Tectonic shifts
Posted By Carlo on November 27, 2008
It’s Thanksgiving Day, my second (I was there her birth year in 1995) with my daughter, Lylah and the first I’ve spent with the rest of my family in 13 years. Each year this weekend, I’ve gone to either Detroit or Baltimore for a table tennis tournament. Not this one; last year’s was not a great experience (I didn’t play well and was captive to the guy who drove there and back) and besides, I wanted to spend Thanksgiving with my family.
We’re going to the house of two women who are mainly friends of Karen’s. They’re a couple and they’re interesting, though I haven’t seen either of them in quite a while. If I’m rambling, it’s because spending Thanksgiving this way is a minor change in a year of big ones: I retired in August, Karen’s quitting her job a week from tomorrow, people are being slaughtered in Mumbai, Bush is wreaking environmental havoc on his way out, and Obama’s emerging high-profile, centrist and managerial. I’m worried about money, health insurance, getting work. Things will turn out all right, I hope, though in previous—and lesser—times of stress, I would have said I’m sure. The world is unusually dicey these days, and there’s no guarantee I (or for that matter, Karen) will continue to get enough work to keep our income robust after her buyout expires next fall. I shouldn’t worry, but I do. That’s one consequence of aging, along with aches and pains and being the oldest in a family with different, sometimes opposing needs.
Meanwhile, there is hope. Karen’s book is generating some interest, she’s just illustrated and written a really cool brochure for the Greater Cleveland AIDS Task Force, and I’ve written my first City Therapy column for Northern Ohio Live, a magazine that seems to want to use me more. So there’s some work, and it’s creative. And Karen’s going back to school for illustration is inspiring (she plans to get a bachelor’s degree from the Cleveland Institute of Art). Above all, there’s movement—and I haven’t even mentioned the promise of the kids: Katy’s planning to go to college in Chicago in 2010, and Lylah’s becoming ever more of a whiz at Photoshop. I’m going to get her a MacBook with good graphics software for Christmas, our main expense this season. All I want for myself this Christmas is warmth, stability and adventure. I hope we can afford that.
Can you finally let up on Bush now that he is on his way out? I must admit that Obama’s cabinet picks haven’t been as Leftist as I had feared. Although he hasn’t picked a Secretary of Education yet and William Ayers is still out there lurking!
Robert,
I won’t let up on Bush until at least Jan. 20, and maybe not even after that. Especially now that he and his cronies are plundering the West. The guy is unconscionable. As for Ayers, not to worry.