Year-End Review Part III: Oddses and Endses

A dreary day outside to end the year. Worked a few hours either side of wrangling the cats for their annual checkups and shot deliveries (they're remarkably fine and healthy).  Eleanor goes another hour at work, then a pizza arrives for the Eve-ning festivities, minimalist as they will be.  Yesterday, I got to watch the Bills' longest-tenured player go out in style, the team Squishing The Fish, their biggest rival, by a not-even-close score and having their quarterback throw a pass to him (a defensive player "reported as eligible" for the play), which he caught and almost ran for a first down:)  We then prepared for tomorrow's Thirteen Holiday Episode by re-watching Twelve's finale from the previous year; we love Jodie's take on the Doctor role, but Capaldi had something special going there, and his final soliloquy is one for the ages, even counting all of theirs.

As for the rest of the previous 363 days: I can only hit a few high and notable points. 

The grind. Putting final touches on time entries today, I discovered I'd signed up almost the exact number of hours in 2018 that I did the year before, which itself was my busiest year ever.  I've transitioned some types of work and some billing arrangements on some, but most days I'm still okay, if not always happy, going into work. I deal with wonderful coworkers and am learning to say no to clients who I feel are going to make me crazy.  Eleanor is a year closer to retirement and may even start drawing Social Security this year, since her Wegmans income is under the threshold where you lose benefits for working.

The bods. Despite the getting older and creakier part, we managed to get through 2018 (hopefully not jinxing its final seven hours) with no surgeries, broken parts or major events. Eleanor found a new orthopaedics practice and massage therapist she's happy with, and our primary remains kind and down-to-earth. She continued losing a lot of weight, while I've hovered around the same number for most of the year that's still improved over where my hovering was for most of 2017.  I've also continued a pretty intense workout program, taking a workshop at the end of the year which has already taught me some cool things that make the classes even more productive.

The cord. Done cut it; well, the cable-box part of it, since Internet still comes through the cord part, and we kept a small retinue of local and specialty stations that still resulted in us paying just over half of what we had been for 300 channels with nothing on.  No local sports stations, but see below about how great a loss THAT was.  With some of the savings, we upgraded our late-90s sight and sound into something resembling Home Theater- a bigger HD smart screen, a Blu-ray player that also accepts DVDs and even music CDs, and a soundbar that (for Eleanor at least) majorly magnifies the quality of the audio of both.

The sport. Mostly sucked in terms of results, but had plenty of fun moments. Not counting the Bills' last-January playoff appearance that was really part of the 2017 season, nobody here at any level won much of anything. Sabres, Mets and both AAA teams were shut out of playoff appearances, and the Amerks did make the AHL post-season but blinked out in the first round.  But I got to my first-ever experience of A-ball in Batavia, my first-ever last-game for the Mets in Queens, saw them in Toronto with 700 crazed fellow fans, and have much hope for their future prospects as well as those of all the others I follow.

The fam. Probably the biggest change was the one which, also, we consider a leftover from 2017: the kids are all gone, but the kids are all right. Emily joined Cameron in Virginia at the end of January after spending almost that entire month finishing up her Rochester job and getting their apartment ready for early moveout. We never made it to see them, and they haven't been back, but we speak and even Skype to keep the home fires sufficiently warm.  Beyond that, while we attended the occasional funeral and that one year-end wedding, none of them involved anyone we're related to.

The home. Solar began to pay its dividends, as for most months our electric bill went down from an average close-to-100 amount to the minimum under-20 needed to be on the grid. (It went up last month and will again for the winter bills, but on the whole it makes economic as well as environmental sense.)  Our big projects were redoing the outdoor patio- reconfiguring wasted garden space into a bricked pathish thing, and expanding and freshening the slate slabs under the (new) patio table.  After that, Eleanor moved inside, and has gotten close to half this floor repainted, along the way decluttering areas that we're just not capable or desirous of keeping up housekeeping on for the sake of a few tscochkes.

The nots. Not much travel beyond two area codes for both of us, and not even any for me except work-related and the handful of baseball pilgrimages.  No theater beyond the community kind.  And other than work stuff and this blog, no real writing of any significance. Still, I'm here: between this first full year on this non-homophobic site and its predecessor back in the USSR, I'm up to almost 6,000 entries since 2004. It's not a daily thing, but it's still an outlet for any who still read or care- including, just as importantly, me.

I'm sure I'm forgetting something of great significance, but if you care to find it and inform me, start here and keep hitting the → button until you see it. Comment and I'll revise. Until then, 2018 can kiss my grits before we next awaken, and we'll see all'yall on the other side:)