calherewecome

So I went to get my haircut today and after I was done I decided to take a ride up to Green Hills Cemetery to visit Mary’s grave. Today is one of those rare days in LA where the rain is falling.

Today is a dreary day with light rain falling. On the drive up the hill to the mausoleum where Mary is interred, I passed several funerals in progress. Such a dreary time to die, but there is no hiatus in deaths during the holiday season.

I passed many graves where the families of the dearly departed had decorated the graves with bright and shiny holiday ornaments, some more brighter than others. I didn’t take any pictures. I didn’t want to impose on the family’s grief.

One thing that I wanted to do was to check on Mary’s grave marker. They were supposed to add a Square & Compass and OES marker. Not been done. We will call to see what happened. Here’s the picture:

Our Christmas letter is just about finished and ready to mail. Every year I have been writing a Christmas letter for all of our friends. I first started in 1997 or 1998 (at least I have issues on my hard drive going back to that date.

I got the idea from Paula’s Mom who did a Christmas letter for all of her friends and family. She wrote it on her IBM Selectric typewriter. Her goal was to reach out to the many folks who worked for the US Park Service (where Harold used to work during the summer). Many of those folks were spread out across the country.

So I send my letter to our readers spread out across the country, mostly in CA and MA but a few in other locales.

My first couple of issues just had clip art and no pictures. Now I add recent pictures of us and our family. I get Christmas-y paper and envelopes from Amazon.

I actually started work on this year’s letter back in October. Final copy is approved by my editor (Paula) and goes to print. I make sure I have bought new ink cartridges for my printer. I always run out of ink during the print run.

I also work on vetting my mailing list. I need to check addresses. Currently, I have about 125 people on my list. Some people get added, some deleted. I try to make sure that I don’t make the faux pas of sending a letter to ‘John and Jane Doe” when one of the pair has died in the past year. And, I try to make sure that I have everyone’s latest address.

I use an app on my iPad called Label Printer to print the address labels. It really does a great job. The actual letter is done using Microsoft Word.

Paula usually writes a personal note on some of the letters. The first batch of letters will be hitting the mail box by tomorrow.