Treason of Words

[caption id="attachment_134" align="aligncenter" width="720"] A typical holiday afternoon at Stonebench.[/caption] Friends & Family, Thither & Yon, The world appears to spin faster and faster about the sun, each year briefer than the last, events separated by what once would have been long intervals now practically on top of one another. Reviewing our lives in 2011 reveals an astonishing wealth of life which has taken place in what feels like the blink of an eye. Thank you all for sharing in our joys and our miseries, whether in person, by voice, or by text; the encouragement and inspiration we receive from family and friends is truly beyond value. Emerging from the winter doldrums in March, we revisited a favorite getaway for a quick Spring Break recharge before Christina plunged back into the classroom. On this visit to Fredericksburg, we stayed in a peculiar lodging known as the 6666 Pullman Bed and Breakfast, a private Pullman car once used by...

[caption id="attachment_138" align="aligncenter" width="720"] At Grand Boulé, Dallas TX, Summer 2010.[/caption] To Those We are Thankful To and Thankful For, The interludes of 2010 have been few and fortunate. Their scarcity speaks both to life’s pace as well as its demands. Just as we confronted the limits of our endurance and talent, along came a respite sufficient to prepare us for another round. Our year began with a humbling and perplexing encounter with an unsavory element as Stonebench was breached and looted in a daytime robbery just minutes after our departure for work. While we found ourselves involuntarily relieved of electronics, tools and heirloom jewelry, the first priority was to locate the cats. Clever Smoke hid in the shower; agile Soot escaped under the deck, returning when his belly grumbled; and Audrey, a stray we were holding for her owner, was deposited in the coat closet by the thieving (but evidently not inhuman) intruders. Apart f...

[caption id="attachment_140" align="aligncenter" width="604"] At the Alpha Kappa Zeta Christmas Party, 2009[/caption] At Stonebench, Christmas 2009 To All Sharing Our Genes or Journeys, The final year of the Aughts found us once again in the thick of it, meeting challenges both expected and unexpected. We count ourselves supremely fortunate to have a family and a family of friends to share our adventures with. Not long after last year's letter was in the in the postman's hands, Russell checked into the hospital as planned to have a benign meningioma excised. Several hours later, 98% had been successfully removed, leaving only a calcified trace clinging to parts too tender to touch. All was well until his temperature began to climb dangerously. Many tense hours later, he awoke to begin a course of Dantrolene, the only treatment for his newly-discovered Malignant Hyperthermia. Within a few days, having bested both tumor and hyperthermia, Russell was...

  [caption id="attachment_146" align="aligncenter" width="720"] By the mantle at Stonebench.[/caption] To Our Familiar Friends & Friendly Family: A year cannot help but look frantic in retrospect, dozens of important events and scores of only somewhat less vital ones all clamoring for mention in the space of a few hundred words. Contrary to last year's message, we kicked off the year in Plano instead of Austin, the first of many changes-of-plan. The primary object of our discretionary time and treasure has been the new dependent we took under our wing last spring, the recently christened Stonebench, aka 1905 Rainy Meadows Dr. Spring Break brought the first Big Project . Master-izing the guest bath didn't sound so hard, but the plans went from walling off the second door, to replacing all the doors in the hall, to remodeling the hall completely. We made it over the finish line just in time to rest before work the next day. Other such endeavors ...

Dearest Friends and Beloved Family, The year has sped by at an astonishing pace. There hardly seems to have been enough time to fit in all that appears to have happened: the fear, the loss, the joy and the hope. It was not long after last year's letter went out that Russell resolved to look into the increasingly troubling spells he was experiencing. It was the last day of a major January ice storm here in Austin when he learned that scans had found a tumor on the top left side of his brain. It causes an occasional electrical disruption, sometimes accompanying a strange, brief, daydream-like experience, which is followed by a headache. The growth is benign, though, and a daily regime of medication has the symptoms under control. An annual scan for changes awaits in future summers. The beginning of the year also saw the passing of Christina's grandmother, and our return to Plano for the services. G'ma Streeter will be sorely missed, especially during the holiday season. Thi...

Treasured Family & Friends: This has been a year of milestones; although, it's all the little things that make it complete. After not quite a year of marriage, we finally worked in a honeymoon--a tropical vacation in March during Spring Break. Greater Ft. Lauderdale and Orlando, Florida as well as Nassau, Bahamas endured an exploration and thorough retail scouring. Our culinary horizons expanded a bit more to encompass the wonders of the plantain (in chip form), the conch (cracked), and other Floridian, Bahamanian, and Cuban tastiness. Following a stressful Spring semester and a languorous summer, we once more moved Christina's classroom, this time into the midst of the English department. Once again team teaching for one out of six class blocks with the capable Colleen Frerichs, Christina judiciously applies newfangled technology to the task of bringing literature both ancient and recent to the seemingly intractable mind of the modern freshman. Russell's Spring was als...

To Our Far-Flung Family and Friends: This has been an exciting year for us. Back on April 29—a mere nine and a half months after first meeting—we found ourselves in New Braunfels, Texas on the shore of the Comal River repeating marriage vows to one another. This, of course, after Christina's eyebrow-raising engagement announcement from the lectern at the Zeta Founders’ Day Observance but before Russell's understated comment via email to the Servicing Department accompanied by baked goods. Having each tied the knot once previously, establishing our household was a feat of integration. “His” bed, “her” table, “his” chaise, “her” sofa, now simply ours (except for when something goes wrong; then those are definitely “her” cats). With help from Russell's family, we migrated our separate third-floor apartments into a single third-floor home in the treetops. Home life has become routine but pleasant, providing Russell with an outlet for his culinary adventures on a nightly basis, ...