Pluggers by Rick McKee for December 09, 2023

What? Getting a pacemaker or an implanted defibrillator isn’t “interesting”?

January: didn’t die.

February:…

Doggie not find interesting all those vibrant colourful fire hydrants he finds throughout year in I IS NOT ROBOT DOGGIE Test?

… changed the Smoke Detector batteries … changed two light bulbs … cut the grass 30 times …caught three mice …

For me just signing and sending out the Christmas cards is enough to do , let alone write a letter ! That happy chore starts next week ;-)

Lisa got straight A’s. And Bart… well, we love Bart!

Either lost track of the grandkids or they’re too old to report on any more. Time to move on to the fishing and hunting trips, camping trips, hobby projects, etc.

I could do two Christmas letters with the crap that’s gone on with me health wise. I told someone the other day that the only doctor I haven’t seen was a gynecologist .

None of my sibs know where I live and I like it like that.

Nothing until Sept 29, day before 63 BD. Ruptured the left foot fascia tendon. I N C R E D I B L E P A I N ! Two and a half months later, I still can’t put a shoe on.

We don’t get many annual Christmas letters anymore since Facebook began offering the same info 365 days/yr. And I never look at FB, so I’m good!

Just because you’re a plugger doesn’t meant you can’t do stuff that’s interesting:

“I volunteered again at the grade school library and helped them sort books for their fund-raising book sale. School libraries are a good place to donate kid books. They often need to replace books due to accidents, losses, and damage and whatever they can’t use on the shelves, they can sell.

“I continued my pottery classes. We made bird feeders and wind chimes, tiny vases, tree ornaments, and cereal bowls. My successful bowls went to the local “Empty Bowls” fund-raiser. Other successes may find their way into Christmas wrappers [warning]. My goal for next session is pet dishes. One of my friends makes dog water bowls and paints a picture of the dog in the bottom. I won’t go that far, but I do hope to have a good set of water bowls and cat plates by the end of the session.

“I joined a “serious” book club and the first topic was about recycling and trash — “Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash.” We had a speaker from the county recycling center who explained what can be recycled and what can’t. Next we reviewed several books about the Sand Creek Massacre and visited the exhibit at the History Colorado Center. Our winter topic is Happiness. We will be reviewing the World Happiness Report 2023 [US is #15] and exploring what happiness really means.

“During winter break, our family went to the Denver museum to see the exhibit on “The Unseen Ocean.” Wow! Who knew that many deep sea creatures are bioflorescent. There are special molecules in their skin which, instead of simply reflecting light the way most pigments do, they absorb light, then re-emit it.In October, we took our grandkids to the nearby Butterfly Pavilion to see their special exhibit on Arachnids Around the World. We also enjoyed the butterflies and their small ocean exhibit. The kids were sure the octopus ‘hiding’ in the coral was waving to them but I figured it was just yawning. . ."

About 8 or 12 paragraphs on a cruise around Japan then repositioning via Alaska. Three on everything else.

I can never think of anything to say either.

From today’s Comics Curmudgeon:

Sure, “pluggers lead incredibly boring lives and can’t think of anything even vaguely interesting to put into a letter” is a pretty funny bit. But when you think about the fact that Pluggers is a comic composed entirely of anecdotes derived from letters sent in by pluggers, and what we see are the most interesting out of them — well, let’s just say there are a lot of layers to this one.

the only way to really do that is keep a log or journal during the year noting the “highlights”

My family already knows our highlights due to social media. I still send out cards because I used to enjoy getting them and I want to share that with others.

Remember the past year? I can’t remember last week.

Hip or knee replacements are interesting, right?

If you fixed the toilet in March, you’re also probably a Plunger. :)

Well, Steve Agnew of Blaine, Washington, I’ll bet you took a few trips to Canada (“El Norte”?) this past year.

Man, I detest those end of year brag letters. I always thought it’d be great to just write “return to sender” on ’em…

I won four million dollars in the lottery. Other than that not much.

We never sent out or received any of those letters. Some photo cards as a couple of our friends are artists – one friend draws pictures of each family group (each child of theirs with the spouse and children of same) on a card and prints it up to send out. We normally get a photo card of the daughter of the neighbor to our south – have not received one yet this year, I guess she must be in junior high and too old for same(?).

We send out cards to our immediate families, a handful of fellow members of our reenactment unit, a few members (less than our reenact unit) in my EGA chapter, and less than 10 friends of husband’s from high school/college. I have no contact with anyone from my high school so i don’t send any cards to same, I do send cards to my accounting clients – my dad taught me to always do so – a subtle reminder to contact me for their taxes again in 2024 – plus I know some of these clients since I was barely in my teens as they were clients of dad’s. (One woman – the first work I did for my dad in accounting when I was 10 was to add up (on the adding machine) payroll books for some of his clients who had employees. I am still preparing income tax returns for her, the daughter of that client – that’s a long relationship.)