December 12th, close to midnight
Dearest Friends and Family,
Another wonderful year has come and gone in the Rambaud-Anderson household. How time flies! I could swear it was just yesterday I sat down to write last year’s letter, but somehow a whole twelve months have passed, and here I am sitting down to write again. I look out the window and imagine I am back home with all of you, enjoying the crisp air of a New England winter, imagining the sky is filled with snow, not drizzle. Oh well. It certainly is a magical time of year, as they say.
Our boys have continued growing and achieving. Randall earned a perfect 4.0 his first trimester of college. This feat left me and Tyson speechless, given our firstborn’s solid D average throughout his five long years of high school. Come to find out, Randall paid a classmate to write his papers for him. So an intelligent and enterprising young woman named Markeesha Adam earned a perfect 4.0 this semester. Our little Also-Rand probably earned himself closer to a 0.2. Needless to say, Tyson has him up in his room, confessing the whole thing to the college dean on notebook paper. It was the same punishment we gave him when he stole a Jolly Rancher fifteen years ago. Maybe no one else remembers this, however.
Our middle son Rob certainly took his first name to heart when he was arrested for breaking and entering Debby’s Doll Emporium on South Street, as you will have seen on the Alder Valley News (shout out to reporter Jennifer Jopp. I never answer the door to anyone who looks so chipper at seven thirty a.m.) To hear Rob tell it, he and Bongo were just goofing around in front of Debbby’s when Bongo sort of pushed him and the window just kind of broke. He says he doesn’t know anything about how one hundred fifteen collectible porcelain dolls and approximately two hundred doll accessories were removed from the store and strewn about the sidewalk, coincidentally in the direction of our home. The police are still sorting it out and we have had to hire a lawyer so of course this is all to say “no comment”.
Lest we forget, our extra special bonus child Ricky put his critical thinking skills to use this year devising ways to get out of school. Glass of water behind the toilet. Thermometer next to a light bulb. Fake stuffy nose. This is the stuff of little Ricky’s world. Our little mouth-breather racked up twenty-one absences over the course of the year, and won himself a free ticket to Grade Six, the Sequel. This in turn caused him to run away to his buddy Darren’s house in Franklin County. (Because Franklin County is a real-life Never-Never Land, where children do not have to go to school but play video games all day, don’t you know.) Ricky is no longer on speaking terms with Tyson or myself, as we’ve obviously forbidden him from visiting Darren. Watch this space.
As for Tyson, thank you for all the well-wishes after his incident with the car antenna. Yes, he took one up the nose. He gave himself the black eye. (I did not give my husband the black eye.)
Unfortunately, I did not land the Library Assistant job as I had hoped but (silver lining) I get to continue my role as Everything Assistant to the family.
Buddy is doing well now that the diarrhea has cleared up. He likes to scamper around the house at night, scattering dog fur. He’s like a flower girl at a wedding, but with dog fur.
Speaking of weddings, we have three eligible bachelors. Caveat emptor.
Happiest of holidays and best wishes for the new year.
Danielle Diandra Rambaud-Anderson and the entire Rambaud-Anderson family.