by An ode to 2020, in A Minor:
Hit the Road, Jack
And don’t ya come back
No more, no more more, no Moore. 🙂
More seriously, 2020 has gotten a bad rap and legitimately so for many people who have lost wages, jobs, and businesses and those who have battled COVID-19 (it will always be the Wuhan Flu to me). Several friends of our family fell ill with it during 2020, including Amberly’s parents, but so far we’ve gotten away Scot free from the plague of our time. Hopefully the new vaccine will prove effective and life, work, and business as we’ve known it can resume later in 2021.
So, the Moore Dynasty cannot complain about 2020 in any substantial way. Marc and Monica continue to work in their positions with the A&M System and the Engineering Extension Service with only the minor disruption – read: life-saving luxury – of working from home for the last 9.5 months.
In pre-COVID March, Marc and Monica got in a last mini-vacation by taking an AirBNB in Waco, the intent being to check out the professional disc golf tournament being held there. Sadly the event was cancelled midway through and our spectating was cut short. On the upside, Marc was able to play both the Cameron Park West and Brazos Park East courses, finding both excellent. While visiting Waco may not be high on everyone’s to-do list, one local treat is the Bangkok Royal restaurant, which is definitely worth stopping for. We also ate a a Mexican restaurant with legit bullet holes in the windows… On our last day away, we participated in a little light COVID prepping, finding the sight of bare shelves at the Waco HEB a bit unnerving.
In the post-COVID world, our lives have very much simplified to something akin to the following routine:
- Wake up at 7:45 and work in PJs until noon
- Lunch: Marc walks the dogs while Monica generally works through
- Work in shorts/sweats until 6ish
- Order takeout, eat, watch an episode of Psych on Amazon Prime
- Marc works out and/or walks the dogs
- Watch an episode of Grey’s Anatomy on Netflix
- Marc practices (beginner) guitar
- Work until 11 or so, depending
- Read until sleepy
- Rinse and repeat
The “Order takeout” line is particularly droll: If 3 other people have done more to keep the lights on at restaurants in Bryan than we have, we can only offer congratulations and say “Well done!” Favor, Door Dash, and (less often) Grub Hub all know the way to the Moore Dynasty by heart, although they still have trouble getting our orders right 25% of the time.
With our young men well into their 20s now, they can speak for themselves, save for the short updates that follow.
Jake continues his work as a police officer, which seems, in turn, to be exciting, aggravating, political, and tedious. Our town has not been the center of any rioting/douchebaggery, happily. Amberly is teaching science now and this is a better fit for her. They have been a foster family for a baby for some months now and hope to move through the adoption process even as they await the arrival of another little one in March.
Mitch was voluntold to be a military recruiter and was somehow able to finesse that role change into an assignment in our town. This meant BethAnne had to leave her family, which was hard for her. It has been great to have them back in Texas and we enjoy seeing them regularly now. Oren is 3 and Ryker is 21 months old. They too are expecting another delivery from the stork, in June.
David moved back in with us in 2019 and that continued throughout the year. He worked at HEB until mid-March and has been engaged in an HVAC program at Blinn College since then. Hopefully he will finish the initial course work in 2021 and launch his career in the field soon after.
Aside the new and upcoming additions to the family and the surge in working hours, arguably the next most notable event of 2020 was the May hail storm that totaled Marc’s Toyota Camry and led to a roof replacement on our house. (A small plug here for State Farm: We encountered no difficulties working through the claims process on either loss.)
The net change of this event is that Marc is now driving a 2002 Toyota MR2, which is a fun little convertible and, debatably, his midlife-crisis machine, while Monica now runs around town in a Toyota Tacoma. The Honda CR-V will be up for sale soon if anyone is interested!
To wrap this letter up, we wish everyone a safe, content, and prosperous 2021. In this time of fear, mistrust, and opportunism, truth, science, and rational thinking are more important than ever before. Please seek out and champion these things in the new year!
Peace and love,
Marc and Monica Moore
