Well, here we are on New Year's Eve day a little after 12 noon. It's drizzling outside but the hope is for partially sunny weather for tomorrow's Rose Parade, a stable in my life for...well, I can't remember when it became a tradition, i just know I've been watching the Rose Parade from when Bob Eubanks and Stephanie Edwards were the hosts and Stephanie was probably my age...so late 80s?
Despite being a big fan of the parade, I've only been to see it live once, in 2019 with Mom & Christine. It was supposed to be a family affair and we were going to stay in Joyce's house in Pasadena while they were away for the holidays. But they decided not to go to the beach house that year, so didn't have room for all of us to stay, just us girls and Christine had to sleep on the blow up bed sharing a basement guest bedroom with me. It was cold and little sleep was had, but we had a wonderful New Year's Eve celebrating with Joyce, Leigh and Sean, and the parade was wonderful.
Good times.
We had talked about going again in a couple of years, but Covid put an end to that. Perhaps I'll go again in the future, maybe take the grandkids, so, distant future.
A lot has happened in the five years since, Christine zipped up the ladder at work from cashier to multiple dept. manager filling several different retail roles in between. Josh graduated from U of R and got a great environmental job. Both kids had adult romantic relationships and currently Josh has been dating Brenna for year, a good match, and Christine is decidedly single. Although she really wants to be in a relationship, a good person to date has yet to show up on her radar. I can see why, today's dating pool for single, straight, educated, mature, self-supporting, democracy believing women, is quite limited. I thought I had it bad 20 years ago, today is far worse. Interestingly, both Dave and I believe that she'd find better matches in Humboldt, where forward thinking, open-minded folks seem to gather, especially with Humboldt State becoming a Cal Poly university. Of, course we could be wrong and it's wishful thinking on our part because she was happy up there for her college years, and so were we for a few months last year when we lived there...and it's where we wanted to move, but you know that story already.
My big accomplishment in the past five years is going to grad school and graduating Summa Cum Laude, even if my small little college didn't recognize such achievements. A disappointment for sure, but it doesn't change the accomplishment, getting straight A's for the kind of curriculum that I took is a feat. I have to remind myself of that when I get frustrated over how little I've done since, as my life sits in limbo waiting for the fortuitous intersection of interest rates, housing prices, and husband's work accepting 95% remote work. Of course, there's more to it than that. The bigger truth is while we have had a plan, we really don't have the foundation in place to do what we have planned. Yes, we have the starting blocks but not the rest of what it takes to build an educational land offering partnering with Universities. And while Dave is onboard with our plan, he's more 'co-pilot in the jump seat' than 'co-pilot flying the plane' and I know I can't fly this dream by myself.
Dave has gone from OpX team (international scheduling platform development) back to running So.Cal scheduling (much needed as it all fell apart in the two years he was gone) as a remote position with the pandemic (and why we thought we could move to Humboldt). Now back in the office three days a week, he continues to run the scheduling ship as only he knows how (after twenty years of so much social, economic, and political change, he's definitely the expert) and they are looking to add areas for him to oversee, growing his position into more of West Coast Director, although I'm sure they don't want to pay for that title. His pay is just enough to keep him doing what he does, but not enough to take on more, and should a similar job come along for better pay, he could consider a change...especially if it's remote.
And, of course, we bought our current house in 2019, so, yeah, a lot has happened in the past five years.
Looking at the past year as a stand alone year, not much has changed in the past twelve months. The first big ticket item for this year was Christine moving out. In a way, this was hug change; Christine out on her own (with a roommate) and us on our own, proper empty-nesters. The change was rather seamless, at least for us, with none of those 'kids leaving home' kind of emotions. But, to be fair, it could be because she just moved fifteen minutes away and she's here typically once a week. It could also be that it was time and we were all ready to move onto the next phase of life. It also afforded us to save $133 a month on not having an art storage unit, as we moved all the art into Dave's former office, aka the basement. But with inflation, that savings was quickly eaten up by regular life.
The second big ticket item was mom's 90th birthday, and it really was the highlight of the year. In a way, her visit was our mother-daughter trip equivalent, with the added bonus of also being a grandmother/mother-daughter/mother- granddaughter/daughter trip and a family gathering. There were some hiccups, mom didn't like us all taking such good care of her, she said it made her feel like we thought she couldn't take care of herself. We explained that we were helping out to make things easy and fun, not because she can't do shit herself. Mom also experienced for the first time, how close Christine and I are and it was an adjustment for her. When we've been together, it has always been she & I. The addition of Christine, meant to bring three generations together (although not blood related) made for a division of my attention between them, something Christine is more familiar with, but not mom. I get it, for the past 23 years it's been mom & I, she wasn't prepared for a mom, me & Christine. Not matter, she adores Christine and passed on her favorite 'sun' necklace from Na Hoku to her when we gave her the new 'Diamond Head' necklace from Na Hoku for her birthday. She was genuinely surprised we had pulled off such a surprise gift as she had been trying to buy it for herself. But I had already put the ball in motion months before she did, and Carrie, our long time connection at Na Hoku, helped us with the ruse to surprise mom on her birthday. Mom's twelve days here consisted of a day at Disneyland, three days in San Diego visiting Balboa Park and downtown little Italy District, followed by a day at the San Diego Safari Park. We also met up with long time friend from U of R college days, Ivy, and had a great dinner just a block from our beach front hotel. We ended the visit with mom's birthday party that Joyce, Leigh and Sean came down from Pasadena to celebrate along with us and the kids, including Brenna. Getting the whole thing to work out was quite the juggling act, but it work out great. We had catered pick up from Nordstrom's that was delicious and had the house all set up for hanging out, eating and enjoying the day.
Good times.
So, now, here we are, the last day of 2023 and I'm happy to say goodbye and good riddance. For me it has been a year of trying to figure out what is going on in my body and finally getting a diagnosis and trying different treatments to get rid of SIBO; an 8 month journey of hell I never would have thought possible from just having an overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine. Up until a few days ago, I thought I was never going to feel better, but, a week after finishing antibiotics and shifting to a low fermentation diet, I actually am beginning to feel hopeful that I can get rid of SIBO or at worst, manage it to where it doesn't continue to ruin my life. I'll end on that note of hopefulness, it's the place to be on New Year's Eve...a privileged place of course. Having to deal with the problems of SIBO pale in comparison to the horrors happening around the world at this moment. I won't list them as you know what there are, and if you don't know all of them, you'll be depressed by seeing how much more there is than you knew, and that's not where I want to leave you.
May 2024 evolve into the year the world needs to be a better place for humanity, for the planet, for democracy, for peace.