2008: A Year in Review
Every now and then, a fill-in-the-blank note on facebook catches my eye. Here is a little trivia about a year in the life of…me!
1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?
So many, many things. Every day at work I do something I’ve never done (or even heard of) before. I touched a penguin, started decorating a house, paid someone to mow the lawn, put up Christmas lights by myself, wore contacts, got a library card, bought an expensive piece of jewelry for myself for no other reason than I wanted it, joined a new church, made new and wonderful friends while reconnecting with older ones, felt true dislike for someone for the first time and really hated that feeling, made enchilada sauce from scratch, got a flat tire, learned how to ride a bike , started a blog and kept it going, fell asleep on the floor at work and much more.
2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I make the same two resolutions every year, with one extra thrown in just so I can feel like a failure when I don’t do it. Every year I ask God for the strength and ability to become a more patient and less judgmental person. I have been praying this for about six years solid now, and while there is definitely an improvement, I have miles to go before I sleep. Last year I also resolved to floss, which I did pretty regularly until November when I couldn’t find mint-flavored floss anywhere. Yeah, I know.
My resolutions this year will be the same, but will also include reading my 365 Bible that is “written in 365 chapters for easy daily reading.” I just hope I can make it through Proverbs this time.
3. Did anyone you know give birth?
Several! I think my total baby count this year was three, not including the Duggars.
4. Did anyone you know die?
Oh, yes. I was hit by several deaths in a row this summer, one in the fall and one I just found out about yesterday. Every one of them was younger than 60 and left behind friends, families and communities that loved them oh-so-dearly. I would count all but one of these five deaths as an unforeseen tragedy, but I have confidence that they are now at peace.
5. What countries did you visit?
The good ol’ U.S. of A.
6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
A tax refund.
7. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I made it!
8. What was your biggest failure?
No failures, just lessons.
9. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Just chronic and annoying allergies.
10. What was the best thing you bought?
Thanks to 2007 Christmas gift cards, I bought a lot of things this year to decorate my home, from paint to curtains to rugs to art and I truly do enjoy my surroundings every day. Other than household things, I bought the aforementioned necklace, which is the only expensive thing I’ve ever bought for myself only, as it benefits no one but me…and it’s really pretty.
Vann got me a car, but it was a surprise that came with a monthly bill, so I don’t think that counts.
11. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Every opening night. My birthday. Cool things that happened to my friends.
12. What song will always remind you of 2008?
This one is tough, as my life is quite musical. I’ll go with a beautiful song that my roommate, Shannon, wrote that should be a hit single. She has a beautiful voice, writes beautiful words and is a beautiful person. The chorus begins with “maybe this isn’t a goodbye, but the end of a long hello.”
13. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Happier in most ways, contemplative in others.
b) thinner or fatter? The same.
c) richer or poorer? Regardless of this whole “recession” business, richer, which is nice.
14. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Sleep. Volunteer work. Spending time with friends.
15. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Taking allergy medications. Worrying. Suggesting ideas at work, being shot down and then listening to someone else say the exact same thing the next day to the exact same people who then said ”eureka!”
16. How will you be spending Christmas?
Christmas is over, but it was a calm day at Grandma’s, followed by a night of Mexican-food-making at mi casa with mi familia.
Um, where is question 17?
18. Did you fall in love in 2008?
With my husband all over again, and with those little frozen peanut butter & jelly sandwiches.
19. What was your favorite TV program?
Ooh! Pushing Daisies. 
20. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
I don’t hate; that’s way too strong. As I mentioned previously, I did feel great dislike this year that was new to me. It makes me feel…blechy.
21. What was the best book you read?
The best? Obviously, I have a hard time picking favorites. My top five might be Eat-Pray-Love, The Phantom Tollbooth, Emotionally Weird, Innocent Traitor and Lost in a Good Book.
22. What was your greatest musical discovery?
In the Heights. I also learned how to play one song on the guitar. Just one.
23. What was the best meal you ate?
Okay, these questions are way too hard. I had fabulous meals at Tangerine in Savannah, some Italian place in Atlanta that I can’t remember, an a-m-a-z-i-n-g multi-course dinner at a seafood restaurant in Chattanooga, homemade lasagna and cookies from friends, as well as some crazy good food that we cooked at home.
24. What was your favorite film of this year?
I really loved Juno, Bolt, and of course, Dark Knight.
25. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 23 and I believe there is already a blog post about it.
26. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Being debt-free. But I’m much closer and feel pretty confident about achieving that status in 2009!
27. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
Jeans and high heels. That’s pretty much it.
28. What kept you sane?
What makes you so sure that I am?
29. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I really have the hots for Taye Diggs and always have. If I was a guy, I would want to date Angelina Jolie.
30. What political issue stirred you the most?
The entire election process was cr-azy. My husband and I remain divided on the subject of government.
31. Who did you miss most?
Bonnie.
32. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008:
Communication is Key.
33. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
Here we go ’round the mulberry bush…
34. What is the most useless thing you learned this year?
I can say “Hello, my name is Franz and I am an engineer” in Italian. Also, the leading cause of death in giraffes is lightning strikes.
35. If you were to title this year like a book, what would it be?
Ten Clowns Don’t Make a Circus
36. Where were you when 2008 began?
At a party in Georgetown with a whole bunch of people I didn’t know and one who would turn out to be a great friend.
37. Who were you with?
Oh…see above.
38. Where will you be when 2008 ends?
Savannah Theatre, with some of my peeps that I haven’t seen much of this year.
39. Who will you be with when 2008 ends?
Dang it. See above.
40. What was your favorite month of 2008?
Uh, May.
41. Did you drink a lot of alcohol in 2008?
I don’t know if it was ‘a lot,’ but it was more than I drank in 2007.
42. Did you do a lot of drugs in 2008?
Never.
43. Did you do anything you are ashamed of this year?
I certainly said and did things (mostly said) that I shouldn’t have, but everything happens for a reason. I’m also upset that we didn’t really do anything for my dad’s birthday this year, because if anyone deserves it, he does.
44. What was the worst lie someone told you in 2008?
There were some doozies this year, but they don’t bear repeating.
45. Did you treat somebody badly in 2008?
I kind of like the answer that my friend Drexel used on this one: “Define ‘treat’ because some people deserved the way they were treated.”
46. Where did you go on vacation this year?
Vann and I went to Atlanta and to visit the Aquarium and Coke Museum, we went to Charlotte to see the fam and that’s about it for destinations. I’ve spent my holiday vacation reading, writing, sleeping and shopping…in that order, I believe.
47. How much money did you spend in 2008?
More than 2007, but I stayed within budget.
48. If you could go back in time to any moment of 2008 and change something what would it be? Nothing, because things happen the way they are supposed to, whether we understand them or not.
49. Will 2009 be harder or easier than 2008?
I think it will be a tradeoff; some slices of life will get easier as others grow more difficult. In general, I don’t think that our lives are supposed to get easier, but that life will always be met with newer, more complex challenges as we mature to handle them. I can only hope that, as each day presents itself with new conflicts, I will be given the tools to build it into fantastic day that is worth remembering and worth writing about. So, I suppose my answer to this question is simply yes.
50. What are your plans for 2009?
To keep the forward momentum going in all aspects of my life, and to live, laugh and love as much as possible.
Love Thy Neighbor
One of the great things about our street is its quaint size. There are only a few houses, bookended by two churches and a ‘senior citizens retreat,’ all winding along a beautiful road lined with oak trees on one side and marsh on the other. Coming home at sunset there are leafy shadows on my left, contrasted with bright ambers and lavenders glistening off the water to my right. As I exit the parkway, I pass a ranch with horses grazing lazily –which is funny to mention, because I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a horse grazing ‘animatedly’ or ‘winsomely’ or any adverb other than ‘lazily.’
Our neighbors to the left are very sweet and constituted the entire neighborhood welcome wagon when we moved in a year ago. We are on a first name basis with each others’ pets and wave across our yards in the mornings. Mr. Neighbor must have the best fertilizer on the planet, because he seems to be cutting his grass every day at 7:30am. To our right, we have very clandestine neighbors that pretty much keep to themselves; more will be said about them later. Directly across the street is one of the two churches and a big ‘WELCOME’ sign, and next to them (upstage left, if you will) is another house with a boat and a vintage Model-A Ford.
Yes, my street is peaceful and easy, like a page out of Our Town. Until the holidays.
The aforementioned clandestine neighbors really seem to like their privacy and treat their home as more of a hideaway. They so enjoy their seclusion that they have covered their front porch with huge, leafy plants so that the main entrance to the house is now completely invisible from the street. I have concocted many stories about them belonging to the Witness Protection Program, or their top secret development of a new Jehovah’s-Witness-eating plant. Whatever their secrets, they keep them well.
Since we have lived here, they have been coming and going stealthily from the side door instead of fighting their way through the thick jungle at their main entrance. While they may fool the church across the street into thinking that nobody’s home, they are highly visible to us, as their side door faces our living room. Their covert entrances and exits are under heavy surveillance by my cats, who like to sit in the living room windows and watch what I presume to be ‘Outdoor TV.’
Come Halloween, these quiet neighbors unexpectedly put up a bit of outdoor holiday décor in the form of a life-sized, long-haired, hunch-backed Igor Butler holding a plastic pumpkin that presumably held candy for the few trick-or-treaters that would dare pass the jungle to get to it. He soon became known in our household as our next-door-golem, since he scowled through our windows every day, like a Halloween peeping tom. The cats were overly distraught about his presence, largely due to the fact that he won every staring contest; unheard of for such a human-like opponent. Halloween came and went, but the golem remained, complete with plastic pumpkin and cobwebs with spiders hanging from his serving tray.
The day after Thanksgiving, our other neighbors went immediately to work. Their house is now framed in colored lights, their windows lit with battery-operated candles and their immaculate yard filled with discount Christmas paraphernalia. They have light-up reindeer, fiber-optic trees and an illuminated nativity scene, complete with beasts of burden, angels and the Holy Family. My personal favorite is the 6’ inflatable snowman that, when deflated with his head at his crotch, appears to be performing a very obscene act right next to the baby Jesus.
It is now that I must detour and mention the newest addition to our home; a motion-sensitive cardboard display Wall-E that, I am told, is actual size. Wall-E came to us from Circuit City, a lone orphan that my husband took pity upon and brought home for disputable reasons. He is approximately two and-a-half feet tall by two feet wide and makes various E.T.-like noises every time you walk past him. It might also be apropos to mention that we have three cats, all of whom find Wall-E to be a most intriguing fellow and a very comfortable, if noisy, seat. After the first sleepless night of Wall-E’s whistles and gurgles, we faced him into the corner, as one would a child who was in time out. It made no difference; Wall-E still sings to beat the band.
I have tried to be a gracious hostess, but my patience has run thin. Every day I try to convince Wall-E that somewhere in the world is a family who will care for him and love him just as he is, annoying sound effects and all, but still he is reluctant to leave. Wall-E has officially worn out his welcome and my softie of a husband refuses to kick him to the curb with the other garbage. It would be one thing if he worked for his supper, like Roomba the Vacuum Cleaner, but all he does is sit there making a constant commentary on the fact that I walk back and forth a lot.
I woke up unusually early this morning because of some distant sound that I couldn’t quite place. I assumed that it was Wall-E, greeting the morning with his song, but soon I noticed that it was coming from somewhere outside, beyond Wall-E’s voice-throwing abilities. I walked to the porch to investigate and realized that it was coming from across the street.
As you are no doubt aware, no resplendent Christmas display would be complete without the addition of Jingle Bell Rock, played in loop through an outdoor sound system at dawn. The lights, trees, animals, nativity and vulgar Frosty were not enough, no! My neighbors need Muzak.
A strange gurgling sound louder than the Christmas carol startled me, making me jump backwards. Because I was standing in front of his window, Wall-E had yelled at me from inside to please stop blocking his view. His motion-sensitivity is apparently so acute that it works through walls. So much for time out. Slightly amused and extremely irritated, I turned back towards the house to go inside when a flash of red caught my eye.
With all the holiday cheer next door and across the street, how could my sideways neighbors not catch the decorating bug? Filled with the Christmas spirit, someone put a Santa hat on the golem’s head. The bright red and white of the hat contrasts greatly with his permanently gloomy and sallow expression, topping him with a festive glow that I’m not sure he fully appreciates. Nonetheless, it does bring a certain cheer to the otherwise cobwebbed and spider-filled display. I wonder if they would notice a certain cardboard robot in reindeer antlers. The two could become fast friends.
