Just Musing

Verizon came and hooked us up with cable, phones and tv yesterday…last week we got our stuff out of storage, which included my desk and a bunch of other office stuff. So now I’m back sitting in the same place I left three and half years ago, again pecking away at a computer screen. But I feel totally different in ways I can only begin to scratch the surface of defining.

Maybe I shouldn’t even try, for now.

Anyhow the bottom line is it feels good, if disorienting to be here. And obviously I’m not the only one who ha changed. It feels like the whole world has been flipped upside down. All these insitutions that we thought would be here forever are gone or teetering and everyone is extremely insecure and grasping around, trying to find their way. In that contest, I am not going to moan and groan about finding myself, which is a line of thinking I have little patience for anyhow. I have absolutely nothing to complain about.

Getting our stuff out of storage was an interesting experience. We could only remember a few things and if pushed we both would have guessed that we had 15 or 20 boxes there. It turned out to be 64. There’s the desk and an armoire, which was our first luxurious purchase, from Pompanoosic Mills, for our first anniversary way back in the early das of the Clinton administration. Also a Weber grill, which the moving guy talked me into storing – think about how much profit they make from that service and their incentive to push it hard. But beyond that, we really didn’t know what was going to emerge. I anticipated that since we could not remember and we had not seen any of these things for 3.5 years we would want to get rid of most of it. I thought we could unpack with a camera in hand, snap away and post things on Ebay as they came out of the box.

The truth, unfortunately, was a bit more complicated. There were some things that fit this description, but they were relatively scarce. Much more common were dozens of framed photos and pieces of art – few of which will go back on our walls. We already have dozens of pieces of art and photos, new and old, coming from China. All of which we like more.

And there were boxes and boxes of letters, photos and photo albums, documents and all kinds of assorted doo-dads. It was really nice to see some of them and I spent a chunk of time reading old letters and journals and flipping through photo books – seeing the kids when they were little, especially Jacob, really starts to put my own life and time line into perspective. And makes me feel even happier and luckier.

The bottom line is the kids are all chugging along and seemingly thriving in their new lives.

I am happy to be back for this exciting Steelers playoffs run, which will hopefully continue Sunday. Monday I am taking the boys to the Knicks annual MLK day matinee game and Tuesday is, of course, the inauguration. I have never seen anything quite like the fervor this is causing. Some have suggested Kennedy but I wouldn’t know…anyone who was around then want to weigh in?

I do think that the excitement is caused almost as much by excitement over seeing W walk out the door as it is about seeing BO walking in. Some time a few years ago a majority of the country suddenly said, “Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to elect the guy who couldn’t speak a complete sentence.”

I do worry that people are pinning all their hopes on Obama. There might be a national depression setting in a few weeks when it sinks in that it is going to take a while for anyone to dig us out of this mess. I have not received confirmation that the kids will be watching the inauguration at school though I assume that to be the case. I am trying to decide where to watch it myself… probably go somewhere in Newark to a public place.