Dear Friends & Family,
Happy Holidays to our friends and family. The older I get the more aware I am of what a gift it is to have both. Our little family of four has made it through another year together & healthy & for this, we are grateful.
We have had a good year watching our children grow. Tara is now 17 years old. She’s had a wonderful year. For her birthday, her daddy went to an auction & bought her a very used truck & made her childhood dreams come true by painting it hot pink. We surprised her with a treasure hunt & I don’t know who was more delighted – Tara being shocked out of her mind with her find or her dad watching her be so thrilled. To top off her summer, she started dating a boy that she feels is worthy of her & all her glory. His name is Justin Conklin & we have known his family for quite a while. I really love this kid too. He’s very family-oriented, sensitive & loyal – yet he still pulls off being quite masculine. Plus, he’s a good kisser – don’t ask me how I know.
Andrew is having a good year too. He’s really entering that teen phase. Talking to girls, conspiring to talk to girls with his guy friends & making sure that his hair is just right before leaving the house. He stole his father’s heart the other day by attending his first anti-war protest downtown. It was kind of ironic. His dad dropped him off at the protest, then went to buy him engines for a model car he’s building for a school project & then swung by & picked him back up & took him home. Isn’t that weird? Protest by day, make toys by night. Boys, go figure.
Funky is leading a charmed life. He comes home from work, sits down to a lovely dinner prepared by his even lovelier wife, plays some pinball, builds model cars, walks the dogs & then gets to sleep in bed next to me all night long. He couldn’t have written this script any better. He is going to my little Japanese doctor Reiko though & finds this to be a trifle upsetting. He has a hard time being all nakey with a strange woman’s hands all over his body, poking & prodding & lighting his toes on fire & sticking needles in his ear. But he can’t deny the fact that he feels much better & has more energy, so he continues to go. Ever since he bought Tara’s truck at auction, he’s been an auction-going fool. He bids on trucks, brings them home, we clean them up & turn around & sell them. He calls it our hobby. I call it paying for the kid’s tuition.
This is Funk’s email response to me when I asked him if this Christmas letter sounded OK:
My Dear Gorgeous Gladia It’s great! For the NY piece the word “sight” should be “site.” You might want to mention something about the cabin. The windows, the chainsaws and chiggers – and your view, the kids finding the river, the bonfires, and Justin jumping from the rock. Love The Lucky ManSo, here’s Funk’s 2 cents that I’ll expand on. Andrew decided we needed to have a bonfire at the cabin so he set up a fire ring up by the property line. That’s when we discovered that we could have a gorgeous view if we cleared out some brush & small trees. So we bought Funk a chain saw (his Japanese doctor said he needed to do “blue-collar” work – she feared his body was becoming a flaccid little professor’s body – (only some parts though – the main ones are still right up there) & he opened up a beautiful long view of rolling hills. It has been such a joy to discover. Another day I told the kids to walk our creek & see where it landed them. Within an hour, they were calling on the walkie-talkie to tell us that they hit, “the mother load.” Apparently, there is a gorgeous river less than a mile up the creek. In their excitement, they flung the walkie-talkie & we couldn’t reach them anymore. So Funk had to walk down to the river & follow their trail of belongings until he came upon them, a mile away. Can we say Daddy was upset?
Me, I’m spending as much time with my kids as I possibly can while I still have them all to myself. In between taking care of their every desire, I secretly drive around in Tara’s truck knowing that I’ll get stared at the whole time. I try to pretend that the people are staring at me because they’ve never seen such a hot 44-year old that also happens to drive a pink Barbie truck. A little desperate I know, but I have to comfort myself somehow.
We went to NY this summer and visited my poor ailing brother Robert who had by-pass surgery, frolicked in the ocean with my mudder while the crabs nipped at her toes, got together with old friends and saw the 9/11 site. New Yorkers are still definitely reeling from this disaster. At the same time, my sister Jane was getting treatment at Reiko’s Hawaiian clinic. She is becoming healthier by the day & it is so much fun to see.
On a sadder note, my sister-in-law Pam’s sister, Lori Minard, is fighting for her life on life-support as I write this to you. She choked on a piece of meat at a restaurant & has been in a coma ever since. The unbelievable part, from what I understand, is that she rarely eats meat & that a firefighter was at the restaurant & he couldn’t dislodge this for her. We are praying for a miracle for her & her family & would appreciate it if you could do the same for us.
We would love to see all of you. Our home is always open – so if you’re in the neighborhood, stop by sometime. If you’re out of town, please come visit. We could show you around Kansas City or if you’re into roughing it, we could show you around our woods. We hope you are blessed with a wonderful holiday season & a happy & healthy New Year.
Love,
The Funks
New Years Day Open House at the Funk’s
Please bring the family for a beer, a bowl of chili and
a slice of bread from 3-7pm