Well, it's that time of the year again. It's when your mailbox is suddenly filled with what is known as The Christmas Letter. They come from friends and family and sometimes from people you hardly know. They write telling you about the year they just had and how they are thinking about how blessed they are and how they are so looking forward to the New Year.
So, I thought I would write a Christmas letter, from our family to yours.
Here goes . . .
Well, we have had a memorable year here in the Hughes household.
We got a dog, for starters. And the wonderful animal he is, he only peed on the floor eight times and pooped on the floor just once. He puked three times by the front window. At least, he was consistent. Fortunately, the cleaning lady was still here when he pooped, although it did cost me an extra $40. The cat, meanwhile, caught some mice last winter as they tried to come out of the heating vents. He would play with them, kill them, and then leave them on the floor. He wiped out the whole family. Fortunately, the cleaning lady was still here, so she threw them out. The cat, bless his soul, never peed or pooped on the floor. But he did throw up a couple of times.
We were sure glad we bought this house with a swimming pool in the backyard. Given the kind of weather we had last summer, I think we were in it, maybe, eight times. That worked out to about $800 a swim. You know how they say, "When you have a pool, you have a whole lot of new friends turning up." Not this year.
The boys are still living in Calgary, one working, the other going to school. When they come home, they always want to have a "few" friends over for a barbecue and a swim. We always say, sure have them over. And, about 50 or 60 of their closest friends show up. That only costs about $500 in food and beer. But it's nice to see they have such a wide circle of friends.
We almost had a fatality in the pool this year. One of wife's Agents; Kim at Exit Realty Fusion came over and brought her two dogs; Bella and Bear with her. One of them, the dog, not the Agent, is really old and pretty well blind. It is a good thing they looked over as he had wandered out onto the pool cover and then fell through it and into the water.
It is always fun around here, wondering just when it will be the dog finally does the cat in. The dog is an Australian Shepherd, the cat has no papers. The dog is a herder by nature, and, so, he is always trying to shove the cat where the cat doesn't want to go. I always tell the cat, "Don't worry, he thinks you are a sheep". One day, we found the dog standing over the cat, his jaws wrapped around the cat's head, his right paw on the cat's back. That was so cute. It would have made for a great Christmas card photo, but we were too busy trying to extricate the cat to take a picture.
We received wonderful news the other day. The wife's sister and her husband are coming to Saskatchewan from Halifax for Christmas. And, best of all, they are bringing their two cats. We can hardly wait. The dog can hardly wait, too. I am laying odds that she'll be lucky if she leaves town with the same number of cats as she came with. Feeling all warm and gushy over this pending visit, I said to my wife, "I want you to understand right now and I want your sister to understand right now that I am assuming zero responsibility for the welfare of her cats. If the dog gets them, tough."
The dog has lots of energy, and he is getting bigger and bigger. He is only eight months old, but he is a handful. One day, my mother-in-law was visiting from the farm in Pelly, and she decided to take the dog for a walk. She was almost dragged back to Pelly before she got control of him. We haven't seen her since.
One day, the dog had no energy. Finally, we took him to the vet. They said he would have to stay there for the weekend to cure whatever it was he had. On Sunday, the vet called me. "Can you come over and visit your dog?" she asked. Why? I said. "He's depressed. He's not eating." What? I'm watching the NFL. But I went over. I had to put on a pair of knee high rubber boots and then went into the cage. I went in, patted him, and whispered, "Eat this, or you're dead, the game is going into the fourth quarter." He ate and I went home. The next day, they phoned and said he could come home. I went and picked him up. They said the bill was $800. I asked the vet, "How much to put him down?"
We traveled a little this year, and saw some interesting sights. It only cost about $15,000.
Well, that's about all the news from here for this year. Sometimes, I think our life has gone to the cats and dogs. Just kidding.
