Merry Christmas

Christmas Eve and we are awaiting...pizza. I am sore from falling. But It's a Wonderful Life is on, I have wine, and I just got back from a week in Jamaica.  Could be worse.

Jamaica Time Yet?

What I am looking forward to on vacation:

Breakfast buffets.
All you can drink beverages.
Morning workouts.
Trashy magazine reading.
Getting some color in my pale, white skin.
Lunch by the pool.
Afternoon cocktail hour.
Warm shower after a day of doing nothing.
Dinner with the brother and SIL. By the water.
Evening cocktails.
Rum tasting.
Sleeping in....til 8am. LOL.

Jamaica here I come!

Detroit Post-Mortem?

Sad headlines in the Free Press: Detroit City Council refuses to cut its salaries, perks and the scraping of light rail.

Very sad:

Which brings us to the Detroit City Council’s 6-2 vote Tuesday not to cut its own budget by 30% -- or more than $4 million.

Really?

In a city on track to run out of cash by April or sooner, a city with crushing unemployment, a growing homeless population as winter looms, a city talking about eliminating hundreds of police and firefighters, council members are quibbling about whether they can scrape by with a few bucks less than the $700,000 each is allotted for their office and staff each year? Really?

Detroit is self-destructing, and that the city could only muster two votes to decrease its own bloated budget only shows that it is not serious about reform. The state is going to have to intervene at some point before the city goes completely bankrupt. Quite frankly, they should just axe two of the seats.  And problem solved--you save $1.4 million.  Then axe the rest of the budgets.  But the city is simply incapable of removing its hand from the cookie jar.

This Year...

The year isn't over, but I am already thinking about what I will remember, good and bad, from this past year. Certainly moving. Boston. Every moment hanging out with Joey. SMC reunion weekend.  So much travel.  Fantasy football. Rooting for the Tigers. And Lions.  Mom and dad's April visit. 

I hope Jamaica will be a fitting end for a hectic, crazy year.  And I hope that it will give us a chance to consider what we want most in 2012. I don't know what the year will bring.  I know what I think I want it to bring.  But it also means turning 36, another year older and closer to 40.  I feel like it will be a big year, a good year, an important year.  I wonder if any more of my deja vu moments will come true. You know those? When you catch a glimmer of something that is yet to occur? When you hope it will occur?

18 days left.

Top Ten from the Weekend

1. Breakfast cookies.
2. Terrible service at Tru Orleans, though great food all around, particularly at the Atlas Room and the Argonaut. H Street classics. OMG that beef two ways was amongst the best of what I've eaten this year.  And the lamb ragout and desserts...
3. Making like six pots of coffee. And brunch at home!
4.  A fun game of Loaded Questions. Ridiculous.
5. Long walks and aching backs because we are getting old.
6. Spies and museums.
7.  Lots of lesbian talk.
8.  Our very high, hopefully, yelp rating.
9. Hanging out around the island and just talking.
10.  A weekend with good friends in DC. Gosh I already miss those guys.

Weekend Ahead with Friends

Donna and Michelle will be here in a few hours. I am really excited to see my friends, and their husbands.  We live so far apart, and I've always been jealous that Steve has his college friends here, and he gets to seem all of the time (though granted, that is not too often).  So this gives me a chance to have my college friends here, hanging out like we saw each all of the time. It is true, that old friends are the "gold" ones you have. You may live far apart, and see each other only once or twice a year, but you can pick up a conversation like you saw each yesterday.  And it's really been sixteen years since you've met them.

Here's to a good weekend!

Holiday Season

Happy Holidays...I guess I will always associate Christmas music and the season with that Andy Williams Christmas album with this time of year. And it's on Spotify! His version of the 12 Days of Christmas, The Christmas Song, and It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year are some of the most iconic Christmas songs. But I digress...

We had our first holiday party last night, and another reception tonight. And several next week. And then it's on to Jamaica and then on to Christmas. And how did it get to be December 8? I know that it is a recurring theme. Today, now that it is finally cold, makes me realize that it is the holiday season. And Christmas. And I need to get in that spirit, do more shopping, and celebrate a great weekend with friends coming up. How can I not be in the spirit?

Chicago

With the exception of Jamaica/Christmas, I have taken my last trip for the year. Chicago, times three. I stayed at a Marriott Residence Inn, which was quite nice, and we had dinner at the Rosebud steakhouse, which was also very good.  And it was one more opportunity to see work friends.

And now the husband is heading home in a cab...Has it been five days already? Time is moving faster, and we only have 3.5 weeks left this year.  Time is indeed moving faster...

Weekend Thoughts

With the husband in India, I took a weekend to catch up with friends at Marvin and saw Jenny's new house.  I finally bought two barstools at Pier One, and I watched lots of old youtube videos and reflected on entertainment past. Vague? It is so easy to get caught up in old memories of soaps gone past, now nearly two decades old (well, older).  How did time pass so?

I find it painful to go through old journals that I kept up with for so long.  I was so young, such a teenager, and I was achingly lonely at times.  But cautiously, optimistically hopeful, because a small part of me knew that life would go on and not end in 8 Mile suburbs.  But at the same time, there is a tinge of regret now, because I really was not living in the present, but yearning for something that I assumed would be more fulfilling.  And is it? Life is not as romantic as you hope for it to be at 15. Life is far more complicated that youtube scenes presented it to be. I almost willed myself to forget so much of that, and the internet now makes it far too easy to sink into that abyss yet again. I fight it, though, and yet I drift back.

It did strike me that I was not such a bad writer then.  Maybe I have regressed? The best way to improve your writing is to write a lot, and I wrote pages and pages of journals and diaries back then.  It filled a void, which was conversation with many real friends.  But it left a record so that I cannot create a fully revisionist history of those years.

Was it really 18 years ago when that ended, a half lifetime ago? How in the world did I get to a half lifetime later? I started my first daily journal in 1987, a quarter of a century ago. I was ten. And I kept it up until the early 2000s, and reading a few entries, if only I knew then what I know now.  But that would not be so much fun, no?

A Long December

How is it December?

I have less than 2.5 weeks of work left for 2011, and I'm already accidentally writing 2012 dates. It's like I've mentally moved on to next year, when I turn 36 and have even more big decisions ahead. It's been a long year, though how in the world is it already December?

There's a lot to look forward to...a quick trip to Chicago, friends in town, a vacation, hopefully a raise, Texas, and some down time to focus on the house and each other.  I am trying to live more in the daily presence lately, even though I have a hard time with that. I always want to jump ahead or move on to the next thing.

So my Advent prayer is for patience for the present, and presence in the present.  And the courtesy to enjoy this long December one day at a time.