Dear Everyone,

It has been a slowish couple of weeks at work, since we had two three day holidays, and of course, people have been out on vacation.  I don’t think it will slow down quite as much next year, since the Holidays fall on a Sunday.  However, it was busier than I remember it two years ago, when the Holidays were on Wednesday, breaking the week up pretty effectively.  I have the end of year numbers for specimens we did this year (we always run a small skill pool to guess the last specimen number of the year).  Last year we ended around 18,500, and this year we were above 20,700.  The 10% increase in specimens did not translate to a 10% increase in income, if anything, we were flat or down a little.  Several factors to this beyond a decrease in insurance payments - - one of our contracts was written to pay us 1/3 of the normal rate (the administrator who okayed this got fired, but that doesn’t help make us whole).  I hope this isn’t a harbinger of further decreases.

We had a terrible sleet/snow storm here on Monday; it left several inches of slush and ice on the ground.  At least we are not in southwestern Illinois or Missouri; those areas have been declared states of emergency while everyone was in Cancun, and about two dozen people died in floods, most of them getting from driving their cars into flooded roadways.  It only takes a few inches of water to undermine your vehicle, and then you are at the mercy of the elements.  I am not looking forward the rest of the winter.

Last week we spent Christmas Eve at Jim and Amy’s, particularly so jasper could have a chance to see all of his cousins.  Amy hosted a delicious dinner.  Then, we had Christmas at our house.  Among gifts were a copy of The Lego Movie (truly ‘awesome’), a few games, clothes, and a beautiful painting of Meeko (see below) from my friend and teacher Hiroshi Tajiri.  Beyond being a talented calligrapher and artist, Sensei Tajiri was one of Sensei Toyoda’s first students in Chicago in the 1970’s.  His day job is a lab technician at North Carolina State University in the Raleigh/Durham area.

We also had a visit from my friend Christine Pillar and her husband Ken.  Chris was a resident with me at Hopkins, and they live in Charlotte NC.  Their oldest is a junior in high school, so they are just beginning the college process. They’re pretty happy about the Panther’s football record.  We had dinner at Vistro in Hinsdale.  The food was good to okay, but the service was sort of wacky.  We talked about our deceased friend Rebecca Nelson, and a little about Ken’s application for a small business grant for his company, which makes GMO soybeans, altered to make human pharmaceuticals.  They have been working on getting the beans to produce humanized antibodies for the treatment of myasthenia gravis.

I hope the book discussion went well.  I neglected to mention an excellent book I read a couple of months ago, Erasure by Percival Everett.  This is a satirical, somewhat bitter, but extremely funny novel. I have read three novels by Everett, but this one has been my favorite.  I don’t want to ruin anything with my description (which you can find easily enough on the internet), but it’s worth a read.  If enough people like it, we could discuss it in Mexico next year - - advance warning, it’s 275 pages long.

Jasper has been swimming enormous practices the last two weeks, over 10,000 yards per day.  I wish I had the time (and the stamina) to exercise like that.  An hour is a long time for me.

Happy New Year!

Love, H.

The kanji says something like 'adorable dog'.