Greetings, friends. (LXXVIII)

Greetings, friends. Happy new year! I celebrated, starting last night, and continuing as I normally do, by sending everyone I love the most obnoxious topical animated GIF I can find.

It really is festive, isn’t it? There, now I have shared it with you. I love you too.

It is Suzy’s birthday and she and Jared and his kids and also his mom are gathered in the guest room of the AirBnB we have rented in Yucca Valley, outside Joshua Tree. They are watching some children’s show on the TV.

I was sitting here doing anything but writing, when Suzy came in.

“I’m tired of watching that children’s show,” she said.

“I’m trying to write. It’s been a long time,” I said.

“I know,” Suzy said.

“I’m having a tough time getting started.”

“Well, write about my birthday party. The birthday girl wanted pierogi for her birthday, but her friends said she’s too good for frozen pierogi! We’re going to make some from scratch! And then they delivered!”

This is true. Suzy was cursed at birth by being born on the first day of the year, which meant that she’s had to share her birthday with the Gregorian calendar every year of her life.

One person in 365¼ of you know exactly what I’m talking about. Maybe more because some of you were born on New Year’s Eve, or Xmas, or July 4th, or some other perennial holiday.

It’s worse than having a December birthday and only getting gifts once a year. People like Suzy have to share the one day a year they could plausibly expect the people who love them to make a big deal about them with… something that isn’t theirs, that has nothing to do with them, aside from taking up space on the calendar the same day they were born.

I think it’s good for people to feel special and valued at least once in a while, so I like celebrating birthdays… but we didn’t really have much planned, to be honest.

In my new job, I get a long winter break, and Besha and I had to get the hell out of the Portland winter weather for a while, get some sun, and some fresh air and fresh perspective.

Joshua Tree was the obvious destination. Last year, Besha and I drove Suzy’s U-Haul the entire eight hours from Richmond, California, on down to Idyllwild, so that Suzy could finish moving in with Jared. This was blatant and, frankly, quite inexpensive payback for Suzy’s willingness to help me move all the crap I brought home from New Hampshire, not to mention helping me move my ass from San Francisco up to Portland two years ago. After we unloaded the truck, we came here.

The year before that, we celebrated Suzy’s [mumble]th milestone birthday at a different AirBnB near here, because it was a place at which Jared could attend.

Also, tbh, the dogsitter’s birthday is this week, so we had to go somewhere we could bring Whiskey, which meant somewhere we could drive. I haven’t talked much about Besha’s terror of a chihuahua / Italian greyhound mix, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot de Grey, but, fear not, I will acquaint you with her eventually.

So Joshua Tree was, as I say, the obvious destination. Besha and I drove down here from Oregon, following US 395, camping in the pickup, and stopping at Summer Lake Hot Springs (where a 60 mph overnight windstorm nearly blew away the dog’s bowl and our shoes and I had to spend half an hour looking for them in the morning), and also Buckeye Hot Springs, and at Little Hot Creek, up above Long Valley. We skipped Travertine and I discovered to my chagrin that all the Long Valley hot springs are absolutely crawling with people during the holidays.

We got down to Idyllwild ahead of some winter weather, and spent the night at Suzy & Jared’s. It was the first night of Chanukah and I hadn’t brought a menorah. Jared offered to help make one. I drew a little sketch of the design essentials. Jared came back a while later with a stick of live oak firewood with nine neatly recessed holes, and a half empty box of purple chime candles and another of black.

So that’s how my pagan friends wound up making me a Chanukah menorah. I loved it.

Incidentally, Jared’s handiwork has served admirably for all eight nights. A Chanukah miracle!

The next day, Xmas day, Besha and I got down to Yucca Valley, in the good clean Mojave Desert, so we’ve been here about a week. We spent the time hiking around and sitting in the hot tub, dreaming and scheming about the new year.

Last night, Suzy and Jared and his mom, who is in town from Vancouver to visit her son and grandchildren, came over to ring in 2025 itself with us. We fried latkes, lots of them, and made applesauce. They let me sing my mother’s favorite latke song. We toasted at midnight. I think we were all in bed by 12:30.

Suzy didn’t ask for much for her birthday, but she did ask for a pierogi dinner, and her friends did indeed regard it as beneath her dignity to have to make do with a paltry store-bought frozen item. So we made them from scratch.

Plot twist: It turned out to be a massive undertaking. Raise your hand if you saw this coming. You win a gold star!

First, you have to make dumpling dough, let it rest, then boil potatoes while you roll out the dough and cut it into perfect circles, somehow.

Then you mash the potatoes, add butter, cheese, et cetera, then spoon the filling into the dough rounds, making sure to add not too much, lest they burst while cooking, and then moisten and seal the raw pieróg shut. Then you have to first parboil and then fry the thing to crispy brownness, while also frying onions and, per the birthday girl, bacon to eat on the side.

We decided to play this challenge on hard mode, because not only had none of us tried to make dumplings of any kind before, but also Besha’s dietary requirements dictated that we use gluten-free flour as the main ingredient.

After a bit of fussing and frowning and adding more and more and more eggs and water, Besha and I finally got an enormous dough ball rolled together that seemed somehow both too moist and too dry at the same time. Then the ganze mishpachah - us, Suzy and Jared, the kids, their grandma, the chihuahua and all - went for a hike in the BLM preserve behind the house and played the game of let’s not get lost in the desert but also keep the dog out of the cholla cactus. We succeeded on one of those counts.

Then we descended on the kitchen as the sun set on the first day of the year. After a bit of chaos, we got a sort of assembly line going, with Besha rolling dough and cutting the rounds with a glass bowl, and Suzy scooping good cheesy mashed potato filling into each, while I stood watch by the boiling water and Jared staffed the frying pan.

Grandma, god bless her, kept the kids busy and out of the kitchen. Whiskey came trotting in, weaving between our legs, until she was commanded to get out, which she would do for at least a few minutes at a time. We fell into a solid rhythm and the pierogi eventually came out of the frying pan, hot and golden brown, one by one.

It was a good group activity for friends on a winter evening. Not a single pieróg exploded or disintegrated! No one got burned or lost their temper! A Chanukah miracle!!

Of course the pierogi were delicious, and the birthday girl was delighted. Happy birthday, Suzy! You deserve to feel special at least once a year. And thanks for suggesting I write about your birthday. The trick worked.

If you’re still reading this, I send you my best wishes for the new year. I think we all need each other’s best wishes right now, more than ever. Ceterum censeo imperdiet vigilum cessandam. More tomorrow!