Ira's Interdimensional Push On Miracles #13

What's cooking Good Looking? Merry Christmas and a happy new year to all, wishing much love and cheer this holiday season and that we all find some kind of miracle in our lives. I’ve got many and more miracles to be thankful for this year, most notably my little souvenir from Iceland but a wife, two-bedroom apartment, visa, and fully remote teaching gig also top the list; all of which I asked for at one point or another this lap around the sun I might add. The miracle treadmill feels oddly proximitous to the hedonic treadmill, depending on whether I am looking back with gratitude or forward with anticipation. For now I’ll look back but I’d be lying to you fine people if I said there weren’t constant glances forward for that big windfall that looms but hasn’t quite landed in my lap. Here are the top three miracles since I last posted: 1. Welcoming Porpa!! My Dad landed in the Netherlands on Christmas Day to see me and Talja and meet his first grandchild. It’s a miracle because he hasn’t been to Europe in 16 years and now has come twice in two months. He’ll be here until the 4th which is a nice chunky amount of time and so far it’s been vibes making the coffee, getting Murdaugh Shalom up on the shoulder so he can prepare to be a tall respectable gentleman one day, and working our way through the Tom Hanks Festival that has become instant tradition for Christmas week. It’s quintessential gezellig and a true modern miracle that we can be together like this. 2. Christmas: Santa rolled in hot and heavy this year, despite geopolitical instability and a big fat red budget for the year… I found one shop in Utrecht that had eccentricities on tap for the eccentric people, another store with the socks, and a third store that had a bottomless supply of kick-ass calendars which helped round out my haul. All of these fine products within an afternoon’s grasp is another miracle for sure, being the ills and complexities of consumerism as they will be. 3. Hosting the New York Elite: I had just enough friends and friends of friends in the Netherlands before I moved to feel like I was landing with some already in-tact connections and semblance of community. To even know one person in this foreign land other than Talja and her people would be some luck but when all is said and counted there are some 5-10 people already living in the Netherlands who were ready to welcome me in some way or another. Two of those folks are another Dutch-American couple who quickly became branded the “New York Elite” in our house as I was frantically cleaning for their arrival despite neither of them living in New York these last near six years… They rolled in hot and heavy, ready to dive to the core and will be back tomorrow for more and with Porpa - bless up for having people over here who know songs like [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yagy0zfnN_M&list=RDYagy0zfnN_M&start_radio=1) one!! My Uncle Billy said having kids is like having a piece of your body out there living somewhere which is beginning to check out and [here](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Am9p5plQhbkqn4dbdkPFYF64g5PPqxuS?usp=sharing) are the latest with the Sir Captain Moische himself and beyond. Maybe there’s a setting on the treadmill that neither needs to be miraculous nor hedonic and sits deep in presence of the day. If so, and if I had to give that treadmill a name at this moment, I would call it love. Miraculously, Ira