Bring on 2020 and the dancing bears

2019 has been kind. I’ve lost weight (a stomach operation, then changing my diet has made some drastic changes) I’ve been diagnosed with a (treatable) heart condition, and I have a job I really love. Job singular. For the first time in YEARS, I have ONE job, not a main and side-gigs. So of course I’ve been volunteering up a storm. Heh. You’d think I’d relax or something. My kids are gorgeous and amazing. The small boy Cass is now a senior in high school, with plans for university and his future. I’m so proud of the man he’s becoming, although I still miss the ghost of his six year old self with the flashing gap-toothed grin. Nowadays he’s much less likely to eat the last cookie and much more probable to ask me if I’ve seen the Gordon Ramsey turkey video, and then borrow the car. The small girl Rosey is now in tenth grade, and she’s flowering into a lovely, self-aware young woman. She comes in colours like a rainbow, as the old song says, and Rosey feels things deeply. She has wise old woman eyes, and she has the ability to empathize with everyone she meets. We lost one of the kitties this year, our calico-love Lucy. She went to sleep in her usual spot under Roo’s bed, and then went on ahead of us in her catly way. We miss her and her squeezebox purring that echoed through the house. The other two cats (the irrepressible Boo and Inky) and the housebunny Violet moped for a long time. Jasper is still doddering along. He’s deaf and cataract-laden, and he’s got a horrible racking cough that probably means he’s cooking up something nasty and cancer-related, but as long as he’s happy and able to be with us, we will certainly be thrilled to have him. Bear is....Bear. Still steady and sweet, still infuriating-at-times. He’s the easiest character to write about here, as he doesn’t change much. (A good *and* bad thing, sometimes.) Bring on the Roaring Twenties,