Year-End, Part I

To say that personally, 2010 was a good year for us would be to understate things a tad. When this year dawned, my wife was stuck in a thankless job, hated by her boss for no reason she was ever made privy to. Fast-forward twelve months and she finds herself working in a much more convivial atmosphere. A place where she is appreciated. A place where a "fun day" is scheduled every month, complete with games and prizes.

At Hallowe'en, there was a contest to produce the grossest gourmet set-piece. The previous year's winner was a kitty litter cake. Eva went all-out on this contest, producing two dishes. The first was an ear fashioned out of clay, complete with long painted ear hairs. The judges had to take marshmallow "Q-Tips" and dip them in the ear, coating them in caramel "wax" (complete with Skor-bit chunks)...and that wasn't the worst of it. The other dish, the one that had me ready to puke my guts, was this inspired monstrosity:

Pita "baby wipes" were provided...

Needless to say, Eva won. The judges almost refused to sample her dishes.

It's not all fun and games there: less than six months after hire, Eva is the go-to person on an exceptionally large project. I'm intensely proud of her...and not at all surprised. Ten years of marriage to this remarkable woman has made it very difficult to feel surprised at her achievements.

Ten years of marriage. We celebrated our tenth anniversary in grand style, at Disney's Old Key West Resort. That was only ten weeks ago...hard to believe. We booked the trip in February, thus ensuring each month between then and October would take a year to pass. Oddly, the weeks since seem to have taken just as long.

Disney was far and away the best trip of my life (not that there have been many). I'd dearly love to go back--there's enough to see and do on Disney property to keep two adults busy for at least a month--but then again, there's a whole world out there, and I'd like to see a lot of it.

Eva's anniversary present was a white sapphire ring...

...and mine was this Mac Mini. I think she's at least as happy with her gift as I am with mine, which is to say: very.

The lid on our home was replaced, and we sprouted a deck. We had been batting around the notion of moving--this house was chosen to suit a life we weren't meant to live--but that deck has forestalled things, adding a whole dimension to the place.

At my work, things are chugging along. We finally have a date for renovations that have been put off no fewer than five times already...hopefully this date will stick. I have to say I am not looking forward to the renovation process one bit: I've heard entirely too many horror stories from too many people who have already gone through it. Hopefully I come out the other side relatively unscathed.

For me, one of the biggest highlights of this past year was the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games, the place where Canada both grew up as a sporting nation and got a chance to engage in totally uncharacteristic braggadocio. The remarkable national sense of bonding those Games achieved

lingers still.

Song of the Year: Wavin' Flag, K'naan. Although the original was recorded two years ago, in 2010 this song was everywhere. It was used as a rallying cry after the Haiti earthquake; a considerably lightened version was chosen to be the anthem for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa (the omnipresent vuvuzelas at which threatened to drown K'naan, and the rest of the world, out).

Book of the Year: Luftslottet som sprängdes ("The Castle In The Air That Blew Up")--otherwise known as The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest, by Julian Assange. Okay, well, it might as well have been. Stieg Larsson's third Lisbeth Salander novel dominated bestseller lists: its protagonist, were she real, would undoubtedly be working right now, behind the scenes, for WikiLeaks.

Which is the perfect segue into the next post, coming Friday, about the world in 2010. That, sadly, isn't near as rosy a picture...