2 Exhausted
2 Write Newsletter Archive
Eeyore from " ? "
"This writing business. Pencils and whatnot. Overrated, if you ask me."
2000
The homegrown Christmas tree was sooooo big this year that with Alan pulling and me shoving we still could hardly force it through the doorway.
The "angel" (that I made from a doll head Helen
bought for me
because it looks like my grandmother
Violet LaPreal Noakes)
won't fit atop the tree. She had to precariously perch at a rather cattywompus
angle on the side...
until the dogs knocked the tree over. Now she sits on the piano amongst the ornaments which have yet to be replaced upon the tannenbaum terror. The tree is too big, actually...the
girls are thrilled.
Our 1999 "Hundred Aker Wood" Christmas lights didn't win the Best Christmas Decorations award, thank goodness – two years in a row is tacky, and the prize went to family (Herman and Dolly).
I really want to do an
homage to Charlie Brown and his pitiful Christmas tree, but Mom says that
we'd disappoint the kids in the community who beg their parents to take them
to see Pooh on Woodlawn Drive. So it's the same display for the third year. Alan had to add three more circuit breakers to the house to keep us from blowing fuses when we used the toaster. Seriously. So far he has 22-23,000 lights out there.
But
this year we added a Poohsticks bridge which was also our float entry in the
Dec. 3 nighttime parade. But since we won "Children's Entry" second prize,
we may be out of the KBCD running. Nikki was Tigger; Kilory was Pooh; Alan
drove wearing sweats (with sweatshirt-sleeve Rabbit ears) that I dyed yellow;
and I was Eeyore. Leisl thought Daddy Morris ought to be Eeyore, but I contend
I am/was as Eeyore as they get: an October cold gave me bronchitis; I coughed
so hard I broke a rib in early November; it hurt mightily until a Thanksgiving
pressure cooker accident gave me second-degree burns on my hands, wrist and
foot (the blisters on my hand and foot tore leaving me shoeless for weeks
-- my wrist was a crispy golden brown Colonel Sanders would have prized);
and parade weekend I got the flu. I contend I AM EEYORE, costume or no costume!
It's so awful I can't stop laughing! "Exploding Hot Russets Smother Broken
Rib." "Recovering Flu Victim Limps Through Parade in Husband's House Slippers."
*guffaw* *snort* 
We were a spectacle during the July Fourth daytime parade, too. We made the front page of the newspaper in b&w and our town's Chamber of Commerce brochure in color.
Nikki wore red and Kilory blue as they rode their decorated red tricycles. I sprayed white Buki with pink and blue hairspray. Bubba and Rudi wore flag material which I made into dresses for the girls later that week. The girls tell people who comment on their flag dresses that the "dogs wore them in the parade." Said people range from appearing amused to confused to scandalized.
This summer the girls
-- whom cousin Tyler calls 
"Nikkory"
-- took gymnastics and Spanish, and saw their first circus with Gramma and
PaPa. They adore Kindergarten and their teacher, Mrs. Just. They've taken
over a year of piano lessons with Mrs. Gilleroth and look forward to starting
violin. (Nikki and Kilory in stereo: "Mommy, do you know
what I want for Christmas?! A violin!" When Daddy asked why they thought
they'd get gifts from Santa, Nikki replied "The power of cheeeeese.")
On Tuesdays they have Spanish school and Adventurers/Pathfinders.
Kilory
is a prolific visual artist who likes to write her name backward (as did DaVinci),
loves horses, and who had her first adult tooth before the first baby tooth
fell out (12-16-00).
Nikki is devout, spends her days transcribing the Bible, and seems destined to be the first Seventh-Day Adventist nun (SDA, Oscar-winning, super-model nun, that is). Whenever I tell people she's very dramatic they say "Gee, I wonder where she gets that from!"
Fifth birthday: For the
grownup Sabbath lunch we enjoyed a Barbie cake.
The
next day kids of all ages frolicked in the foam pit, and jumped on trampolines
at Peterson's Gym. 
We ate a Sleeping Beauty castle cake of my own creation. I dressed like Maleficient, horns and all. Aunt Suzy dressed like Sleeping Beauty (Aunt Suzy is set to present us with "Cousin Tuppence" in March. I keep telling her to clench until March 17! I want my St. Patrick's Day baby!). Partygoers whacked at my homemade indestructible Dragon Piñata. They could also choose a paper princess crown, a king crown, or a "disgrace to the forces of evil" helmet.
For their sixth "Jumping Gym" birthday party the girls can't agree between a Princess Barbie Fairy Ballerina Angel party or a Winnie the Pooh party. I vote for Pooh since we've already got the costumes!
Texas laser-beam heat and the record-breaking drought (We went 60 consecutive days without rain from July 1-August 29. And there wasn't rain to speak of before or after those dates either! During the height of the drought Alan hand-dug a shallow well in the back yard. It's still not finished yet, but if it ever is, it shouldn't go dry anytime soon considering the parched conditions under which Alan hit water.) didn't hurt my xeriscopic butterfly garden. Our backyard was ablaze with blooms and butterflies (it's an Eastern Swallowtail ghetto, actually!). I didn't plant much dill, because my caterpillars prefer my near-bumper-crop of fennel. My Cécile Brunner antique rose swept over the copper pipe arbor I made, and my cypress vine collapsed the artsy structure I made with the leftover copper.
For the butterfly havens in opposite corners of the garden, I purchased knights in tin armor instead of scarecrows. Gawain is five feet tall and the only way to transport him home was to strap him into the front passenger seat. Oh! The looks I got on the road!!
Southwestern Adventist University contracted me to redesign www.swau.edu. Working with my mentor Sharon Leach, old friends, and with creative students was better than a dozen hits of B-12. The project was 84% "I can't believe I get paid to have this much fun!" And the other 16% was infinitely preferable to other jobs I've had (javascript is proof that evolution is non-viable fiction).
I found a grey tabby
sleeping amongst the herbs at Wal-Mart on September 26.
On the 27th he was
still there, and again on the 28th when I brought Alan along to meet him.
Yes, I'm a wuss. I was worried that Herb Cat would get cold, starved or squashed
in the parking lot. We took him to the vet and dubbed him temporarily "Wal-Martin".
Alan schmoozed the girls into calling him Wally – far away from my more erudite
choices. However, he smacked and hissed at the dogs so much at first he was
further christened as Wal-Martin Wilfred Frank-N-Furter, aka WWF Smackdown.
He's really more a Winchester Waverley Fraser, though (even more so, a Charles
Emerson Winchester III).
Bill-the-Cat stalked
him and talked trash until Wally got sick of it and opened a can of Hurt.
Now they're comrades and sleep next to each other when Wally isn't sleeping
with Nikki and Kilory.
Continued support of the Wes Stoops Memorial Scholarship has placed it in the top ten of the largest scholarships awarded at Southwestern. That really warms my heart.
John Craig set up an associate's link from the gang's web site (and which I placed on my own, too) which allows us to purchase online from Amazon with a percentage to benefit the scholarship. Cool.
Shopping Amazon through this link benefits the Wes Stoops Memorial Scholarship!
Family news for the newsletter history archives: Auntie Helen moved out of state in April; Auntie Gail was emancipated; Amarillo PaPa was hospitalized over and over for a staph infection; Great-great Aunt Louise moved in with Mom and Dad on December 9.
What else can we say about the year 2000? Well, it's one for the history books, and if I ever hear the words "Florida", "Bush", "Gore," or "vote" in the same sentence ever again, it will be too bleeping soon!
Destined to be destitute when the electric bill arrives in 2001,
Chrissie, Alan, Nikki & Kilory Weis@htcomp.net
We hope you enjoy your visit.
