This Month's Story

Every Christmas, Stella and I receive Christmas Cards containing newsletters. This last Christmas was no different. I received nearly twenty of those laser-printed letters crammed full of excruciatingly detailed accounts of how the senders, Bobb and Janeth, their two precociously adorable children, Normane and Physalia, and their amazingly lovable albino St. Bernard, Spot, gloriously plowed their way through an otherwise perfect good year.

I’m starting to feel, however, that there is a rule somewhere that if a person doesn’t send a Christmas newsletter that that person has had a bad, or much worse, a dull year. I don’t want people to have that impression and so I have written a Christmas newsletter that we intend to send out this coming Christmas. In case you don’t receive yours, here is an advance copy:

“Seasons greetings to (name from computer Xmas list # 213)! We hope you’ve had a good year. As usual, ours was fabulous!

As you have undoubtedly heard, Stella has taken up hang gliding and, except for the incident with the helicopter, has done extremely well. We feel strongly that the insurance companies will get it all straightened out fairly soon.

To be honest, it was the ducks that we really feel badly about. The ducks and, of course, the partial burning of the City Hall. It still seems to both Stella and I that the Mayor reacted unfairly. His office was not even in that part of the building.

I, too, tried hang gliding, but lost interest after the damage I did to our chimney. The doctor has told me that I probably will not need to have both of my knees replaced and the bricklayers have told us confidentially that the chimney was old and would probably have needed replacing anyway. They seemed very nice and after the repair work sent us lovely postcards from their new place in the Bahamas (the bricklayers, not the doctor; his place is in Bermuda).

Stella and I took the first week in May to visit Liechtenstein, Tunisia, Estonia, Iceland, Monaco, the subways of South Central Venice and of course, our yearly favorite, downtown Pittsburgh.

Despite my fluency in Russian, I found that we had language problems in many of these places. People would stop and stare with what I can only suppose was amazed delight when I began to speak even the simplest Russian phrases. However, we managed to get by these problems using an old Spanish primer that Stella luckily had with her.

I can’t begin to tell you how this can be useful when things get difficult. I have found that the mere shouting of “Ole!” in a crowded room clears the air very quickly. People stop whatever they are doing and look our way with undisguised interest. In almost every instance, these same people, after finding out who we were and how long we were planning to stay, went out of their way to help speed us to the next stop on our excitingly travel agenda.

We will repeat the trip next May. I am ordering a second Spanish primer.

This year Fang, the dog we rented for the summer holidays, managed to initiate several games with Holly, our cat. It is really amazing how cute they played together. Several times, we have looked to the back of the house in time to see Holly flying over the roof as part of Fang’s personal flying lessons. Unfortunately, Holly, who was looking rather peaked from the intensity of the lessons, is spending a few weeks with Dr. Ralph, our kindly old veterinarian. Holly has sent us several postcards from Dr. Ralph’s intensive care wing. These closely resemble bomb threats, but we are sure they were sent in the spirit of fun.

I am sorry to say that this year I was again passed over by the Noble Prize committee. I’m sure you will agree that there has to have been some error and I have written to them about this. They replied with a very nice form letter printed in Latin with very impressive script lettering. Stella has had it framed and hung in the guest bathroom out back under the oak tree.

We do look forward to the chance of your visiting us this year. In this regard, I should say that things have changed since your last visit. We have floors in most of the rooms and the pesky cattle guard at the front door has been removed since that part of the house has been sealed off altogether. Also most of the rooms now have windows and many of these have either glass or bars.

So, (name to be filled in from computer Xmas list #213) we wish you the best tidings for the New Year and despite the rather harsh words we’ve exchanged in the past, a very happy ....

Ole!!!

Paul and Stella