A landmark election year whose climax will bring a dark chapter to American history. That is, a dark chapter that will actually get the attention of the majority of Americans, unlike much of its other dark history. It is indeed frightening.
So the coincidental return of Billy Bob Thornton in the movie sequel Bad Santa 2 this holiday season seems an appropriate image to capture the mood of the day ("from bad to worse"), returning to our Bad Santa theme of 2003. [Oops, the reclining cat got a makeover on its page 2! We had forgotten about that. Self-plagiarism is what science journals call this nowadays.] As for the mixup in the naughty and nice lists, it is hard for a reasonable person to think of worse choices to give out all these high level governmental posts to (hanging participle). The gremlins were sketched from a Mad Magazine cartoon for a Christmas card for bob's dad's 45th birthday in 1969 [1, 2, 3] just before bob's participation in Woodstock where he missed Jimi Hendrix by hours.
bob got involved with a newly formed Villanovans Against Sweatshops to try to get the university to exert its moral authority in its Nike contract, but things are moving slowly.
Apart from the self-plagiarism from previous cards already mentioned, the two hearts like deformed apples with worms hugging is from xmas92, while the cat couple on page 2 is from xmas94. In spite of the fact that Trump is easily caricatured, it was really hard to find a good simple cartoon face to transform to the new Bad Santa with a smug smile.
This year again the window envelope teased the recipient about its contents, another tradition that usually accompanies our current domestic destination love stamp.
for example:
Status quo. More time devoted to elder care. bob did not execute this year's idea gestating for over a month until January 2, the same day we proudly hung in our family room an incredible 60"x 40" glass surfaced stretched canvas painting reproduction of Meditation by a 75 year old Egyptian artist Ibrahim Bassmi [images] we found serendipitously in the Final Sale corner of our local Crate and Barrel store for 60 percent off its $850 list price.
it even matches all the colors of our various cheap throw pillows and
blankets!page 2:
Center City Philly celebration of Villanova's NCAA national basketball
championship, street selfie
2016 Mendel Award black tie dinner, selfie
relaxing on a couch somewhere
Christmas tree pose, winning smile on left
dressed up for something, outside our townhome
with that background, there is only one place in the world we could be
someplace in Abruzzo mountains, pretty flowers and stone village
same Abruzzo village again
Abruzzo stream parkFor photos of our summers 2009--2016 in Italy, check out our collection of Facebook uploaded photos (Warning: too many food shots) and for all bob's Facebook food posts without the politics, check out our Facebook food master index. Instead for a gallery of all bob's cute little xmas card sketches, see the xmas card gallery. For his other sketches, see the dr bob sketchbook.
This is the year my mom's progressive aphasia robbed her finally not only of the ability to put together words in sentences, but to even show signs of recognition when her 4 sons visit, thus marking her official entrance into the stage of dead woman walking. How sad an end. bob owes so much to her influence, most concretely symbolized by the sacrifice to attend a better public school in the adjoining district at high tuition they had to borrow money to pay, leading to Princeton and UC Berkeley and my subsequent part time life as an American expat in Rome.
photo by bobThe color of the paper this year was canary yellow. As usual Lynne at Villanova Fed-Ex oversaw the work. This annual enterprise was sent out to about 500 recipients all over the world again with nice Forever Hearts stamps to the domestic crowd (47 cents), Global Full Moon stamp to destinations abroad ($1.15 ouch! even to Canada now).
The dr bob negative profit corporation bookkeeping: a loss of about 500 bucks to plant a few smiles around the world, for a net gain not measurable in dollars, serving to keep in touch with so many people who have entered our lives over the years as we stumble through life.
So post New Year's production and mailing for the first time in our tradition (January 2-3). Who knows what this coming year will bring us all?