xmascard 15: credits, comments, ani and bob news for
2015
- Notes:
We toned down our last line on page 1 from: "Let's hope the Americans and Europeans find some small measure of it to
confront the record refugee crisis of their own making." At least the
Germans, who are perhaps the least responsible among the UK, France and USA,
are stepping up to offer shelter to the flood of refugees. All the US can do
is demonise them, when it is the most responsible for tearing apart the Middle
East, although the French and Brits share the blame for laying the foundation
with their colonialistic damage to the area and the insane map boundaries that
they drew.
I also wanted to asterisk ani's name with "born
in Damascus, Syria; mom Isgouhi born in Aleppo, Syria" to drive home what kind
of people are being villified by the right wing Americans and the Republican
presidential candidates. What a sad situation in that region of the world
totally wrecked by the US and European powers, now joined in by Russia on
apparently opposite sides with full nuclear arsenals at the disposal of each.
- Sketches:
The usual Santa and weird
reindeer make their appearance yet again. After much procrastinating, the
first sketch came, with a little white-out to remove an accidental bit of
anger from the eyes of Santa. The second sketch I was dreading, so I scanned
the first and overlaid some fencing from a website selling fencing and then
embellished the original characters. Problem solved, another success.
Another dominant theme of the past year punctuated the day of our
mailing was gun violence and Obama's attempt to address it with executive
action on gun control. There was not room to include a recaptioned sketch
from the 1980s to hint at this:
"In
the USA everyone is armed...you never know when some border crashing
foreigner will unexpectedly show up in your home..."
- Window envelope tradition:
We use left address
window envelopes to allow some bit of the top sketch of the card to peek
through to the recipient as a tease about the envelope's contents. When we
are lucky, a cute piece of the sketch peers through. This time when loading
the cards right side up, only part of the dinghy boat showed through, but
then bob got mixed up and loaded a card upside down, and serendipity
occurred:
so we continued in this way... :-)
- Personal News:
bob had sinus surgery Dec 16 while we were hosting two nephews for two weeks
while their parents visted Lebanon for the first time in 3 years for Nora's
brother's wedding, and there was a bit too much pressure to pile the card
production on top of the other stuff going on. So we missed the December 25 deadline again this year, mailing out everything
January 5 (domestic: 345; foreign: 140; total 494).
- Photos:
page 1:
evening outside dining in our favorite Pescara restaurant
Ristorante '984.
page 2:
Abruzzo hillside;
2015
Mendel Award Dinner;
niece elissa wedding in NC end of May;
fontana della tartarughe in the Jewish quarter of Rome, photo taken by our new
friend Laura;
medieval castel/restaurant/museum near Sale in Abruzzo;
bob and ani clever art selfie "in the art" mirror art at the MdAM Roma
(Museo di Arte Moderna)
- More bonus photos:
For photos of our summers 2009--2015 in Italy, check out our
collection of
Facebook uploaded photos
(now available with links to Facebook nonmembers). Lots of Italian food
shots! Too many food shots.You should see bob's photo archive! Food, food,
food and more food. Our talents in the kitchen at least keep us relatively
happy together and save us somewhat from the US agribusiness health attack.
- Remembrances:
nonna Velia left us this past year. And former
colleagues Martin Kleiber and Lucien Roy.
- Financials:
The color of the paper this year was ivory. As usual Villanova Fed-Ex did the work.
Lynne remembers us by now. She has been doing our job for umpteen (18) years
and is very friendly. This annual enterprise was sent out to about 500 recipients all over the world
again with nice
Forever Hearts stamps to the domestic crowd (46 cents), Global Holiday: Silver Bells Wreath International stamp
to destinations abroad ($1.15 ouch!).
the dr bob negative profit corporation bookkeeping:
stamps:
about $400
photocopy:
$109 with 10 percent discount for 510 Fed-Ex colored paper BW copies
with Z-fold
envelopes:
$42 No 10 Left Window
Self-Sealing envelopes shipped from Staples.com
labels:
17 sheets
Avery 8460 30: 1"x2 5/8" address labels ($5.10),
8 sheets
Avery 8167 80: 1/2"x1 3/4" return address labels ($3.50)
so roughly 570 bucks.
sending smiles around the world is
serious business..serving to maintain contact over so many years with so
many people who have entered our lives along the way.
- Postscript:
Finally all bob's decades of sketchbook files were uploaded this year, making all his artwork freely available for the world to
ignore.