December 19, 2004

A SKOUSEN CHRISTMAS 2004

Gosh! This year has been so flippin' SWEET! It's INCREDIBLE!

You might like that music. My cousin made it. What could be sweeter than the birth of our first grandchild, Luke Orion Durham? He arrived on January 15, when the constellation Orion was beautifully visible in the night sky. James and Valerie are AWESOME parents, and Luke is an adorable, precocious baby. Just last week he made his MOVIE DEBUT, eating from a spoon with his RIGHT HAND! (Okay, it was a video clip sent over the internet, but it was still INCREDIBLE. Gosh!) Mark and I can't get enough of him. So "make yourself a dang quesadilla," cuz Grandma has to go play with her grandson! But that's not all. James produced an album of his own music last year, "Aeolian May," (available from Amazon.com) and Valerie has started her own Duncan dance company in Annapolis. They're so Flippin' creative!!

Looks like you're the only one without a job, Napoleon. Tim is having a great year too. For five years we've endured the snickers and rolled eyes as we told people, "Tim is a filmmaker." Isn't everybody these days? But when we started adding, "and he has a film at Sundance" this year, the reaction totally changed. Flippin' Sweet! "Napoleon Dynamite" was the surprise hit of the summer. All the college kids are quoting it, and high school kids have clubs and dress up like Napoleon. (Tim's "mom goes to college," [to teach] so that's why all these quotes keep creeping into this letter..) Dang, even JIM CARREY had a SWEET party to screen the movie at his HOUSE, and invited TOM CRUISE, who told People magazine it was his favorite film of the year. ("Like anybody could even know that.") So if you haven't seen it yet, what are you waiting for?? He also filmed and produced a powerful documentary, "awful normal," that won several awards this year. INCREDIBLE! He couldn't have done it without the support of his beautiful wife, Autumn, who never once said, "Tim, when are you going to get a real job?"

Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills. Lesley and Nathan have a boatload of skills. You know, "like numchuck skills, bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills..." Lesley's majoring in history at University of Illinois, cleaning up on the sweet awards and getting ready for graduate school. She was a Newbery scholar last year (as a sophomore!) and was invited to attend an academic conference in London in November, one of only five students (the rest were all professors). Her husband, Nathan, is just as academic, earning the annual "Excellence in Writing" award last spring. He's an English major and practically runs the school's writing center. Their biggest concern right now is getting into graduate schools near each other, which would be even more incredible than "spending the summer in Alaska huntin' wolverines."

I think this wig matches your season. Todd transferred from Rollins to the University of Utah this winter for a change of pace. But then he realized he was an IDIOT for spending $6,000 for a semester at the U when he can attend Rollins for free on his scholarship, so right after purchasing his student-rate, discounted lift passes at Park City and Brighton he withdrew from classes and got a full refund. (Is that what they mean by "Economics major" at Rollins?) He spent the winter snowboarding every day and using lots of Chapstick because his "lips hurt real bad." When the snow melted he returned to Florida and wakeboarding (and school). "His head was getting like real hot, then he realized it was his hair, so he went in the kitchen and shaved it all off." He was featured in a wakeboarding video this summer and helped the Rollins team to a second place finish at Collegiate Nationals last month. "His head was getting like real hot, then he realized it was his hair, so he went in the kitchen and shaved it all off." Tim wrote a part for Todd in his next movie. We hoped this would give Todd a reason to shave his mohawk, but no, Tim wrote the part with the mohawk in mind. What was he thinking??

Practicin' my dance moves. Our kids are so flippin' creative. Hayley started a dance team at her high school when we moved to New York, and was captain and choreographer for three years (what a "Summer" thing to do!) She found out she could sing too, and played Lola in "Damn Yankees" in the spring musical. She loves New York, but after three freezing winters she decided to attend the University of San Diego, a small Catholic college where her motto is "With me it will be Summer all year long!" She does synchronized skating with Team del Sol, and performed with Dorothy Hamill, Elvis Stojko, Nicole Bobek, Rudy Galindo, and a host of others in "Legends on Ice" last month at the Long Beach Arena. All those ice skating lessons actually paid off. Sweet!

So, we're pretty much friends by now, right? Mark and I shed a few tears when our last little chick left the nest in August. Then we bought a whole new nest, a townhouse overlooking the Hudson River in Dobbs Ferry, just 20 miles north of Manhattan. We go to plays and concerts and do "whatever we feel like we wanna do. Gosh!" We still have our home in Florida, where Todd rents out all the bedrooms to college students who are "ruining everyone's lives and eating all our steak," or so the neighbors think. We love riding bikes together along the aqueduct. We have some "sweet Sledgehammers fully equipped with shocks, pegs,-- LUCKY!!" We've even"taken them off some sweet jumps and got like three feet of air!" We especially love having visitors, as long as Uncle Rico stays away, so come see us. We'll "catch you a delicious bass." You can feed Tina.

Have you ever come across anything like time travel, Napoleon? We'd like to be able to go back and visit those days of little kids running around, throwing pillows at their dad. We have five children who continue to bring us joy, three in-laws who fit into the family like "soul mates," a gorgeous grandson, and jobs we find fulfilling. Mark is teaching economics at Columbia/Barnard, his newsletter and trading services have had great track records with this year, and Grantham University just named their business school after him. What the heck! I teach English literature and writing at Mercy College, one block from our house, and I'm the Gospel Doctrine teacher at church. But who knows? We may start training to become a cage fighter. Or sell Tupperware door to door.

How long is this gonna take? The only frown on our map is the fact that our children live in five different states (Florida, Maryland, Illinois, Utah, and California-connect the dots and you'll see what we mean.) But we keep up with them by "chatting online for 4 or 5 hours. Maybe not." Listen to your heart. That's what we always do. Have a merry Christmas, and if you don't understand this letter-go find a teenager to translate it for you!

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