Happy Christmas

I told Pedro I would put our Christmas letter somewhere online and give him the link to pass on to his family. I decided I might as well put it here on my blog and then everyone can see!

I’ve been writing very long Christmas letters since 1995, and if you don’t have time to read it all, no worries. Just look at the photos from our adventures in 2023. My love to each of you.

2023 – First Christmas in our new home

  My brother Tanner and his family had time to stop on their way through for the holidays and we gave them a tour of the new house. Tanner and I met in 2019 and things have changed so much. Back then I was lonely and sometimes bitter about it. But today, Pedro and I share a home. As Pedro said, combining our homes was a huge challenge and a huge accomplishment. There was a lot of planning and a little bit of luck. So far, we’re still glad we made the change.

     But let’s back up. At the end of 2022 I got my last Covid shot. After that I finally pulled my spare masks out of my purse and the jockey box in the Jeep and put them away. I LOVE having the luxury of being able to make bad choices about Covid. Diligence is exhausting and I’d rather be diligent about raising awareness of issues I’m passionate about: indigenous people, equality, democracy, transgender rights, chickens, human oppression around the world. I’ve had these conversations all year long, probably at least one of them with you. (Yeah, chickens.)

     In January I began putting together a team of all-women veterans to be the Belle Brigade with me. Our former Captain and most of the team didn’t stay on from last year. As the new Captain, I had to find NINE new veteran women willing to commit to a year of training, meetings, and fees, culminating in a grueling non-stop, two-day race. It was stressful, but still pretty damned fun, and the new team was awesome, and by the end of August we kicked @ss and had a blast at the Portland to Coast race. For my birthday, we went to a Blazers game with tickets from Ian & Karen.

  In addition to the Cherokee newsletter, Talking Leaves, and the Great Spirit church newsletter that I publish, this February I was on the election committee for the first time. I negotiated tempests and tempers in the only contentious vote I’ve ever seen at the Mt. Hood Cherokees. The job suits my personality (Capricorn), and I enjoyed the role of neutral rule-follower and vote counter. Like my former job at VA, when big emotions cloud the project, it’s a relief to use laws to find a clear path forward. For Pedro’s birthday we went cross-country skiing at Mt. Hood.

     In March it was my turn to visit my friend Margaret at her home near Santa Rosa, CA. I finally met Allen, who was throwing a big 60^th birthday bash and I joined a gaggle of her other girlfriends and we all stayed overnight at a wildlife safari. Pedro and I went out to see his favourite band, Badflower. I loved their music and loved even more the opening band, Des Rocks, and added them both to my playlist. While volunteering, I met another volunteer, Felice, who said she was trying out a new career in real estate. Pedro and I eventually hired her.

  I flew to Boise in April for an informal high school reunion where I saw familiar faces I haven’t seen in ages. I stayed with my brother and sister-in-law Eli & Addie and got to visit my nephews Parker & Paxton. Next I jumped on another plane for Annapolis, where I had been invited to teach for VFW once more. In this class, I used AI-generated images as a teaching tool and that turned out to be effective and fun. I am absolutely fascinated with the existential challenges and advantages of incorporating AI into our lives.

     May was our fourth month looking at houses for sale and we were getting a feel for the real estate market, which was not good in 2023. Pedro’s friend and former boss, Jon, retired from OCHIN in May. Jon hired Pedro in 2006 so they had worked together for 18 years. Kellen and I camped at Champoeg State Park for Mother’s Day for our camping tradition, then we both participated in the Hippie Chick race the next day. It was Kellen’s first race ever and I enjoyed sharing one of my hobbies with them. In addition to that race, this year I was in the Shamrock Run and the Hunger Run in March, and the Reflection Run in May.

     By the time June rolled around, we were wrapping up our months-long efforts to complete home improvement projects at both our homes. Before anyone was ready, we accidentally found the home we wanted, and then we really had to scramble to make it all happen. It was an incredibly stressful and celebratory summer without attending a lot of the performances we usually see, or hikes, or camping. We were consistently grateful for our privileged life, being in an unsteady economy and yet selling homes for profit and buying a home for an eye-watering sum and a startlingly high interest rate.

  I have lived alone since 2011, and since then credited most of my PTSD healing to the fact that I moved out of the city and lived by myself. What will happen when I move back to the city and share a home again? My relationships of the past have always crashed and burned, so how can I move forward and commit to another man? Pedro has his fears as well, admitting that he likes being alone too. He worried because he saw how worried I was, and didn’t want to tear me away from the home and land I loved so much, but absolutely could not envision himself living there. For both of us, the promise of potential won out, and we are leaning heavily on trust while we can’t see the future.

     Also in June we saw Pedro’s twins’ final Senior projects at their High School, Beaverton Academy of Science and Engineering. Liam presented the potential benefits of testosterone supplements in teens with scoliosis, and Andre presented a better rat trap (literally) that his team built. A week later they graduated! Kellen went to Oklahoma to learn more about our Native heritage as one representative of our local group, the Mt. Hood Cherokees. The trip included a conference and tours of important sites in Cherokee Nation. The highlight was touring the new immersion language center for children and adults, where teaching is all in Cherokee. I stayed home and helped my friend Vladimir move to a new home in a different part of Portland. Everybody was moving this year! My brother, Travis, and his family moved back to Seattle, and my brother Ian moved away from Seattle to Walla Walla.

     The first week of July I was interviewed by the BBC for a quick little story on their Happy Podcast. It made me very happy. My Jeep’s check engine light came on and I spent another couple thousand fixing it. While it was in the shop my friend Sandy picked me up and we spent a day exploring Astoria. This was after thousands spent having to replace the radiator in May. After all the bills settle into a routine, my next big purchase in 2024 is going to be a new car. I’m looking at EVs this time. I got to host my nephew Brandon at my house again, and he was glad to fish the pond one last time. Pedro and I drove him home to Montana and then we stayed a few days to visit the family. While there we hiked up to a mountain lake and did some target shooting, then we all went to an Incubus concert with Badflower as the opener.

  My friends once more outdid themselves to shower us in love when it was time to move. At the end of the month Mads and Udi flew out from Boston with Kai and stayed with me in Rainier my very last week in that home. They were with us when we picked up the keys for the new house, and actually changed their travel plans to help us unload the UHaul. Andre and Liam, along with Kellen and Cameron and a friend from high school, all pitched in to unload the storage pod. To my delight, Kin & Noel and their kids came down from the Seattle area to help us move Pedro’s stuff from his townhouse into the new house.

     A former co-worker reached out to say he lived five minutes away from us and asked how he could help. That’s how Norman became our pet-sitter, and we are immensely grateful.  From the first night we stayed in the new house, it seemed like we were never there. We spent a week in Washington, D.C. for Pedro’s work conference. It was his first time in the Nation’s Capital, so he extended the trip by a day and a half and we visited the Capitol Building, all the monuments along the National Mall, and the National Museum of the American Indian and the Museum of Natural History.  Then it was time for the Portland to Coast I had been planning all year for. As he did in earlier years, Pedro volunteered for the big race while I joined my team for an epic weekend. I got news halfway through that my cousin Dan had died. His twin sister, Debbie, called me in shock, and by some miracle the call went through to me in the mountains. As I raced my next leg, only minutes later, I made plans in my head to go to Debbie as soon as I could. Two days later we were on a plane to Mexico.

  Pedro and I agree that the most important events of the year for us were the new house and the Mexico trip. I got to meet his family FINALLY after three years. The twins, Pedro and I spent a week being tourists in the Yucatán, then a week with family in Guanajuato. It was their first time back in six years, and my first time in mainland Mexico.

  We stayed in Valladolid and explored the ruins of Ek’Balam and got to climb to the top of a Mayan pyramid. We swam in a cenote; a sinkhole in the jungle. Then we stayed at Tulum and watched the sun set from the beach before spending an afternoon at an exotic animal sanctuary where a monkey jumped on our heads! In Pedro’s hometown of Guanajuato we were hosted each evening by one of Pedro’s siblings and were treated like celebrities. It was so important to have the kids spend time with their family, and personally it was huge for me to meet them. The Rivera family is awesome, and they worked hard to make me feel welcome, though I barely understood what was being said despite having studied Spanish for years. We walked all over the gorgeous, carnival-coloured city of Guanajuato while Pedro told us stories about growing up and going to University there. One day a whole group of us rented a bus to tour historical sites that are key to Mexican independence. We visited the astounding cemetery where the interred rest in walls stacked 7 stories high, holding his parents, his brother, and his grandparents. We also toured the famous Museum of Mummies.

     Back home I barely had time to do laundry in time to fly to Annapolis once more and teach for VFW. While I was gone, Pedro signed us up for a gym membership.  During most of the year, I was hobbling around on bad knees. I injured one during speed walk training, and with all the hard work of packing and repairs and hauling furniture, I injured the second one by overcompensating. No diagnosis has resulted, but I had four visits with a VA physical therapist who told me that my muscles from my back to my feet were all weak and that was the source of the problem. Pedro and I have been going to the gym three times a week and I have not wavered in my PT. There is no more pain, the swelling is completely gone in both knees, and I can almost squat again. I rested for a week, then finally had time to go to Nevada and spend some time and grieve the loss of Dan with Debbie, Mike, and Aunt Bunny, and I got to meet Deb’s horse, Sam.

    Racecar, my old lady cat, turned 17 in September and despite kidney disease, missing teeth, and total deafness, she seems to be doing ok. She loves the new home and had no trauma in the move, to our relief. The chickens have had a rockier start, and it seems like once a month we come up with a new plan to make their lives (and ours) better. Once, the neighbor dogs dug under the fence and came into the chicken pen and chewed on two of the girls. Mathilda the Hen got it the worst with a paralyzed leg and wing. We thought she was a goner and told the owner of the dogs she died. The neighbor felt terrible and replaced her with THREE new hens. Over a month later, Mathilda seems to have made a full recovery and that will delight her fans on TikTok (yes, she has TikTok fans). The result is that we have nine hens and almost certainly are not in compliance with city regulations for farm animals. Shhhh, don’t tell! Since we’ve lived here we have seen bald eagles, deer, squirrels, skunks and raccoons in the yard as well as big neighbor dogs. Our neighbors tell us there are owls and coyotes often, too. I’m sure the girls are in just as much danger here as in Rainier.

     In September the twins began classes at Portland Community College and are continuing to stay at their mom’s house in Beaverton, and visit us a couple times a month. So far they are liking college and doing well in classes, though Andre has had his fill of online classes and hopes to take as many as possible in a classroom.

    In October we had no more trips, and at long last had a chance to start moving into the house. It’s a huge endeavor due to combining two households and trying to decide what to keep and what to donate. Additionally, there is a lot of work to do here to make the place our own. We’ve made tons of progress and we’re almost to the point where we can think about inviting people over. Almost. We took the kids one weekend to get pumpkins and were carving them when we got a surprise visit from sister-in-law Laurie, in town for training. The next weekend we took them to meet another Cherokee and watch the Pumpkin Regatta, where people race each other in a lake, inside of enormous hollowed-out pumpkins that they propel and steer with paddles.

     November heralded Portland’s Kumoricon anime convention, one of the biggest events of the year for Kellen and Cameron. They spent three days at the convention center dressed up and having fun. Kellen still works as an Assistant Program Manager for Just Bucket, a construction/excavation company, and Cameron works at the Mid-Willamette YMCA. For Thanksgiving, Pedro and I bought our traditional tamale feast ahead of time and carried it with us to stay at the White Eagle McMenamins in downtown Portland. Checked one more McMenamins off the list. I found out that my longtime friend Marcus Eaton will fly home from Italy to have a concert in Boise, and I’m gonna be there for it! I’ll also get to hang out with Eli’s family again then get back home to Pedro for Christmas. We have no particular plans but to enjoy our beautiful tree and each other, and our kids when we get to see them. The twins will be on break and winter is down time for Kellen’s employer, so this is when they get to rest up and work on sewing projects.

     Kellen emailed their contribution to this letter last night. It’s so real and humbling, I am going to leave it as your parting message:

  ”If I could include anything it would be how impactful the trip to Oklahoma was for me, and how happy I am to have the job that I do. The economy sucks, I don’t like or trust a single politician, but outside of that which I cannot control, I think things are looking up for me and Cameron. I’m excited to keeping growing and finding whichever improvement comes into my life next, inevitable setbacks notwithstanding.”

     “I know that’s cliche, but the events of the world right now have me so incredibly humble. What’s important to me is that I’m alive and have my partner and our cats and my family and none of us are under immediate threat of violent murder. My friend got married, I got to connect with my Cherokee side, I made some great friends this year, I couldn’t be more grateful for simply being allowed to survive right now. So the cliche comes from a dark place maybe, but it’s led to a healthy thankfulness and ability to enjoy the present.”

And that’s it! I am back from my Boise trip now, and the concert was great and it was especially nice to spend three days with my brother and sister-in-law and my nephews. We are expecting the boys to show up from their mom’s house at any moment.

{Update December 29, 2023: I have created a new page with all my old Christmas Letters. Yes, that’s right. Ok, well nearly all of them. Please check them out here. }