So – 2006 draws to a close – how can the first decade of the 21st century be more than half over?! Well, all my lame excuses for not getting a letter done on time have turned into a lame me: I fell off my bike and broke my pelvis November 15th and cannot walk, work, bike, or drive (much).
But what a year!
We began it in Costa Rica, where we visited Ainsley shortly before she returned to the United States. I kid that it was mostly to bring home her excess baggage, but we had a wonderful time visiting with her and her two families there. We were at a small hotel that we had stayed in during the previous July. The owner left to visit her mother for Christmas, and as we were the only occupants, we left our hotel charges (cash) on her desk and locked up behind ourselves when we left to come home. You gotta’ love it!
Ainsley returned in January, just in time to return to school for the second semester of her junior year. She is currently involved in the “college application rag”: we have visited Brown, Columbia, UMass, American, and Gaucher, and she is being courted by several others. We’ll see in the next couple months how it all sorts itself out. We have told her that there is an inverse relationship between how much we spend on college and how soon she has to begin supporting us. She has given up gymnastics for cheerleading – she is captain of the school team this year. Cheerleading is a world apart from what it was when I was young.
At Junior Prom time, I was stuck mute by the prices of prom dresses and all their accoutrements. She justified the whole thing by going to three different proms with three different boys.
In August, we welcomed into our home Carolina Grove, an 18-year-old from Chile. She is a senior at Chatham High School also, and she and Ainsley are best friends. Spanish has become a second language in our house – at least for the girls, who are able to have unintelligible teenaged conversations in front of Jim and me. Carolina is lovely and loving, and we are most fortunate in having her as part of our family – at least until June, when she will return to Chile to prepare for her university examinations.
Jim continues to keep our computer network humming, despite a few nasty virus attacks this year. He is serving as a trustee at our church and is working with the church computer system. He did the the sound for Chatham Drama Guild’s run of “Death of a Salesman” in the spring, and helped with some of the video work for a musical production, “Cole”, also at the Guild. He is increasingly active with the local Red Cross chapter, even manning a shelter during a particularly bad storm last winter. Our lawn always looks wonderful, thanks to his care and my focused avoidance.
I have kept busy with theatre this year: I was in “Later Life” at the Guild, “Born Yesterday” at Cape Repertory Theatre (one I have been itching to work at for several years), a children’s play at the Guild, a Eugene O’Neill celebration of one-act plays in Provincetown (what a great audience they get out there!), and, finally, “Rose Tattoo” at Cape Rep – although my performance was cut short by my unfortunate fall from my bike a couple weeks ago. I also directed my Middle School kids in the same children’s play that I performed in at the Guild a few months later. I lost a bunch of really good kids to high school, but have a wonderful batch of 5th graders coming in.
A real highlight this year was a trip to DC for a reunion of people I worked with in the early 70’s at the Office for Civil Rights. We’re all older and wiser – but we recognized each other – it was wonderful. Ainsley came with me and got a little history lesson from the event.
I did get in about 3000 miles on my bike before my crash – going around a corner with wet wheels on my way into the schoolyard. My knee replacement surgery, originally scheduled for December 4 has been rescheduled to February, so I will be “out of commission” for sometime, I guess. I hit the big six-o in March – I guess a certain infirmity comes with the territory – but I will fight it to the end. Both Jim and I have run through our “lifetime maximums” in dental insurance. The signs are getting more numerous each day…
Besides Costa Rica, we traveled to Texas this summer for the wedding of my brother’s widow, Marcela, to a wonderful man, Michael Addison. It was wonderful to meet his family. In October, Freddi’s daughter, Dorian, was married to Jimmy Nissensen, at Lake George in upstate New York. We had a wonderful time at both affairs, catching up with too rarely seen branches of the family tree.
So here it is December – and time for a rest – even if enforced. Take it easy and don’t follow my example. Have a terrific 2007.
With gratitude for friendships everywhere,
Karen, Jim, Ainsley (and Carolina)