Ouch

The other day, in the midst of all of our usual insanity, and on the eve of his return trip to LA, Zach set up a near-professional photo shoot in our apartment in an attempt to get some images for the holiday card that we are still hoping to create and send out. (Where "send," in my hopeful and hopelessly deluded world, means "affix with a stamp and put in the mail" and not "totally cheat and post online." Oddsmakers, start your engines.)

Most years, Zach and I create a homespun holiday card together. Actually, we create a homespun New Year's card, because we pretty much never send it out before January. We usually spend December coming up with and then discarding one concept after another, typically late at night, before one finally seems just right. Then there's a whole lot of Photoshopping and layout work (all by Zach) and wordsmithing to be done before we're truly happy with it.

Then it takes us weeks to get the cards printed and to buy, address, and stamp the envelopes. If they go out by the end of January, we call it a success.

We missed sending out a card last year, what with everything else we had going on. And what would it have said, really?

"Hope your new year is better than ours is going to be," perhaps?

Or, "By the time you get this card, one of us will probably be bald"?

Yeah, it didn't seem possible to come up with something that was heartfelt, hopeful, and in good taste. Actually, it didn't seem possible to get even two out of three. And we didn't exactly have a lot of free time, between surgeries and tests and emergency IVF.

Not that free time is too plentiful right now, either.

What is plentiful, however, is stress. Loads and loads of it. Toxic levels.

Maybe not the best time to take on yet another project.

But a) have we met? And b) I hated the thought of going another year without a card.

Which brings me back to Zach and the photo shoot. Seeing him with a camera, up on a ladder, taking pictures of these inanimate objects against a carefully selected backdrop, I couldn't help but think of thirtysomething, with Michael and Elliot and all of their advertising hijinks. (We were both monster fans of the show.)

So I went over to Zach's computer, opened his iTunes library, and started playing the theme song from the show (because of course we have the entire soundtrack). And right after he got the joke and laughed, it dawned on me.

We are now fortysomething.

And I'm not sure we're allowed to listen to that music anymore.

Addendum by Zachary:
However, if you're still thirtysomething—or younger—you're welcome to listen to bit of it (courtesy amazon.com, requires WMP). 'Cause it's still one of the best show themes ever composed. Hat tip to W.G. Snuffy Walden. And yes, that's his real name.