Greetings, and welcome to our on-line, multi-media Christmas newsletter. For those who know us well, this will be mostly old news. But for friends from long ago in distant places, this newsletter will catch you up on who and where we are what we’ve been doing.
This past July, we celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. And this past Election Day was the 18th anniversary of our moving into this house. It’s uptown on Magazine Street, the most interesting street in the world’s most interesting city, New Orleans. The house dates back to around the 1890s to early 1900s. It has survived several hurricanes, including Katrina. As old as it is, it has its foibles and its charms. We share the home with our four cats: Rocky, Jelly Roll, Wednesday, and Petunia (f/k/a Alexis, inherited from Ray’s mom in 2005). Our across-the-street neighbors are the Poor Clare Nuns at St. Clare’s Monastery.
Ray, a 1990 graduate of Loyola Law School, is a lawyer with Adams and Reese LLP. He practices mostly appellate litigation—that means a lot of legal research and brief writing. In his spare time, he is attempting to learn how to play blues on the guitar—his teacher, Vincent Marini, needs much patience with that. Ray still maintains his two blogs, The (New) Legal Writer (devoted to legal writing), and Minor Wisdom (devoted to nothing in particular).
Suzanne retired this year from her career with the State Department of Social Services, where she worked in the area of Social Security Disability determination. She is now working on developing a yoga-teaching practice, conducting weekly classes at Touro Infirmary and the Holy Name of Jesus Parish Center.
Suzanne has also gotten into prime racewalking shape. So far this year, she has finished several half-marathons (13.1 miles), including the Rock & Roll Mardi Gras Half Marathon, the Gulf Coast Half Marathon (on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain), and the Jazz Half Marathon (finish-line photo at left). Most recently, she finished the Mississippi Gulf Coast Half Marathon, winning third overall in the race-walking category with a personal best time of 2:47:28. She also competed in some shorter races over the summer, winning the masters category in the Southern Runner 2.1 Summer Race Series. (Update—Suzanne’s new PR for the half-marathon: 2:47:25 on Dec. 19, 2010 at the Ole Man River Half Marathon, good for 2nd overall female race-walker.)
Both of us are active at our parish church, Holy Name of Jesus. Ray plays guitar in the music group for the Sunday 6 p.m. mass, and occasionally serves as a lector. Suzanne is a lector, extraordinary minister of communion, and lead hospitality minister (what they used to call an usher) for the Sunday 6 p.m. mass. We are both team members for RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults), helping those preparing to enter the Catholic Church.
Well, we promised you a multi-media experience. So we leave you with a young Sungha Jung’s interpretation of Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring, and our wishes for a blessed holiday season.
