December 22nd, 2022Wait a minute – 2023? What happened to 2022?

Words and Images: Jeff Glorfeld

KEEN-eyed readers of this paragon of print media that you hold in your hands at this moment might have noticed that its United States correspondent hasn’t been contributing much news over the past several months, and many, perhaps, have even asked themselves, “why?” Which could have led to the follow-up query: “who cares?”
As to the first question, the answer may be that, as a freelance reporter, I am so well paid for my stories by the owners of this fine publication that I only need to file four or five times a year in order to maintain my lavish American lifestyle. I can assure you (the owners have instructed me to say) that this is not the case.
Another scenario could be that my time here in California is in such demand that I simply cannot provide the quantity of stories that The Local readers have come to expect. It is true that I am kept busy raising two young dogs, and all summer I have been tasked with keeping a swimming pool clean, and further, this being autumn in the northern hemisphere, and my house being surrounded by deciduous trees, I can frequently be found somewhere in the yard raking leaves. I’ve found that the secret to successful skiving is to always appear busy.
One more explanation is that (the owners have also instructed me to say) I am a lazy sod who wastes time the way Scott Morrison wastes underpants.
The truth of the matter is that the political, cultural, economic and social situations in this country have been so outlandishly, revoltingly, mind-bogglingly strange this past year that every time I sit down and try to describe it, my brain turns to soggy Weet-Bix and I end up watching CNN for hours on end and shouting profanities at the TV.
Speaking of dogs – specifically the part in this story about “two young dogs” – a month ago we added to our pack: there’s me, my wife Carol, the three-year-old pooch Joey, and now a puppy.
One of the many things that annoy me because I’m old, easily annoyed and a language nerd, is trendy words and phrases that replace perfectly good old words and phrases. For example, I hate it when a media person says they “reached out” to someone when in fact all they did was “ask”.
So anyway, there is a new dog in our family. Did we “rescue” her? Did we pull her out from where she was trapped inside a burning building? No. Did we jump into a raging river and haul her to safety? No. We drove an hour in our perfectly comfortable Toyota to a town south of where we live, looked her over, instantly fell in love with her, and drove her back to our house where she will live with us forever.
The complete truth of the matter is that our new puppy had been on death row in a California county that euthanises unwanted dogs and cats. We found her through an organisation that fetches animals from these places and tries to find homes for them. Technically, then, the organisation did rescue her; all we’ve done is give her a home – and a name.
After much debate, we settled on calling her Daisy. However, my father, who often mangles names, insisted on calling her Doris. But as with many such malapropisms, this one made sense. Think of the husky-voiced big-band-era singer who became an actress, making all those rom-coms with Rock Hudson; link Doris and Daisy and you get our puppy’s name, Doris Daisy.
We have just about reached the end of another year, and from my household to yours, I sincerely hope you’ve come out of your brutal months of winter and are experiencing a few glorious days, or at least hours, of summer.
Here at the end of 2022, it occurred to me that if you’ve ever been on, say, a four or five-day bender, I mean really looking at life through beer-coloured lenses, and let’s say you go a bit deep into the Tennessee turps on a Sunday, and you wake up on Monday afternoon feeling like 10 miles (16.09km) of bad Hepburn Shire road, and you see your reflection in the bathroom mirror and think “oh my great aunt, I look like five pounds (2.27kg (editor – can I say this?) in a 10-pound (4.5kg) sack”, it might occur to you that maybe it’d be a good idea to try drinking water again.
Now here’s the thing: Monday is a write-off but after washing down a dozen Panadol tablets with a gallon of coffee, you wake up on Tuesday feeling pretty OK. By Wednesday you’re able to remember to put your pants on before your shoes and by Thursday your vision has cleared (OK, you found your glasses) and life looks fine.

But then Friday comes along and you start thinking about that song recorded by Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five, which was a hit in 1942, “What’s the Use of Getting Sober (When You Gonna Get Drunk Again)”.
I mean, if you didn’t have that wretched Monday to compare it to, would you still feel so splendid on Thursday? Like, is there anything intrinsically good about Thursday? As I sometimes say, all things in moderation, even sobriety.
In all seriousness, though, from here in Crazy Town USA, where sanity is a fond and distant memory, Carol, Joey, Doris Daisy and I wish everyone back in the Real World a safe and successful holiday season and new year. – Jeff Glorfeld

After many happy years living in Victoria and working at The Age, former Wheatsheaf resident Jeff Glorfeld, and his wife Carol, went back to California, the land of his birth, where in the past four years he has survived bushfires, snowstorms and drought. And Trump. And Covid. The cicadas and locusts didn’t arrive. Well, not yet…