Out with the Old... and Cross Your Fingers

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© 2001-2002 R.C. Barajas

inally that wretched year is over. Any 12 month period that can claim the lives of so many people in one go, that can tumble once proud economies and reduce to 50% the number of living Beatles, any year that can devour the likes of Jack Lemmon, can just go to hell, as far as I'm concerned.

Sorry, but as I write this last piece regarding 2001, I feel my lack of moderation in the expletive department to be pretty far down my list of worries. ("go to hell" was an editorial -- or husband initiated -- change. The original phrase was deemed too raw for some to whom this letter will be sent) Right now, I'm going to take a page or two -- or three -- and positively wallow in what was mundane and triumphant about that year. Take this as a warning by all means, and bail now if you wish. I'll just be here, celebrating the fact that we're all alive, healthy, and befriended by some of the most remarkable people it has ever been my pleasure to know.

That would be you, by the way.

Oh great, you're thinking. Now I have to read on or I'll be a real heel...

Am I wrong in thinking that this Christmas should have been different?

...OK, so this is harder than I imagined. The problem with 2001 is that the 9/11 canyon splits the year into two chunks. There is the distant, blessedly oblivious first 2/3, sitting on the far, sunny side of the divide, twinkling like Oz across a field of doping poppies. Then we have the year's scaly hind end on this side, blocking the view of what came before. Hey you, over there! You! April trip to Colombia! You, happy graduation from kindergarten and 3rd grade in June! And you! August vacation to California with the breathless heights of Yosemite and blue chlorine depths of Nana and Grandpa's pool! Hail, all worries no more urgent than how to rearrange our finances to buy a new computer, and how we might ever get Julian and Gabriel to stay dry at night!

Here then, our family's happier reflections on 2001, the small steps of small people, back when skylines seemed permanent and a box cutter was just another name for an X-acto knife.

I am not suggesting that this year, we should have spent less. When the economy started flagging and we were asked to go out and spend, spend, spend, our family took up the challenge and went forth and multiplied our debt substantially. The very computer I am writing on might as well be a blazing red, white and blue, rather than the more tasteful gray shimmering translucence it is. This year I didn't mess around with price comparison -- I went straight to Lego direct, spending most of the boys allotted share over the phone to operator # 15. Sure lots of the money's going straight to Denmark, but everyone keeps telling us it's a global economy now -- no country is an island anymore, they say.

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