2011

I am not sure what to say about this year. David's death has overshadowed everything and while it seems odd to write an "end of year update" I am going to at least talk about the year and try to focus on the more amusing, as opposed to miserable aspects. I have not completed this by far and will be adding over the next week or two.

The year started off, as usual, at Dave and Debs New Years Party which involved wonderful food and friends at a lovely restaurant in Opequon <sp?>, followed soon after by Susan and Laura's post-Xmas party.

Things got a little complicated at this point as it was Valeries 70th birthday and we (perhaps foolishly) had thought that this had been celebrated in December, when the whole family rented a large catamaran and sailed around the British Virgin Islands. This ended up being wonderful in hindsight but it felt like a Stephen King novel (Christine) while we were there.

Having had some interesting boating adventures in the past, we were still not quite prepared for the adventures to come. (David, sensibly, was not keen on a week on a boat and had decided to stay behind so we took our friend Rich, in his place.) On the first night, Val fell and nearly broke her cheekbone and every single person, one after another, one day after another, came down with stomach flu (which, on a boat, is not very pleasant). In addition to all this, Duncan got an ear infection and had to be boat-lifted to a hospital and Rich and I would smash our heads at least once a day to pay the blood toll to the "Miss Red" (name of the boat). In spite of the ongoing dramas and with the assistance of copious amounts of rum, we ended up having a wonderful time. (Collin, Duncan, Rich and I did, however, nearly drown when we took the dinghy over to the Baths, anchored offshore and snorkelled to the beach, only to find that there were red warning signs everywhere saying that it was totally unsafe to even go near the water. Swimming back to the dinghy was exciting and left Val and Julia in a state of terror onshore - bah!).

As mentioned, we had "thought" that this sufficed for Valeries 70th birthday but Julia and I rapidly realized that this did not cut it. Consequently we planned (with the able assistance of Carol and Irwin Asam) a surprise birthday party and dinner at the Bavarian Inn. We arranged for my uncle Keith and our good friend Veryan to fly out from England and spent hours planning how not to tip Valerie off. Unfortunately a very dear friend, Bonzo, passed away and so Val flew over to the UK to attend the funeral a few days before this event. Not only did she stay with Keith, who gave her a set of directions printed on the back of our email to him planning the party, but at the funeral a number of folks made comments to Veryan such as "so you are off the to States at the end of the week.". In spite of this, Val still didin't figure out what was going on (and was starting to get just a little bolshy with Julia, Cliff and I as "her rotten children are doing nothing for their mother's birthday and are therefore ungrateful, awful, terrible people". In fact, she annoyed Cliff so much when he picked her up from the airport that he nearly told her everything.)

The challenge became how to get Val to the Bavarian, looking fabulous and not knowing what was going on. We came up with this complicated plot that involved David and I picking her up at the house to go for a dinner for the four of us at a new restaurant in Charles Town. I then called a week before and said that I had heard that the restaurant was dressy and wouldn't it be nice if we got all dressed up for it. We enlisted Carol and Irwin to then call and say that they were going out of town and the only time they could see Val before they left was that evening and could David and I pick Val and Cliff up at the Bavarian so they could have a cocktail beforehand. This, we thought, would work..... Again, however, Val was not so co-operative and started asking why we didn't invite Julia, Carol, Irwin and so on to the dinner.

At this point, David and I started to torture Val by acting wishy washy ("do you mind if we cancel dinner tomorrow, friends of Davids are in town", "never mind, we can still do dinner". etc.) This, while probably a little mean, totally worked and when she showed up at the Bavarian to be greeted by 100 of her friends, she was utterly thrilled and we had a great party! (Sorry Mom!). The food was great and the speeches wonderful but the highlight was the members of Val's bridge group who performed a ballet for Val.

David had not been feeling 100% and while we had both originally planned on going, I ended up going to Palm Springs on my own to exhibit my "British Offices In China" stamp exhibit for the first time at a show in San Diego. I was a little nervous about this as, not only was it the first time, but the subject does not neatly fall into the categories and I was concerned how it would be received. For those of you who are not stamp collectors, exhibiting is a whole different world that has many rules regarding how you display your material and your research. To put it simply, the area I collect falls into three different parts; the stamps themselves, then the postal stationary and finally what is called postal history (or how the stamps were used, the routes, rates and markings);

.

My collection encompasses all three areas and I felt that it was necessary to show it all to get the full story. I was totally thrilled to not only receive a gold medal for it but also won awards for the best title page and, most importantly, the American Philatelic Society Research Medal.

While I was out in California, our friends Charles and Neville came down from Canada to stay and I saw many of our friends. I was only back in WV for a few days and headed off to London for a business trip and then to do some research at the British Library and at the National Postal Museum and Archives.

Throughout all of this (This was now the end of February), David had not been feeling too great, but had continued to say that is was just another bump in the road and to not worry and that everything was fine. (David was always very private about his health and when I had left for London he had started some steroids but was still upbeat and chipper.)

While I was away he mentioned that he was having difficulty walking and was going to go and stay with his best friends, Natalie and Vanessa, who are wonderful and amazing people. By the time I returned, however, he had rapidly declined and things went downhill from there.

The next month was a haze and you can read the posts as they happened here but be warned that it is pretty heavy reading and will probably make you cry.

David didn't want any formal memorial so instead we held a wake at the house and I was both humbled and gratified at the amazing outpouring of support.

David's death left everyone numb and that whole period now feels slightly surreal. While both of us travelled between the various houses and would spend time apart we spoke multiple times each day and I still pick up the phone regularly to call and tell him something funny. Prior to his death he had booked quite a number of events and special things, which I continue to attend. Julia came with me to the California Vintners Dinner at the Mandarin at the beginning of April and Val came with me to the Smithsonian Members Weekend (which was not quite as amazing as usual due to the threatened government shutdown.)

In April I flew to Huntsville, AL with Natalie and Vanessa where Davids mom, Martha, and his sisters Lisa and Holly, along with his niece Samantha, arranged a wonderful memorial where I got to meet many of his Huntsville friends and some of the many people whose lives he changed and affected. It was an amazing and wonderful weekend and I am so lucky to have his family in my life as they have been so supportive and loving. (David loved all of his family very much and I am glad that they are part of my life.)

I left from Huntsville to head to Palm Springs where I was joined by my parents and my cousin Sarah and her husband Mark and spent the following month in a semi-coma as things just sank in.

In the middle of all of this I had been, for the previous 6 months, rewriting and redesigning the entire software system for my business so upon my return to WV in May we beta-tested and implemented the whole thing which, even to now, requires a huge amount of work. (My business is based on the process of information and so the sheer hugeness and complexity of this thing is staggering but it appears to be paying off as the company has expanded to 22 people and <crosses fingers> continued increased work for us.)

I spent all of July back in Palm Springs working on the database program and sleeping a lot and returned in time for my nephew, Duncan's, 18th birthday party.

In September I headed off to Perallo, Italy to stay at Sarah and Mark's house with my parents as well as my uncle Keith and aunt Christine, which was beautiful and very relaxing. Sarah and Mark bought this ruin in the italian mountains about 8 years ago and have spent the entire time renovating, building and creating a wonderful Italian villa. We spent most of the time at the house drinking wine and watching Sarah battle with this enormous pizza oven that they had built into the wall of one of the ruins. She built a huge fire in this thing, which seemed to involve an entire tree, then, when it was finally hot enough, picked up what seemed like a 10 foot long paddle and, not looking behind her and while loading a pizza into the oven, smashed the end of it into my private parts. When the pizza was cooked (about 30 seconds later) she then whipped the paddle under the pizza and yanked it back out of the oven while all the topping slid straight off onto the base of the oven and promptly formed a solid mass to which everything else stuck for the rest of the night. (It may have been the case of wine we had drunk - but it was still great pizza and a very funny evening.)

I then went over to the UK and spent a hilarious night with Simon and Claire at their amazing house and spent hours looking at Simon's collection of Sarawak (which is the greatest every assembled) prior to heading to London where I met up with 4 of my staff as well as Cliff to showcase the business at the Defence and Security Equipment International exhibition. This was the first time that we have ever done a booth at one of these large defense shows and it was extremely successful, albeit exhausting.

I returned to the US and headed back to Palm Springs for 6 weeks, only to return for my nephew, Collin's birthday dinner at Table 21 in the kitchen at Volt in Frederick. David had booked this dinner over a year previously so while it was bittersweet it was still one of the best meals I have ever eaten.

I headed down to Charleston for the Fairness WV conference and dinner where they presented the first Ian Gibson-Smith award which will be given each year to a person who exemplifies LGBT activism in their daily life. The first awardee, Randall Reid-Smith is the Commissioner of the WV Division of Culture and History and it was an honor to be part of this.

I then headed over to Amsterdam, where I met up with the Regretsy folks for a few days of debauchery and general fun (the password is CF4L) before heading to Monaco for the Club de Monte Carlo stamp exhibition and a week of black tie dinners, glamorous nightlife and general fabulousness with many of my favorite philatelic friends.

I am now back in WV and getting ready for my office party this evening and the IanThom Foundation fundraiser and brunch on Sunday. I have found that by staying as absolutely busy as I can (and being my usual hyperactive, manic, OCD self), I am staying out of trouble and not getting too depressed. Life goes on and I am intending (we will see how this goes) to have a more calm 2012 with less travel but who knows. I bought a new condo in DC so am intending so spend more time down there and will see what the future brings.

My love to everyone for all your support and encouragement.

Ian