Carbogan Christmas Update 2016

Christmas Update 2016

In 1700 words or less

Because, “Ain’t nobody got time for dat!”

2016 was was a tough year.  We lost David Bowie, Prince, Leonard Cohen and and Alan Rickman.  To Trump that, we had a misogynistic climate change denier defy all odds in the US election, sending over half the world into a mild state of depression.  Kanye West was hospitalized.  Kim was robbed.  Our dollar went to new lows.  The planet heated up, Britain voted to leave the EU, and the best concert of the year was put on in the depths of the California desert by a myriad of rock n roll artists all older than seventy.  Age alone will prohibit an event like this from happening again until Grohl or Vedder reach that number.  That is the year 2040, by the way, and who knows what the world will look like then.

My 2016 was no different.  I forgot passwords.  My knee officially got geriatric.   My dog rolled in emergency runners poop on more occasions than I’d care to remember, and I had to buy a new couch.  Surf days, once a lofty 45-90 days a year, are now wallowing below 10, replaced in part by the odd ski day.  Perhaps more so by midweek commutes listening to banal sports talk or satellite drivel, and cursing people for loitering in the left hand lane. 

It wasn’t all bad, however.  And here is the Carbogan year in tongue and cheek review.

Our 2016 began as most do.  We were in bed and sleeping by 10:00 pm on New Year’s Eve, a solid hour before Mats.  The flip flop in bedtime trend is one that will probably continue until I finally kick myself out of my own house at the age of 70.  Waking up to a crisp new year in Whistler, we proceeded to ready ourselves for the day’s events, which included ski training for Mats.  Without fail, things started to fall apart early as, unbeknownst to us, Mats had been watching Minecraft YouTube videos on his phone until 1:00 am, and was not at all interested in getting up.  Not even for bacon, which, after our re-discovery of parchment paper, is now an absolute dream to cook without having to clean a frying pan or the surrounding half acre.  Never accused of having a firm grasp on just how many cracks we need to seal in order to make our family ski program work, Janet was of the mind to just let him sleep.  Looking at all the skis that had been meticulously tuned and waxed in previous nights, I begged to differ.  The bells of purchase were still ringing in my head giving me that familiar anxious pang of buyer’s remorse.  So you can imagine, as the man of the house, just how this battle went.  That’s right.  He slept in. 

Despite this small setback, Mats had a pretty fun season of skiing.  If you ask him what his favorite things to do are, he will tell you skiing and baseball.  This does not include World of Tanks on the Xbox, which could he could easily waste an entire Saturday on if given the chance.  Who knew that there were so many different tanks in existence, or that you could spontaneously regenerate within minutes of being annihilated?  Certainly not me.  

Yes, he missed the odd day of skiing, but due to some natural talent that obviously came from Mom, he ended up doing quite well and surprising some of his coaches.  I don’t think he will be on the world cup circuit, but the last time I checked, MLB pitchers were making a bit more money.  This may be a bit of a rude longshot, but we can dare to dream.  I mean, I guess the only parental perk I want out of this thing is good seats to a game or concert.  Maybe the obligatory TV shot of the tear in my eye as I witness some success on the field, hugging my wife, saying, “Aren’t you glad we made him go skiing that day?”  Isn’t that what every dad wants?   The tickets, I mean.  And not just any tickets.  Good tickets.  If he is anything like his Daddy Rob or his Uncle Pete, he will surely succeed at something.  And, if he is more like Pete, at least I won’t have to pay for a wedding.

Janet is the techno wizard of the house if you believe in light sarcasm.  I have never known anyone to change passwords as often and as inadvertently as she does.  Often times she will speak sternly to websites and login pages.  For those of you that know her Facebook personality, you will know that she doesn’t have a problem logging in to that site, but seems to with every other one.  When  frustration takes hold, you will generally see her picking up the vacuum for the second or third time in a day, or fluffing the couches that our dog is intent on ruining. 

The tragedy of losing Prince earlier this year rattled Janet.  She has insisted in the past, that Prince has been singlehandedly responsible for writing every hit in the last 30 years.  With his demise, there was genuine concern that a hit song may never be written again.  Thankfully, this is not the case despite her arguments to the contrary.  Janet really does enjoy her music and can be frequently seen being the best dancer at parties.  The most enthusiastic, anyway.  

Spotify has been a welcome addition to our house.  Any song you can think of, for the most part, exists somewhere on Spotify.  We can play everything from Mozart to Black Sabbath at the touch of a search.  Although Janet has been given her own account, she has not taken the time to set it up, as it seems “too complicated” or “I lost that email.”  More often than not, as I am enjoying my Spotify musical selections at the office, the stream will be rudely interrupted.  As it is automatic, Janet logs in to the same account to broadcast her selection of music throughout the house, subsequently silencing my music feed.  Although inconvenient and mildly frustrating, this can be forgiven, as she is probably doing something around the house that will benefit Mats or me in one form or another.  And yes, dancing and singing is beneficial to everyone, especially to those in our house.

Turbo is the best worst dog ever.  He is more locally famous than most dogs I know.  Portuguese Water Dogs are meant to be relatively smart in the dog world.  He has certainly proven this, but only in certain parts of his life.  For instance, he knows who is who by name in our house.  He can do all the basic dog tricks.  The evil intelligent part of him has him permanently perched on one couch or another, and allows him to sneak up on the bed in the middle of the night.  You can rest assured that you will wake up at some point with a set of paws in your back, a neutered midsection too close to your face, or a wet nose stuffed into the depths of your underarm.  He can unzip backpacks, jacket pockets, purses, deftly opens Tupperware containers, and has the ability to unwrap sandwiches, open energy bars and goo packs.  He uses his paws to sweep anything edible from the counter on to the floor for immediate consumption.  Once, it was an entire pan of banana chocolate chip muffins, nine of which he ate in silence before he was discovered, bleeding like a stuck pig from where the corner of the muffin pan struck him violently in the forehead on its way to the floor.  Perhaps similar to a 20 year old sociopath with absolutely no moral filter, he is intimately familiar with most female crotches in North Vancouver.  He does things that are beyond explanation.  Besides the canine satisfaction from rolling in certain types of fecal matter, he will spend hours, if given the chance, to lick any kind of open wound on a human.  When we mountain bike, he barks incessantly.  So much so, that we had to buy him a “hunting collar”, which is a just a euphemism for an expensive bark collar with shock options.  Not the kind of shock options I want, but I was never much of a market investor.  Water sports are no different, and the only way he will be quiet is if we put him out on the paddleboard, take him surfing, or make him dive off the dock with us.  He is a pain in the ass.  Like anyone else in our family though, we miss him when he isn’t around.  So hopefully he doesn’t get plonked by a car again.  Yup, that happened too.  Ran right over him.  The lady who ran him over stopped her car in a panic to see if he was alright.  As she got out to check, Turbo took advantage of the situation and jumped through her open car door to see what kind of food was available.  She was then rudely greeted with a stiff sniff to the crotch before he made a retreat for the house.  Why wouldn’t you take that liberty if you had just been hit by a car?   ”I can’t believe you ran me over.  Do you have any food?  How’s your vagina?”

I know I probably shouldn’t start a sentence with the word “because” as a preposition, let alone use it in a subtitle.  Such is the way of the artist, and I have taken ownership of creative license.  I find it is always better to write your words down rather than try to remember them.  If you have seen me play guitar, you will know this is true.  The chords come easy.  The words not so much.  Unless they are in Spanish and I have sung them slightly out of tune on 3500 different occasions.

Here is to everyone striking the right chord for 2017.  Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World, and eating your pescado y mangos.

All the best for 2017,

Geoff, Janet, Mats ‘n Turbo