The Holiday Letter

[Karyn J. Powers]

December 2007

Happy Holidays to You and Yours,

We’ve come to the end of another good year and we hope that this note finds you in good health and good cheer. We’ve just shoveled out from the season’s first snow, now there are only 400 more snow storms to go. I’m still with the county and Pat’s at the station and it feels like we’ve been working since the birth of our nation. We’re still on 4^th Ave in our cottage-style home, though we traveled a bit, both together and alone.

The first week in April found us out of the house, when we went to Orlando to visit the Mouse. While Pat went to training for the CMN telethon, I accidentally put a big hurt on tiny Mary Lou Retton. In a bright, crowded hallway at Coronado Springs, my shoulder bag lap-top bagged the poor little thing. She was gracious, forgiving and really quite sweet and you can tell Coach Karolyi that she stayed on her feet.

The last week in April, I had much better luck when I scored third place with a poem at UW Writers’ Workshop. I also got two chances to pitch my new book, and an agent from New York asked for a much closer look. Off went 50 pages of my mystery tale, but the next month brought a letter, saying “No thank you. No sale.”

In mid-May, Pat took his brother and headed for Vegas. They were back after one week to make up their lost wages. June-July-August always pass as a blur, as I manage 50 teen summer workers around here. Somewhere in the midst of those fast passing days, there were weddings and cookouts, and we caught a few rays.

Since I’ve mentioned the cookouts, I should mention the grill, the flaming propane tank and the nice fireman named Bill. Now no one was injured, and the house wasn’t burned, but to handle a fire extinguisher we sure have learned. Who knew turkey burgers could be so exciting, just add a gas leak and a spark for igniting.

September found us back in the City of Sin where Wisconsin played UNLV and went home with a win. They play football in the desert just once every five years, and at 104° it will drive you to tears. This was the third time we’ve seen these teams play, but we decided to be cool and indoors we stayed. We unloaded four tickets in no time at all to four happy young men we met in the hall. With cool drinks in hand, we sat in a lounge watching a giant plasma screen with Bose surround-sound.

At the end of October we held our Halloween Bash; with spooky treats, knock-knock jokes; and a piñata to smash. We invited our neighbors, our kin-folk and friends, who brought a mini-vampire, a fairy, and two skeletons.

On the eve of the start of my 50^th year, I went to St Louis, courtesy of my Patrick, my dear. How many husbands would send off their wives to spend a week studying the taking of lives? He sent me to the first-ever Forensics University for people who like to write murder mysteries.

I learned how to hold, how to load, how to shoot a 22 automatic and a 9 millimeter, to boot. I learned about poisons and toxicology, and sat through an after-lunch power-point autopsy. I got to meet detectives, a judge, a SWAT nurse, and an FBI agent with cuffs in her purse. At dinner I met an ATF G-man who lived undercover in the hills with the Klan. It was four glorious days for perfecting my skills, after which Pat and I went to a lawyer and made out our wills. Now there is no correlation between those events except to say that’s how November was spent.

That brings us to December, to the end of the year, to the end of this missive to the ones we hold dear.

We wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Love and Best Wishes,

Karyn and Pat