Big Fat Friday Free For All

We live in troubled times, and I fear our nation is sick and broken. My day was a busy one yesterday, and I tried to use the busy-ness as a means to foist off the ubiquitous images coming from Capitol Hill, in which a group of people utterly certain of their priors preened for the cameras while a woman told a horrible story implicating a man who says it didn't happen. I was not totally successful in avoiding the horror, but I did manage to limit its impact on my already diminished capacity to watch the country devour itself in tribal displays. I have generally been optimistic about the future of our country, but the last two years have taken their toll on that optimism. What is most depressing about where we are is the degree to which people now question personal motives behind political ideas, while ignorant of their own horrible, tribal biases. I don't know how this ends, but I am not hopeful.

I have another busy day today, one capping off in a drive to Kitten #2's school to watch her play field hockey. She plays lacrosse in the spring, a sport I prefer. That said, as field hockey games tend to be low scoring affairs, there is often a good bit of tension as to the outcome. Afterward, she and I will drive back to Easton, an hour or so of me doing my best not to poke knitting needles into my eardrums to end the pain of the music she likes to play. I am that guy, but only on internal monologue (I have been told that voicing these objections is not welcomed by one's children). Every single damn song sounds like the one before it; monotonous, folksy, earnest. Blech. 

The Kitten and I have been solo for a couple of weeks, with Kitten #1 off on a gap-year Outward Bound course in the wilds of North Carolina and Kitten #2 off at school. I have to say that I've enjoyed it and am looking forward to more of it. The passage of the seasons was marked last night in our kitchen as the two candlesticks/white candles that sit atop our kitchen table during the fall and winter returned to their positions. No friend of fall and winter, the Kitten rages against the dying of the light by eating dinner aided by these candles. I like candlelight, and so look forward to the change. It won't be long until the gas fireplaces we installed during the renovation six years ago will be fired up, and I'll have my favorite little spot back by the fire in the kitchen for the mornings that I am at home, with two slumbering black labs nearby and occasional intrepid visits by the cats.

Every five years I am charged with rallying the Lenape High School Class of 1983 for our reunions, and this being one of those five years, I have been at this. Thirty-five seems like an odd number (not just mathematically) to celebrate, but we'll gather nonetheless. The event is a virtual copy of #30 which makes everything much easier. October 20th is the date if you are hoping to attend, reach out to me for details.

The big news in my life is that I am considering ending my 25 year relationship with America Online (AOL). That's right, I still have an AOL account (email only). The Kitten and I were chatting last night about the list of automatic payments that so effortlessly fly from our treasure each month, and after her list I laid out mine, which included AOL. She brutally brow-beat me on this, and my only defense was that of clinging to something old, familiar, and comfortable. This morning, I've begun the process of getting a new personal email (gmail) account and will take a hard look at these auto payments that desperately need pruning.

My beloved Cavaliers venture into my ancestral homeland of central North Carolina tomorrow at a gaudy 3-1 to face the undefeated Wolfpack of North Carolina State. It looks like something positive is happening with the Hoos this year, and I'll search the various forms of connection I have with the world to see which might bring me this game. Further to my previous paragraph, we have DirecTV, and pay an enormous fee each month for a thousand channels I do not watch. But when the Hoos are on Big Ten TV--well, I get to watch! The Kitten suggests that we might have a more restrictive (and cost effective) plan, but I have been unable to bring myself to shed the giant menu of unwatched fare.

A good weekend to you.