The weekend has seemed like a long one, and it is only Saturday morning. After the busy-ness and long to do lists of Christmas, it seems we are free to do what we want. Who knew life could ever be so calm?
George and I and Dave went out for dinner early to celebrate the New Year and enjoyed rack of lamb, stuffed scrod and the seafood platter. It was all just right. (The diet starts today.) On the way home, George became a mass of sniffles, so he went to bed early and I just gave up and joined him so he wouldn't be alone, tucked in with a reading lamp and a New Yorker article about the "truth" of the Crusades. It seemed a fine way to bring in the New Year to me and I turned off the light an hour before midnight. If you really want to enjoy nightlife, you have to get up a lot later than we do at this house!
The news this morning was somber and sad, and so many people have died near the Indian Ocean that is it almost impossible to imagine it. I keep trying to visualize what the tsunami waves looked like and finally I heard a survivor talk on CNN about it looking like an extreme high tide coming in twice. First one wave came in and in Phuket they thought that was all and then an hour later, a larger, stronger and even more distructive one came. Both relentless waves that never abated. We are all going to be hearing a lot about this tragedy for a long time to come. All we can hope is that 2005 never sees anything like this.
Today it is time to put away the Christmas decorations and take my time packing them well and labeling them so next year they come out of the boxes in good shape. I'm a ribbon saver, so I will iron and roll all the ribbon that we used, and pack up my Santas which I enjoy so much. A long two days of no real plans seems like just the thing to bring in the New Year.
I'm hoping to start my new book Faithful, a chronicle of the 2004 Red Sox, written by Stephen King and Stewart O'Nan. That World Series was definitely a high point of the year if you lived anywhere near Boston!
I heard a psychologist on TV yesterday say that we should all be very careful about watching too much of the tragic news about the tsunami disaster. It seems selfish, but maybe 30 minutes is our limit, like she says, and maybe by staying strong rather than becoming depressed and anxious, we can do more good in the long run. And it will be a long run. Our prayers are with all those millions of people who have been touched by this wave of misfortune.
George just put his newspaper down and it landed on the "on" button of the stereo remote and John Denver started serenading us with tunes from his album "Rocky Mountain Christmas" which I got for George for Christmas. It was a nice reminder to shut off the TV today and just enjoy this precious day.
Take care and have a wonderful New Year's Day.
