My Highlights of 2017

Yeah, I know, it’s already 2018, so based on lists other people do, I should have done this, oh, I dunno… November?

My Highlights of 2017, roughly in the order they happened (it’s not everything good that happened i 2017, but this was the absolute best stuff):

• The January snow.
• The women’s march.
• The hysterically funny Internet response to the “Bowling Green Massacre.”
• Not only hearing Robbie Fulks but also MEETING HIM.
• Talking to Danny Barnes (but, unfortunately, the sound at McMenamins Lodge is SO awful, we never actually HEARD him).
• Oyster tasting at Sake One with Michelle and Chaline.
• Seeing Nika, a colleague from Iran, after more than 10 years apart (we worked together in Kabul, Afghanistan).
• Working for Knowbility.
• Alan Tudyk and Mark Hamill liking my tweets.
• Finding a gravel road we can take from Highway 26 almost the entire way to the coast.
• Getting blocked by David Crosby on Twitter (he’s an ASSHOLE).
• The Eclipse viewing with the Lee Family.
• Motorcycle trip in Washington State. 
• Finding Slane blended whiskey for Stefan’s birthday.
• Making it through the UN application and screening process to be added to yet another roster.
• Getting profiled by Open University as a graduate success story.
• Visiting Austin for the first time in too long.
• Going to an elementary school girls basketball game with my nieces in Henderson, and later in the week, their amazed, entranced reaction to my gifts for them: fans from Spain.
• Nonsense with Carol Weimer at the Henderson Dairy Queen & finally going to Metzger’s.
• My last visit with my maternal grandmother.
• New Star Wars movie (even though I didn’t love it, it was STAR WARS)
• Stefan’s reaction to my Christmas present for him (the Sherlock hat).
• Camping at Silver Falls State Park.
• That damn 3D globe puzzle we started on NYE.
• Lucinda and Gray Max, too many times to count.
• Drunk Austen, too many times to count. 
• The Resistance, too many times to count.