Sunday, March 6, 2016

The holiday letter I never wrote

A quick update on all four of us:

Ed….still works for the Seattle Times. Will this be his final year in the newspaper business? We shall see.  Earning a batch of APSE awards has renewed his energy for things like waking up at 4am every Monday to write a Seahawks column (even in the offseason!) and returning phone calls to elderly readers who want to know what channel the Huskies game will be broadcasted. The very best thing is when he returns their call and they don't remember calling him in the first place. Ed is very into podcasts these days and we are officially the old married couple barking at each other over his earbuds. He is also the token dad at hiking club (a group of mom friends and kids who hike a local spot every Monday afternoon).

Noé…is finally accepting his fate as a middle school student. The transition last fall to a new school with older kids and new expectations was pretty rough. He continues to love his Adele and Amy Winehouse and spends a lot of time after school playing their records on his record player. In his 'History of Rock and Roll' elective class at school, he introduced the class to Miles Davis after he requested Miles Davis on his iPad when the class was listening to music. His teacher found an album to play for the class and was pretty amazed that a 13 year old with severe autism knew 'Kind of Blue'. After a period of boredom and non-participation in his Keyboarding class (his other inclusion class), I emailed his teacher lyrics to all of his favorite Adele songs for him to practice typing out and Noé has eagerly attended class ever since. I just signed him up for three weeks at his favorite outdoor day camp this summer, which I tell myself is all for him, but it really is all about my own summer break sanity.

Asher…discovered a hidden passion for Star Wars when the last movie came out, after previously claiming to be "the type of kid who just isn't into Star Wars." When Asher likes something, he likes it ALL the way. We have known this since he was two years old and fell in love with trains and our lives were hijacked by Thomas the Tank Engine. He watched all the Star Wars movies in short succession, read the books, including the Origami Yoda series. His bedroom has now been transformed into a Star Wars origami production factory. He also just started another season of Ultimate Frisbee, the official spring sport in Seattle, and will start spring soccer soon as well.  At his piano recital last month, he played his song beautifully, but after he finished the song, his piano teacher, who was sitting next to me, looked over with a look of bemused shock and said, "that's not the one we practiced for tonight!"I guess you could say he's the type of kid who isn't afraid to go off script a little….

Me (Jen)… is still working at the same job I tried to quit three years ago when we moved to Seattle.  Every time I think about finding something else, I remember what I love most about it…zero commute time, the scaled-back summer hours, and the East Coast schedule which means I'm done early and can justify working in my pajamas. So basically I'm lazy. I've even figured out how to adjust the camera on my laptop so that I can video conference and no one has any idea I am wearing pajamas, as long as I remember to brush my hair. I am still also a small business owner as well, peddling LEGO robots to 2nd graders like crack cocaine. I meant to have reached a decision at this point - whether or not to grow the business into something full time and legitimate, keep it as a side gig, or let it die, but I really haven't decided its fate. The economics say go full-on, but I am tired of being up to my eyeballs in LEGOs. Plus, my heart tells me that I was truly meant to be a poor, unknown writer, and I have officially written four paragraphs of my very first book to prove it.

I think I speak for all of us when I say we continue to love the Seattle life. The city sustains us all in different ways. Noé loves hiking through the streets of the city and in its forest corridors, along with the ubiquitous water. Asher loves studying the city and figuring out ways to make it run better. Ed loves his return to urban living, and the role he has been able to play in building up a very fine sports team at the Times. For me, I love everything about PNW life and there isn't much that could tear me away from it.






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