Christmas Greetings!
I read today (December 16) that the Christmas card was invented sometime in the mid-1800’s by Henry Cole as a way of encouraging people to use the penny post in England. This year, I have given myself permission to say I am conserving the environment by minimizing the use of paper. (Also, my computer died early this year, and I have lost most street addresses.)
It’s been a good year, now that we’re past the “aught-naughts” as I called the first decade of this millennium. We’re all getting older: Ainsley will graduate in May, I filed for Medicare today (for March 2011), and Jim keeps on keeping on.
Ainsley has not yet decided what she plans to do upon graduation. It presents a health insurance conundrum, since we just heard that our retiree health insurance is not required to cover her until she is 26, as we had assumed. So until she “settles”, we assume she still will maintain an address here, though she only comes for short visits these days. She is going to Costa Rica and Honduras for Christmas this year, as it is her Costa Rican “cousin’s” quinceańera, or 15th birthday, a very big deal in Latin cultures. I expect she will graduate with honors; I am astounded at her good grades. Neither Jim nor I had grades anywhere in her neighborhood when we were in undergraduate school. She returned at the beginning of the year after a year in Madrid, where she learned that most of her fellow international students are wealthy beyond her (and our) dreams. She returned to an apartment in a ritzy part of D.C., but with a (male) roommate she had never met and learned to dislike intensely. She was thrilled to get out of that situation in May. We’re hoping her last semester goes smoothly.
Since Ainsley is not going to be around, Jim and I decided to go to Las Vegas to watch Boise State University play Utah in the Maaco/Las Vegas Bowl on Dec. 22. You may remember that I got my MBA at Boise State, long before they moved bluegrass from Kentucky to Idaho. Also, Jim and I got married in Las Vegas, so we will go and see if the Candlelight Chapel is still standing. We’ll get back to Boston early Christmas morning. Christmas update: the Chapel IS still standing; however, it has been relocated to the Clark County Museum and is filled with manikins.
Jim has been increasingly busy with the Red Cross this year. He provides technical support regularly for Red Cross volunteers throughout the country. He’s also involved in the local shortwave radio group. Early this year, he helped out with flooding up near Haverhill, MA, where my mother was from. I was thrilled when he sent me the photo of my great-aunt’s house, at the address I always will remember. The house looked exactly the same, color and all, from the many times I visited 50+ years ago (Lord! That makes me feel old!). At Labor Day he was deeply involved with the Cape-wide Emergency Services preparing for, Earl, the hurricane that never came, though that’s okay with us!
My year has been filled with various theatrical endeavors: My Middle School kids did a wonderful production of “A Tale of Two Cities” in May. A friend and I performed “The Gin Game” about two people playing several games of gin in an old folks home and trying to establish a connection. Lots of humor, but ultimately very sad. We played that at 4 venues throughout the spring and summer. And the latest: “Gin Game” was recognized as one of the best on Cape Cod during 2010, and my performance was recognized as one of the top performances on Cape Cod during 2010! About 15 performers are recognized – it’s the Cape Cod version of the Academy Awards. Equity and non-equity theatres and performers are included, so it is pretty exciting. In October I had a blast playing the Conjur Woman in “Dark of the Moon”. In between, I did the Nurse in an adaptation of Euripides “Medea”, as well as several improvisation shows in Chatham. Two movies I worked on (my cinematic debut(s)) premiered. One, a short called “Come on Down”, won best short film at a couple film festivals. I only had a short scene in it, but it was fun. In the other, a full length film you may never hear of, “The Evangelist”, I was an extra, although I did scrounge one line.
I continued to ride my bike, though not as frequently as in the past years. I did the 62-mile Last Gasp fundraising ride in September, and it was harder than it has ever been for me, though the weather was warm, sunny and windless. I guess I am truly getting older. However, I did go skydiving in August J.
We were able to get to New Haven three times: once for a one-woman art show by my sister Freddi at City Gallery, once for a showing of “Come on Down” at Yale, and then, as usual, for Thanksgiving with Freddi’s growing family. It was wonderful to see her and Alan, and really exciting to see the grandnieces, who are growing apace.
I got up to Boston to visit with my niece, Christine, and her two boys, Daniel and Eric, in August. We ate at Durgin Park restaurant, where I had not eaten since 1968, and whose reputation was built on large portions of good food and waitresses who made sure to let you know how fortunate you were to be there. The food was still very good, but the waitress WAS, indeed, wonderful. We had a fabulous time.
I look forward to meeting up with my sister, Peggy, in Boston on the 29th of this month.
In Chatham we seem to have had an exciting year. The great white sharks were here earlier in the season this year and stayed all summer. We voted to regionalize our school district with a neighboring town, something that has been approached but failed to win voter approval a number of times over the past 50 years.
Now it’s time to put all that to rest and remember to let the peace of the season take hold. As always, our best to your and yours.
Wishing the best for 2011,
Karen and Jim McPherson, Ainsley and the cats (Abby and Benji)