YouTube – The Shins – Phantom Limb

YouTube – The Shins – Phantom Limb

Holiday Newsletter from Tony and Wife

Hi all –

In recent years we’ve been getting an increasing number of these “family updates” along with traditional Christmas cards from certain family and friends, who shall remain nameless for obvious reasons. Maybe you’ve been getting them, too.

Instead of railing against the unauthorized (and in some cases, unconscionable) use of pirated word processing software for the purpose of recording the most mundane minutia of folks’ daily lives (honestly, wife and I are SO happy to hear about your family trip to the Food Court at the Podunk Village Mall, really, we are!), we’ve made the Asti-fueled decision this year to embrace it.

At this point, I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to type next (or for that matter, whether or not I’m going to just start making up stuff that makes us sound much cooler than we actually are), but in keeping with the established form, we’re going to proceed more-or-less chronologically. Likewise, despite the fact that this is obviously a personal account, the rest of this misguided missive is going to be written in third-person – again in keeping with the established form.

January – February:

Brrrr. It’s freakin’ cold in Cleveland! Rang in the New Year with Joe and Kate and David and Sharon; it was the Montana’s turn to host. We had a great dinner, at Viva Barcelona, even though it took a while to get seated. This year started just like many years before it – with the Cleveland Browns’ season finished before the New Year began, Tony mostly hung out on the couch when he wasn’t at work or blowing snow out of the driveway, alternately mumbling to himself about Indians Spring Training and plucking around on his guitar. One would think that after 20 years, Tony’d have accumulated some semblance of skill with the instrument. Not so! Elsewhere, wife maintained her amazing ascent in the Akron legal community. She strikes fear in the hearts of opposing council and receives regular fan mail from clients and former classmates. It’s really neat.

Valentine’s Day 2007 will be forever remembered for the 20+ inches of snow that Mother Nature saw fit to dump on Northeast Ohio and ruin the totally, unbelievably romantic dinner-date plans that Tony made for them. By the time Tony finished his snow removal duties for the neighborhood, he had icicles hanging from both eyebrows. Wife took photos from inside the house, which were exchanged and circulated between neighbors for days. The couple finished their special day with a hair-raising trip in Tony’s Jeep to the Chinese Buffett, three blocks away, where they witnessed a dine-and-dash. Tony chased the perpetrators through the darkness and blinding snow, accompanied by a five-foot tall Asian lady, but alas, the tweakers slipped away. Tony spent the rest of the evening convalescing on the couch, polishing off a number of Miller Lites.

March – April:

Brrrr. It’s still freakin’ cold in Cleveland. Spent Tony’s 33^rd birthday at St. Pat’s in Leetonia for the feast of its patron saint. Tony wonders why they only eat corned beef once a year. Tony’s pal Kyle visited for the Mid-American Conference basketball tournament. The two spent a snowy week downtown, and Tony cashed in on Kyle’s celebrity to score free Miller Lites. Wife and her brother, “Chunx,” attended the championship game to root for the Akron Zips, who lost a heartbreaker to Miami of Ohio. To Tony’s delight and dismay, baseball season started at the end of the month with one series completely snowed-out and another moved to Milwaukee because the weather is apparently better up there.

April was another big month for wife at work. In addition to continuing her unbeaten litigation streak, the folks who run the 24-hour fitness center adjacent to her office installed their I-MAX theater surround sound system, so not only did she continue to receive fan mail, but also had a soundtrack of her own. Particularly poignant were the scores from Napoleon Dynamite and Stomp the Yard. Tony continued to drink Miller Lite with a variety of characters from his office in a variety of watering holes about town and finally put down the guitar for the summer and bought a new set of golf clubs.

May – June:

Wife and her sidekick, Deb, attended a series of golf lessons in preparation for the coming season, despite the fact that “Brrrr! It’s still cold in Cleveland!” Tony set off for negotiations with Republic in Pittsburgh, where he continued his personal vendetta against Miller Lite for the entire month. He was frequently overheard yelling “Watch me turn this beer into air! It’s a magic trick!” in a certain pizza shop downtown.

Having returned triumphantly from Pittsburgh (though without a contract), Tony started his golf season in earnest, with frequent work-related trips to the hills of Southwestern Pennsylvania – the highlight of every golf season, of course, being the annual trip back to Leetonia for the Ruritan Golf Outing. Wife had her own team this year, which likely prevented Tony’s team from a third-consecutive last-place finish. For that, he will be forever thankful. Tony’s college roommate, Alvy, visited with his girlfriend and their Yorkie in tow. Alvy named the dog, “Dinner” because he said it would fit on his grill. She carried the dog in a purse-like powder blue “doggie bag.” Daisy and Ms. Gatsby, the giant Montana felines, ran and hid in fear of 5-pound Dinner.

July – August:

The Montana’s descended on Pittsburgh for a day and went to a Neko Case show (if you don’t know Neko, you should). Met our new friends, Jeff and Sara, for dinner. Had a great time before trundling through the Theater District in search of Neko. Both Tony and wife played a lot more golf for the rest of the month. Miller Lite was consumed and grass was cut.

Marathon bargaining session in Pittsburgh finally resulted in a contract with Republic, just in time for Tony to attend both Browns preseason games and play in one last golf outing in 2007. Whew … he was worried he might have to spend a significant portion of the football season in Pittsburgh … Almost time to pull out that guitar again. The legend of the wife and her sidekick, Deb, continues to grow. They cannot be stopped. Tony suspects they are drinking a lot of Miller Lite as well. Wife confirms they are drinking but will say no more.

September – October:

WTF?!? Just when Tony thought he was out, they pulled him back in! He was offered (and accepted) a real-live job – in Pittsburgh. Thank God the Browns seem to be playing better these days. He moved into the ironically named Quality Suites in Greentree for the foreseeable future mid-September and works downtown. It sure didn’t take long for him to find several local beer distributors. He’s also branched-out from Miller Lite to several other brews. They celebrated six years of marriage back at Viva Barcelona as the month ended, but this time their table was waiting when they arrived.

Wife maintains her all-star status in all aspects of her existence. Tony commutes most weekends and is grateful for his iPod, which he swears makes the 150-mile trip much less horrible than it would be otherwise. They also rooted for the Indians throughout the playoffs, and Tony swears that he’s not disappointed with the way the season ended. His relentless recounting of stories from the glory days of Youngstown to more-or-less captive audiences wins him many friends at the office and hotel and all but ensures that wife will have the sympathy of an entire city when she finally arrives in Pittsburgh.

November – December:

The Browns continue to beat teams not named the Steelers, and wife’s still working in Akron while living in Cleveland. Working in Pittsburgh during the football season has given Tony an entirely new perspective on what it means to be a Cleveland football fan. Fortunately, his new friends and coworkers seem to find most of his in-season antics more endearing than offensive. The holiday season began with a low-key Thanksgiving and another “first” for Tony – a Black Friday “doorburster” sale at 5 a.m. on the day after. Yikes.

Tonight, while scribbling Christmas cards to all the wonderful old and new friends and family they’ve accumulated between the two of them over the years, they finally popped open the bottle of sparkling wine they’d been saving to celebrate something, anything, when it occurred to them that throughout their lives, they’ve been extremely lucky to have been surrounded by amazing people – the kind of people who’d suffer through an update like this, just because they sent it.

“Sounds like something to celebrate,” he said. “Let’s open the Asti.”

“We’re out of Miller Lite, aren’t we?” she observed.