Catching Up

Placeholder:

I'm giving up on 'Catching Up' for the moment, because it feels like I'd have to go swimming in mashed potatoes everytime I think about having to find a way to chronicle the entirety of December 2008. I realize this may become the blog-entry-in-progress that never gets finished, a la the book on how to stop procrastinating that never gets read. Nevertheless, onward ho...2009 has already begun!

Special Birthday Video Message from L.A. Uncles

Personally, I find it nearly impossible to believe that any uncle(s) would send a special birthday video message without including a round of personally-sung "Happy Birthday to You," but these uncles of Django's do live in L.A. That's got to explain it somehow.

Oh, and when I refused to post this video to the blog, saying it just didn't meet my standards for inclusion without the song, they threatened to withhold special birthday gifts they're bringing me for Django's birthday happy hour this Friday. Hmpf.

I'm not usually one to cave to such pressure. But, this way, I have technically fulfilled my end of the bargain while getting to complain about it, too...You go ahead and watch. You'll see. The song is just begging to be sung.

Now We Are One

Memory -- or, mine anyway -- is a sentimental creature. A dramatic and fickle one, too. It doesn't always work. When it does, it almost never just replays it like it really was. (I mean, really, when was the last time you remembered an ordinary day?) Which is why, in part, I've been writing this blog all year. I didn't trust myself to remember much with any degree of accuracy if I didn't write it down as it happened. And yet, after all the words, there remains a simple feeling: this day last year was the best day of my life.

As Rachel just said in an email to me: "With all the good and bad and constant flow of achingly poignant moments, I can't remember who I was or what I was doing without them [her 2 boys]."

Me neither. And here's to it.