Smackie the Frog

Well it is that time of year again. Time for the annual Halley Holiday Newsletter. I know that most people write these up on fancy paper, and put them in pretty envelopes, with stamps and everything, but we found out this year that Phil is allergic to paper, so I’m going to have to do it online. I hope that you’ll forgive me.

Overall this has been a pretty good year for the Halley family. If you’ll remember from last year, Mom ran away. Well much to our relief, she came back a couple of months later, a little bruised up, but no worse for the wear. We don’t know exactly what happened – she won’t talk much about it, but Dad did notice a couple of strange credit card purchases from Costa Rica. Since she’s been back she hasn’t done much. A few job offers have come her way, but she prefers to sit at home and sort the junk mail into piles based on the originating ZIP code and eat jalapeno flavored pork rinds. And order things she sees on QVC, but for some reason only things that are stuffed. We’re really hoping that next year she gets a job cleaning or mending or something, as the credit card debt is really piling up, and the cable has been turned off. At least that has cut back on the QVC.

Dad’s business failed. But that’s okay, because he found himself. Turns out all of these years that he wanted to own his own company and stuff, and really he was a painter and a mime. He started off with oil painting, but that was too messy, so he switched to watercolors, but the water kept getting turned off, so now he mostly paints using dirt from the back yard, tar that he scraped from the roof, and this weird purple fuzz that he found under the fridge. It is making some really unique looking things, and one of these days a gallery is going to let him in the door (literally) and he’ll be able to show it off. The mime thing is less successful. Every Wednesday he goes down to a street corner in downtown and puts on little shows for the workers on their lunch breaks. Unfortunately a couple of weeks ago he made a gesture that looked like something hanging from a noose at a couple of young “urban” youths, and his arm has been in a sling since then, so it is really hard for him to mime. His spirits haven’t been dampened though.

Phil got discharged from the military, and we’re really happy to have him back home. Phil was a always a big Star Wars fan, so when one of his friends called “the insurgents” “the rebels” Phil ran off and tried to help them. A few weeks later he was captured in Ramadi, yelling something about “Imperial Scum”. The documents are still mostly classified, so it is hard to know exactly what happened. The military is known to lie and cover things up, though, so we suspect there is more there. Anyway, at his court martial it was determined that he actually had acquired some sort of “desert brain disease” and he wasn’t thinking clearly, so they gave him an honorable discharge, and now he’s back. He tried to get a job as an oil change tech down at Jiffy Lube, but even they expect you to have a degree now, and his Associates in Taxidermy didn’t cut it.

The big news from our family is that Abby is pregnant. We’re not quite sure who the father is, but she is relatively sure it could only be one of 4 guys. We’re waiting the results of the DNA tests, but I think secretly we are all hoping it is Billy. Billy is the youngest at 37, and comes from money. His step-dad is the co-owner of that 7-11 on Big Bend, so if we can somehow get hooked up to that wagon, we’ll be set. Or at least we’ll get some free Slurpees. Her band did fall through, when it was found out that the drummer was taking all of their money and spending it, ironically, at dad’s old strip club. She’s hoping to get another band started, but with the baby on the way and the hundred pounds she put on, it seems far fetched.

As for me, well this has been the best year of my life. I had four really great girlfriends, and now I’ve got four great female friends that I don’t really talk to anymore. I got a new job as a highway construction worker, but they don’t tell you how much you have to carry, so I quit that and now I work part time as a telemarketer. It really is the best situation for me. I can wear the same clothes every day (money is tight – I only have one pair of jeans), I get to talk to some really wonderful people, and when I finally get my check it should be enough for some more insulin. (I’ve had to water down the stuff I have to make it last, and I don’t think that’s working.) The company claims that they mail checks every 3 months, but every time I call I just get an answering machine. Oh well, I check the mail each day with hope and a smile.

Well we love all of you, and hope that all of you have had as great a year as we have. And if anyone hears from Eddie at American Telemarketing, could you send him my way?