2011

 

Into the second decade of the century, now, and it all seems to be happening at the speed of light – which if you listen to some scientists at CERN, is no longer considered the fastest possible speed, so maybe things aren’t going so fast after all.

 

Last Christmas, Ainsley took off to Costa Rica and Honduras, so Jim and I went to Las Vegas to see Boise State University win the MAACO Bowl. I laugh when I run into so many people here in the east who have never met anyone from Boise State. At least it’s now on the radar of people who follow intercollegiate sports.  Particularly interesting was our discovery that the Las Vegas chapel where Jim and I married has been moved to the Clark County Historical Museum!  Las Vegas was mostly smoky, and there were quite a few unfinished bankrupt high rise buildings lining the “strip”.  The new bridge replacing the highway over the Hoover Dam is magnificent.

 

Ainsley graduated from American University (with many honors – proud parents here) in May, went to spend a week in Chile with our AFS “daughter”, Carolina, returned to work for one company in northern Virginia, only to move back across the river to work for the World Bank in August.  We saw her at Thanksgiving at my sister Freddi’s house in Connecticut, and look forward to welcoming her home for Christmas on December 22. She will leave here to spend 2 weeks in Ecuador just after Christmas! She is officially “launched”. 

 

Jim spent all of June in western Massachusetts heading up the Red Cross technical team responding to the tornadoes there.  In August he helped out with the floods in Connecticut and Vermont caused by tropical storm Irene.  He has also made day (and night) runs on fires or other Red Cross emergencies.  He is mostly kind and patient when I can’t remember how to make various electronic media work properly.

 

I began the year slipping on ice and breaking my elbow, which put a definite crimp in my bicycling this year.  However, theatre was active as I performed in several plays at four different theatres this year.  My all-time favorite was “Driving Miss Daisy” all summer in Orleans.  Small cast, (3 of us), small set, powerful play.  On an “off” week, I decided to go to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial dedication, since my parents had made certain I did not attend the March on Washington in August of 1963.  I arrived in Baltimore ½ hour before the earthquake, and left D.C. when the dedication was canceled due to the impending hurricane Irene.  I figured that was definitely between hell and high water.  However, I did get to spend the week with Ainsley, in her apartment, as her guest for the first time, and thoroughly enjoyed that.  I have continued to shepherd the Chatham Middle School Drama club, though that may be ending as Chatham and neighboring Harwich are forming a regional school district, and I can make a graceful exit.

 

Wishing a Blessed and Happy Christmas and New Year,