solstice 1997

December 21, 1997


Dear Y’all,

What it is about the longest night, which prompts this need to plague you all with junk mail, I know not. But there is something about hunkering down for these long lonely nights that causes me to howl at the moon, figuratively speaking. And, so dear friends, I embark again on a telling of our year.

We began on a distressing note, with the death of our beloved dog, Dorjé (the Best Dog in the World, for those unacquainted with him.) He was doing well till close to the end, fortunately, but there was little time for the kids to anticipate before he was gone. They took it hard. We have, as a result, taken on a new family member, also a boxer named Darwin (aka Devil-dog, Cerberus, Hell-Hound). He’s a flashy brindle-and-white beauty, but he has a long way to go before becoming the Best Dog in the World. A long, long way. He chews things, mostly. Shoes, pens, rugs, toe-strips from the walls, CD’s, exterior shingles, chair legs, socks, collars, leashes, hats, stuffed animals, Christmas ornaments, leather couch cushions, just to name a few odds and ends. “It’s a phase” I say, but the thought-balloon above Catherine’s head is to violent for public display. I’ll spare you, in case small children accidentally read this.

The kids have started at a new school, closer to us by 20 miles, and a little more our style. Kinda sixties almost, but not really. More together than that. A little more culturally diverse. A little more laid back. A little more open to difference between children. Not as many Mercedes in the lot. They are doing well, and prefer the new to the old, despite the necessary trauma of change. Hannah is now 11, in 6th grade, still enjoying athletics and struggling with math. We are fighting the good fight together in the crucible of nightly homework. My father will recall the identical scene played out 30 years ago. Everett is 9, the 4th grade, still working hard at enjoying youngest child-hood. He is on leave of absence from piano at the moment, and not to keen to re-start. I don’t know how to solve that one, but I hate to let him quit. Bribes only go so far, and lead to blackmail in short order, and threats have no effect.

The Big Kids are in RI. Michele is at URI majoring in Philosophy, if you can believe it, and loving it. She’s doing great, studying hard, knows what a dialectic is, and has really grown up a lot. Nat is in an apartment on his own, discovering why they call work “work”. He hasn’t yet found an occupation which is constant bliss, completely undemanding, and pays well (me either). I wish him lots of luck.

Catherine is into the mature phase of her career. She knows why they call it work. She may go part time in this next year and devote more time to…not working. She has continued to hold salons about 3X a year, to rave reviews, with a nice variety of performers. The next one is February 21st, featuring the Antares Piano Trio, if anyone wants to come. We are taking reservations now.

I am, as before, slugging along, using slug in the literal sense of the word, I’m afraid. Anyone wanting to know what I’ve been up to has only to pick up the slime trail behind me and follow it backward. My entire year is thus revealed. Our Hero Margaret Roberts completed the Marine Corps Marathon this year. In an effort to jolt myself out of the doldrums, I took up jogging again. Some of you may remember me as a fairly serious runner “back in the day”. Well, I went out and got some new running shoes, suited up and went out. Unfortunately I had neglected to put on a jog-bra, so I created an immediate public spectacle. Traffic backed up with people mistaking me for Sinead O’Connor and stopping to ask for autographs. Not a pretty sight. Having failed miserably there, I must admit to a momentary urge to have a torrid affair, when I found myself getting out of a shower in a hotel, and confronted a naked person with really great tits in my room. I waved shyly. She waved back. I turned to walk into the room and she turned also. Words were unnecessary, our understanding was perfect; but then I realized I was only blurrily seeing myself in the full length mirror. Luckily, I didn’t leap before I looked, or I’d have been picking glass out of myself for weeks.

I did go to my 25th H.S. reunion recently. I was easily the most changed (read oldest-looking) member of the class. (“Hi, uh, Mister Roberts…what class did you teach?”) I had the chance in a whirlwind two days to renew acquaintances with Cincinnati and many old friends there, and it was very nice indeed. I hadn’t known Cincinnati was such a happening place when I left for good. Ah, well, no time for regrets, eh?

So I am basically living sweepstakes to sweepstakes, ever hopeful that Ed McMahon and Dick Clark are just a returned entry away from allowing me to retire in style, and assume my ultimate career goal--Philanthropist. I’ve given this a lot of thought, and it really is what I’m cut out for. I’m in for 5 different drawings for airplanes, multiple cars, and of course various chances at umpteen million.

Work is, uh, work. Actually, not bad, but still not philanthropy. We have achieved relative calm in staffing, and most of the re-engineering turmoil has died down. The department mostly runs itself with only on occasional push from me. The clientèle continues to amaze and confound me. I have to remind myself constantly that there are “normal people” in the world--they just don’t come to see me. Keeping a positive outlook is tough. I’m not allowed (politically incorrect) to notify my female patients that wearing spandex is a privilege, not a right. Nor can I point out that their 2 pack a day habit will surely have dire consequences for them. It infringes on their constitutionally protected rights, it seems. Those who can write, do, with hearty condemnation of my paltry efforts to advise, and those who can’t write…well, fortunately they outnumber those who can pretty handily. The narcotics-addicted, it turns out, also have a constitutionally guaranteed right to have their narcotics supplied at any hour, and the newly homeless have every expectation of a hospital bed as the easiest, cheapest alternative. Failing elders were always fully functional until 10 minutes before their arrival, when they are suddenly complete train wrecks, requiring nursing home placement at 02:00, but not, unfortunately, hospitalization. And of course, their loving families have burned rubber leaving the parking lot before we can finish the evaluation. 14 year-olds continue to deliver babies into my disbelieving hands, never having had sex. (“Congratulations, Grandma. Let’s start a new religion.”) People continue to test positive for drugs because of “lab error”, and drunks continue to demand to speak to “their lawyer” at 03:00. (I count myself among the lucky who still don’t “have a lawyer”.) Life’s incompetents continue to take “underdoses”, and then lecture me from their leather restraints about how I have no right to hold them in the hospital and intervene to save their lives. (Everybody’s a lawyer, why not me?). If they were any use at all, they would have taken an overdose, but that is another story. So, in short, our ER is just like the one on TV, except that everybody who works here is much better looking, and we have more sex at work than they do on TV. They never get it quite right.

So, long suffering readers, we find ourselves again making obeisance to ancient Druid gods, in modern commercial guise, lest the awful ebb of daylight continue to unending darkness. Remarkably, the spheres listen to our pleas, and we wobble back towards warmth and light. And since the ritual has worked every time for 10,000 years, let us carry on uninterrupted, secure in the power of our incantations. (What the spheres did for amusement before we learned to chant, I’m not sure, but let us carry on nevertheless.)

So may your year be full of promise, and actually keep the promises. (No, they are not the only ones who keep promises.) May your work irk you less and please you more, may your time at home be a good reason to work less, even so. May your offspring resist the slings and arrows of popular culture, and make their own place in the world. May you remain addiction-free, or become so, if that chore is on your list. Dammit, quit smoking, already! What does it take?? (Sorry.) Let us find the discipline to exercise, confidence in the free market, and freedom from subpoena from the Senate Committee to Investigate Campaign Finance. Let us face the Universe bravely, though sadly, without Carl Sagan; be skeptical, and also ready to be surprised, but don’t take any offers for rides on comets seriously. Let us love truly, and say so; make new friends, and write, fax or call old ones, think globally, act locally, eat right, but like what we eat, and enjoy that prescribed glass of wine. Peace to you and all you touch, and may that touch include contact with us this year.

Love, Warmest Regards, Cheers, Sincerely, Hasta la vista,
Your Friend, Au revoir, Happy Solstice, Prosperous New Year, Ta-Ta, Ciao, Bye, Best…(select sentiment)