ignored her wishes and schedule her for one in the afternoon to nine at night Saturday New Years eve and one to nine New Years Day. Teri told her to find a new job. In this economy, even with it slowing, there are alot of low wage jobs open she could get, but she'll stay until she gets worn out by them. It sorta of explains her dating life, except she's a stayer, you know someone who doesn't leave a relationship even if it's not perfect, He who will not be named, her former boyfriend is the perfect example.She was always chasing after him and he seemed to only be in it only when it worked for him. Sean is a 180 from him. He is fully invested in the relationship and so is Nastia. So when someone talks about the future...(it'll get here way too soon...), oh, boy. I did tell her if she wants to live here after she got married, if memory serves, she laughed and said "hell, no" or words to that effect. When she has to pay bills and fix dinner every night after working a full day, we'll revisit it, I'm sure. So Nastia is working. Sean is picking her up and Elena is going over to Matt's, while Teri and I are going to see Avatar. Just before the movie starts Elena texts us, Matt canceled, he has a headache. I'm beginning to wonder if something is up with him? So she stayed home. She ate dinner in front of the TV and is in bed before midnight, I think. I didn't see her or Nastia after Teri and I got home from the movies. I'm trying to give Nastia and Sean space, the way Al Galan gave his daughter (girlfriend when I was around 24) and I space when we were going out. Teri and I watch Netflix until five minutes to twelve. I put on Dick Clark's Rockin New Years with Ryan Seacrest. I didn't remember it being this stupid, insipid* and annoying. Does that mean I'm growing up or are younger people willing to watch all that stupidity? A woman is trying to interview a couple that was kissing and her questions just made my skin crawl and I had to yell. Once Teri found out what I was going on about, she ignored me.

Nastia was upstairs with Sean watching Japanese Animi Hunter x Hunter and something about the shower or bath scene scene. Nastia said she like his hair when it is down and wouldn't kick him out of her bed, while Sean kept calling him a pedophile. I think I watched the scene they were talking about and he is a perv. Japanese animi is a weird place, I've watched some. Elena continued to sleep. At midnight, Teri and I kiss and she goes to bed. Somhow I don't get to bed until 1:30 and yes, somehow I wake her up. The next morning, about 9AM or so, Elena is out of bed bright and early to go over Matt's house for the day.She leaves and everything is quiet. Teri is watching TV when I come down around 10AM. Nastia gets up around noon, to get ready to go to work. Sean slept over and is heading home, saying he is tired and is going to take a nap. Yesterday I made biscuits and they were good. Today, I ate some of the leftovers. They were not so good. Nastia eats the ones I leave. She hugs me and leaves for work. She'll work until nine and drive herself home. The eye doctor said her sight is good enough to drive at night. With her we always pray to God that she'li arrive home safely. I had eight days off in December. This is the last official day off until Memorial Day. *Lacks vigor or interest. *What is the poem Auld Lang Syne about? The lyrics of “Auld Lang Syne” are in the Scots language. The title, translated literally into standard English, is Old Long Since. The words can be interpreted as since long ago or for old times' sake. The lyrics are about old friends having a drink and recalling adventures they had long ago. Now we all know what the song means, maybe?

Christmas 2022

Well believe it or not, Christmas is upon us. Life gets into a routine,It's Monday, let me just get through Monday. Then it's Tuesday, almost half way through the week and so on, Wednesday, bowling, Thursday, last day until casual Friday. Then it's the weekend.This how the weeks mostly go and then suddenly it's Christmas. It seems like just last week I was looking at Christmas in the rearview mirror and now the weather is colder and it's suddenly past Thanksgiving, but wait, slow it down. I need time to get the tree up and the decorations outside up and I want to make cookies!!

With Elena's help and encouragement, sorta, a light that showed Christmas pictures on the side of the house and the light up deer were put on the north lawn. I was going to put up actual lights, but I got Covid after getting

a cold and Teri got Covid the same week. She could work from home, I said I couldn't. I checked when I went back and yes I would have not been able to work from home. Through all of this Nastia and Elena didn't get Covid or a cold or the flu. Nastia did get a cough and it got to the point she went to the doctor and got medicine for it. Neither Teri or I went to the doctor even though we both had Covid, mild cases.

Christmas Eve was a nonevent, nothing exciting happened. It was a Saturday, the weather was cold, below normal. I wrapped Teri's gifts. As good as I did last year, this year her gifts were all impersonal and functional (a soap holder for the tub, vacuum bags for the rumba- I'm embarrassed to even write them down.) My whole problem with what Christmas has become

was on full display this year. No one needed anything, but gifts you must buy.I feel that a gift to the 'Human Fund' would have been better then what I got her.* Now as far as the girls go, Teri came up with the idea to get them remote car starters. I thought they would be, "oh, thank you" and move on to the next gift. I was very pleased to see Nastia (who now goes by Anna, if I haven't said) was very happy to get one. Elena, I don't remember. I guess she opened it after Amanda's big reveal. I don't remember much after that. I was surprised.

Amanda had just gotten off a twelve hour overnight shift at Good Sam. She wanted to open presents as early as possible so she could get some sleep. The girls got up grouchily, oh for the days they'd wake up at 6AM and run down stairs when I told them Santa Claus had been her in the night. They don't even remember the story I told them about how I saw Santa when we lived in the Nyack House. Or when I told them I heard Santa and they better get to bed quickly and they did. They did get up and came down stairs. Everyone sat down and Elena and Teri started handing out presents. I didn't notice anything strange about the way Amanda was acting. She hands Teri a box to open first. I saw the corner of the picture, but I was always told Amanda didn't want kids. I guess everyone can change their minds Elena, and I guess she did. Neither Teri nor I knew what to say. Congratulations were handed out and the grandma joke started toward Nancy. I wish them well and I hope they can financially pull this off. Having kids cost so much and the costs seem to all be hidden, at least to me they were.

When we got the girls, the money started to flow out with the trip to Russia and for a while afterwards it didn't stop and I guess that was one of the things we did wrong. The other was a few poor financial decisions I made. The biggest was not wanting to refinance the house because I wanted the mortgage to end when I was still young enough to enjoy life. We finally refinanced just prior to Covid and I'll be 76 when it ends, if Teri doesn't insist we go south or I pay enough extra to end it earlier. Good luck to them, they'll need it, it's not easy to do. After presents Teri and Nastia made pizza-frete, you know fried pizza dough. It's always good.

Teri planned Christmas dinner for 2PM. It got tangled up in Muller time(still not patented) and we ate a little after 3:15. The meat thermometer, it turns out, didn't work and quit registering at 120. So our $5.99 Roast that we wanted medium rare came out medium well. It was still good, just not as good as it could have been. Dinner guests were only Nancy this year. Jessica (not the one with the son) had gone home on the 23rd. Sean spent time at one of his parents. Matt, who Teri was really looking forward to having him suffer, no that doesn't sound right, experience sounds nice and neutral. Teri wanted him to experience his second Christmas, but positive Covid tests were still happening around here. So he missed out. After dinner, Teri realized the dogs hadn't gotten their gifts. Athena really got into it, while Mesha and Bandi both looked at us with the expression, 'What are we supposed to do with this'. Mesha got so frustrated she left to find her ball. *What is the Human Fund from Seinfeld? Image result for Seinfeld- the human fund "The Human Fund" is a fake charity used by George Costanza. After getting a similar gift from his friend Tim Whatley, George gave out cards to his co-workers stating that a donation had been made to a charity called "The Human Fund", with the slogan, "Money For People." /