2014: Goodbye And Good Riddance

Last Updated on: 12th January 2015, 04:38 pm

It’s mid January, and I feel like I have to write the usual holiday wrap-up/year in review post. I feel like this will be the shortest one ever because both the holidays, and the year, feel like they have been snatched and tainted.

Getting to my family’s Christmas was coloured with a bit of Carin-style adventure that wasn’t even my fault. We decided to take a bus to the bus terminal and get on the Greyhound. The night before Christmas, I checked to see if buses were running, or how. Apparently they were running on a reduced schedule that wasn’t explained. So, I called, and thought I got the correct info.

Um, how about no? After standing at the bus stop for way too long, we decided we’d have to cab down there after all. As we ran back to our building to call a cab, poor Steve tripped and fell, hurting his ankle. I seriously thought we were screwed, and the fates had decided I was truly going to have myself a little Christmas that wasn’t merry at all. But poor Steve limped through, and we caught the greyhound and got to Toronto to meet family.

That dinner was nice, and we had a lot of laughs and talked about old memories. I don’t know if pets and guide dog thought it was such a nice Christmas though. You see, my sister has 2 cats who are a little shy of interlopers, and Tansy would love to play with a couple of cats. So I had to keep Tansy on a leash, and we had to baby gate off the house so the cats would feel safe. Then my brother brought over his wee little dog, who I need to write about in another post. She also would love to play with either Tansy or the cats, and the gate really wasn’t much of an obstacle to her. Those poor cats…although before I left, I saw one of the cats corner her by some stairs and try to enforce the law a wee bit. Anyway, the animals had anything but a relaxed Christmas, even though they gave us lots of entertainment.

Then we came home, intending to have a few nice, relaxing days, and then have Brad over, hang out for New Years, and then go over to Steve’s dad’s for Christmas dinner with him. Hehehehe about those relaxing days. We got home on Friday afternoon, and sort of had a relaxing day on Saturday, got the call about Steve’s grandma on Sunday, and then she passed away that Monday. Tuesday we got another call saying we had to scoot home because there would be visitations the next day. Then that day was New Years Eve, so then we headed back to our place with Brad. Who knew 5 people and 2 dogs could fit in one vehicle, but we did it.

New Years Eve was pretty low-key. I think we were all exhausted, and throughout the evening, each of us sort of nodded off a bit. But we were awake at midnight, which is better than we can say some years.

Then we headed over to Steve’s dad’s. It was good to spend time with him right now, and I hope he got some pleasure out of us being there…although the poor guy had a wicked cold and his mom had just died. But I think he had a few laughs and, after some adventures with cooking appliances failing and pie fillings not cooperating, we had a good meal, and hey, a good meal with family is all that matters.

We headed home after that, and really, nothing else exciting happened, which is probably a good thing. I just got ready to head back to work after being off because of my unwanted companion not so affectionately nicknamed the captain.

What can I say about 2014? Ug, not a whole lot. Aside from a couple weddings and going to CSUN, the year felt like an unending string of me hoping that after the current trouble was over, maybe the future would look up. We went from my step-grandpa going into hospice and eventually passing away, to a seemingly unending winter of brutal cold with a couple of fun things sprinkled in, to my brother’s wedding, which was lots of fun, to Steve’s sister’s wedding which was also lots of fun and I haven’t written about it, to my gallbladder’s doom in May, to my long battle with the captain starting in June, which eventually made me work from home in August and take a leave from work as of September. December was looking up, I was starting to feel better, and then…hey, how about turning this year into a death sandwich? Sound good? No? Well, too damn bad for you. So I’m really really really hoping that 2015 has a lot more cool things in it for us…but I’d even settle for a year of ordinary living at this point.

As for the state of the world, holy crap did it suck too. I think someone needs to take that We didn’t Start the Fire song and update it with stuff from 2014.

How did somebody put it? Most of 2014 was full of a whole lot of terrible things from all directions, or an octopus of nope. Ebola and Islamic State whatever the hell they want to call themselves and shootings in Ottawa and hands up don’t shoot and I can’t breathe and Ghomeshi and Cosby and aaaaaaaaa no more! It was a horrible time to be sick, and looking at way too much Twitter. I think I lost my mind a little bit. Hell I know I did. When I was home for Christmas, and mom said “What’s the name of that guy from the CBC? The one with the long stories…like essays?” Internally I went straight to “oh please, you’re not talking about Jian Ghomeshi are you? Not now! Nonononononononono! I’m not gonna say it, you’re going to have to give me a lot more before I say it.” Never was I so happy when I figured out it was Stuart McLean she was referring to!

The year 2015, on the news front, isn’t starting off too well either. I can only hope that things will calm down, although I know that even in better times, there is always too much death and tragedy. I don’t know what made things seem so acutely bad last year. There’s a cynical part of me that keeps whispering “It wasn’t any better or worse, you just had to look it in the face and realize that there’s a lot of evil around us and we haven’t advanced past it, and we can’t deceive ourselves into thinking we have.” I don’t know, but I hope that eventually I’ll see the signs pointing to the good in humanity a little more often.

So, let’s go 2015. Allow me to shake 2014 off like a dog and move on to a better year

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1 Comment

  1. Other than the end of 06 and much of 07, I can’t think of another year I wanted to bugger off as much as 2014. Aside from the stuff you mentioned and a few good nights out that we managed to sneak in there, this year was garbage. Actually, calling most of it garbage is an insult to garbage. But on the bright side, we didn’t have to use our air conditioner much, which means at least the garbage didn’t have to bake in the heat.

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