The temperature outside our place had dipped down to fifteen degrees Fahrenheit (that’s minus nine point four four four four… for Celsius fans) at the stroke of midnight, Pacific Standard Time, before un-dipping to a slightly less deadly twenty-one (minus six point one one one one… at… checking… eight: forty-six a.m. (ante-meridiem for Latin lovers, or ‘before noon’ for those who… okay, I’m thinking the difference between lovers of breakfast and fans of brunch, and, now, because I am thinking, I’m considering dawn patrollers and surfers who prefer seeing what we’re paddling out and into; and, remembering my days in crowded California waves, I can’t help but mention that the onshores usually started about 10:30 am, brunch; but, yes, P.M. stands for ‘post meridiem,’ or, for those who like to time a siesta before the afternoon glass off, um, yeah, afternoon).

So, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

You might be thinking about how low the bar must be set for 2022 being better than 2021. Try not to.

I do have a new drawing. BUT FIRST, since I did mention my friend Stephen R. Davis’s recent diagnosis, he did spend some time at the University of Washington hospital, did see a specialist in lymphomas (pleural), and was told that what he has (and Trish did look up all the scary shit) is imminently curable.

He did give up coffee, switching to smoothies. Surprising to me, since every time I’ve worked with, or surfed with, or casually run into Steve, he asked (past tense now, I guess), “Hey, Erwin; you have any… coffee?” And this is him with a bit left in a fancy store-bought cup with the wraparound finger-protecting paper. “Yeah; of course, I brought enough for me… in a thermos. Folgers. On sale. Costco.” “Oh, okay.”

Still, Steve wasn’t a coffee snob. I did ask him to return the thermos I gave him. He says he will try to find it. Steve is going back in a couple of weeks to get started on a program.

I do know other who have life-changing if not life-threatening conditions. Here’s what we do: We keep going. That was kind of the point of my drawing, originally meant, maybe, as a holiday card; now, perhaps, I can say it’s a Happy New Year’s illustration. Forward, onward, sideslipping down the line.