Some great things about 2016
So 2016 hasn’t been great huh? That’s the meme. That it’s been a shit year. Smacking us all right in the gooch. Terrorism, celebrity deaths, poverty, Trump, we’ve had a lot. So I thought in honour of it being such a shitter let’s take a look at some good things.
Some of these may only apply to me, or people in my community in which case boy I’m a jerk. But just the writing of this post is helping me stave off the existential dread that the world is hurtling towards its own doom.
My cat went missing then showed up 48 hours later as though nothing had happened and people were amazing about it.
This is Charlie. She is our cat. The longest she has ever left the house was for about 2 hours. Then on Saturday afternoon she went outside to do cat things and while she was outside it started raining. Presumably she took shelter somewhere. Then that shelter became her PRISON OF DOOM because we did not see her for quite some time. I must have walked at LEAST a billion kilometres around my neighbourhood calling her name (pro-tip, when naming an animal, make sure it’s something you’re comfortable yelling out around white-bread suburbs).
I did posts on all the social media you can think of. I used Neighbourly and got to meet people who live near me that I would have never met otherwise, people messaged me saying they were checking their garages for her and would keep an eye out. I used Twitter and people from all around the world retweeted it (thanks folks in California, but if she made it that far then I hope she becomes the actress she’d always dreamed of). People shared it on Facebook and offered support. And then 48 hours later the little fucker showed up as though nothing had happened because she’s a cat and cats are sometimes assholes.
Second pro-tip: telling your distraught wife about all the kinds of cats you can replace your missing cat with is not a good tactic. Even if you really want a British Blue because they have schmushy faces.
The Hurricanes won the Super Rugby tournament in the year that no-one understood the competition and didn’t really seem to care.
HUURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRICANES
My wife and I found out the reason why we haven’t been successful in having a child and we have a solution and hopefully procreation ahoy.
Mental images aside, this has been a tough one for Mrs Ruminator and me. And the story behind this is one we want to tell together because good lord it’s a doozy (it involves more body parts than it should, mad dashes across town with jars of jizz in cars and disappointment when radiologists wouldn’t print off ultrasounds of my testicles with HAVE A BALL written across it to be used as Christmas cards).
Also, I apologise to the world in advance for future children of mine. Also, not enough people talk publicly about struggles to have children, when I was at school we were told that if you even side-eyed a girl she could get pregnant, so that’s something that Mrs Ruminator and I want to address.
At this point in time it doesn’t look like Donald Trump will become President of the United States
Because fuck that guy right?
Which means the United States is on course to have its first woman President, following on the heels of its first black President.
Which I find pretty remarkable. Things going well we’ll have had 16 years of not a white man as President of the United States, and that last white man was the worst President in living memory. Which suggests some learning is happening. Children now who are girls and people of colour will grow up knowing that their gender and race is no longer as big a barrier as it once was. And that’s fucking progress.
And finally the Herald caricatured the obsession with finding a New Zealand angle to every news story by finding a New Zealand angle to a story that was already about New Zealand.
Love it Mr and Mrs Ruminator! Totally write the infertility bit, you know I’d read it! Hope Mrs is through the Clomifene rage xxx