On a sad note, the 6-year-old daughter of Angel's 2nd cousin died yesterday from dengue fever. It's so tough when things like that happen around Christmas because you always have that terrible memory haunting you when the holidays roll around.
When my children were very young, I lived in the same apartment building as my wife's brother, the great white hunter. We were having Christmas dinner with him and his family. I went downstairs to our apartment to get some sleep around 10:00 PM because I had work the next day. My brother-in-law thought it would be nice for my older son, then 7 years old, to be inducted into the great sport of hunting by handling a real rifle. He handed it to him, and my son slowly moved his aim around the room. He passed over his sister, and settled on his brother, age 4. Why he didn't pull the trigger then, since they always played guns together, I'll never know. Instead, he raised the rifle to point at a large wall mirror, and fired. BAM - the whole mirror exploded. My drunken idiot of a brother-in-law had neglected to check his rifle after his last brave foray into the dangerous world of Bambi the deer. I still shudder when I think of how many lives would have been ruined had my son killed his brother on that night. Can you imagine the guilt he would have carried throughout his life, heightened at each Christmas season. Damn, I have to get that out of my head.
Whew, too morbid. Hey, Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah and a great New Year to all of you.
