2020 can be pretty much summed up in one word – WTF.
January kicked off with Mark and Amanda coming down with an
odd respiratory infection bearing a number of what are now internationally famous
symptoms. The rest of the family
remained healthy, and other than coughs which persisted a month, neither felt
that bad, and both are currently alive.
It took until late February for the media to give Mark and
Amanda’s disease a name, thus imbuing it with a conscious malevolence many believe
is worse than the disease itself. It
wasn’t until March, however, that Governor Pritzker (aka Fat Bastard) placed everyone
in Illinois on house arrest, inciting riots in the paper products aisle at
Walmart.
Faced with long term incarceration, we found ourselves with
a surfeit of uncommitted time, forcing us to find creative ways to fill the gaping
hole left in our lives by our sudden inability to go out to eat, to school, graduations,
the grocery store, weddings, church, the gym, movies, vacations, live sporting
events, family gatherings, bear hunting, and just about every other thing that
makes life tolerable.
Although unsettling at first, it turns out we rather enjoyed
the opportunity to slow our pace, hunker down, and get reacquainted as a
family. We spent much quality time
cooking, playing games, taking walks, and watching Rosanne. Truth be told, it was terrific experience. For about two weeks, after which we were at
each other’s throats like a pack of starved hyenas trapped in a Buick. M & K are convinced the only thing that
prevented an all-out civil war was the dogs’ antics which lightened the mood
sufficiently to keep everyone’s mitts out of the knife drawer.
Earlier in the year and quite by accident, we became the custodians of a small white animal that we were told is a dog, but more resembles an overripe turnip. Clueless as oatmeal, Sparky (also known as Spewy, Stinky, Lumpy, Spongefoot, Turd, and Nancy) was likely the product of a puppy mill as is evidenced by his pronounced abandonment issues and inability to differentiate between his human caregivers and furniture.
Blessed with useless eyes, inadequate ground clearance, and a brain the size of a Milk Dud, Sparky attached himself to Karen like a lamprey to a Coho. Against Mark’s protests, Sparky was elevated to a permanent member of the family, both to give Maggie something alive to attack, and to protect us from our fence, the neighbor’s bird bath, Mark, and the other inanimate objects at which he constantly barks. Owing to their compassion for the mentally and physically challenged, the Layne females adore Sparky. Mark, conversely, finds him repulsive and irritating, not only because he Insists on being carried around like a breastfeeding infant, but when he isn’t rolling in excrement, he’s wandering about the yard randomly dropping his body weight in turds, thus prompting Mark to nickname him The Traveling Turdinator or Turdinator for short. It is Mark’s hope that during one of their incessant play fights, Maggie will eat him.
In response to the governor’s mandate to stay home and avoid
visiting dangerous “hot states” which at the time included most of those south
of Indiana, the family embarked upon a summer tour of AL, TN, SC, GA, IN, so
Ally could see firsthand what a college campus might look like after nuclear holocaust. It was a terrific opportunity for her to
exercise her creativity by imagining the vacant buildings and deserted quads
teeming with life.
After a mid-summer taste of liberation, the gov enacted a
new initiative to avoid burdening the state’s economy with any sort of
productivity by re-imposing "voluntary" confinement in the fall. Part of his scheme to bolster the spirits of
his constituents included pulling the plug on fall high school sports, thereby limiting
our autumn entertainment options to televised replays of Olympics dressage
competitions and political mudslinging. Not
so in Alabama, however, where freedom still rings, and Jayson was able to make
his gridiron debut at left OT for the Spain Park Angry Antelopes (or is it
Jaguars?) We all knew hiding inside
those BB trunks and tank top was the heart of a football player. Thanks to NFHS
Network, we were able to watch him dominate his position despite bone spurs in
his ankle, plantar fasciitis in both feet, and a color-blind quarterback.
Notwithstanding her debilitating angst over which major to
pursue, whether she made a mistake attending Illinois State, if she would ever
find a job and become a productive member of society, and which shoes to wear
on Wednesdays, Amanda landed herself a paid internship with the ISU marketing
department and has excelled in her studies.
In spite of taking a semester off to explore the rich heritage and
varied culture of Addison, IL, Amanda informed us she will be graduating this
May, a full year ahead of schedule and absent any student loans, thereby
cheating K & M out of paying another year’s rent for an apartment she
visited twice. Given all her good
fortune, it seems Amanda’s main worry now is running out of things to worry
about.
Apparently two kids attending school online at home – one in
the kitchen and one in the dining room – a husband working in the office
upstairs, and two dogs chasing each other around the house all day was the
perfect incentive for Karen to accept a new job managing the office for a nearby
charitable organization providing meals to seniors. She now spends her days socially distancing
from a cast of characters who make the staff of Dunder Mifflin look like a Harvard
class reunion.
Unencumbered by softball, classroom attendance, or anything
resembling “normal” to a high school senior, Ally has rivaled her sister by landing
at the top of the Nazareth Academy GPA heap. The scholarship offers continue to
roll in, not as we might have expected for softball, but for her grades. Her short list currently includes three
schools in IA, one each in IL, WI, MI, KS, and TN, and all of them in
Hawaii. We look forward to attending her
virtual softball games and online graduation this spring.
So as you stagger, limp, or crawl across the finish of line the
year that wasn’t, looking ahead toward a more positive, enlightened 2021, let
us recall the sage advice of George Bernard Shaw who said, “When our relatives
are at home, we have to think of all their good points, or it would be
impossible to endure them.”
Merry Christmas to All, and to All Good Grief,
Karen, Mark, Amanda, Ally, Maggie, and Spewy
