What happened? Traditionally I occupy a spot on one end of
the cynicism scale between Andy Rooney and “The Riddler” of Batman fame. Well,
my turf has been swamped with doom and gloom guys and its no wonder. The noise
(news) is all about seemingly serious men who are masters of corruption, that and
an endless stream of news about facebook taking over the universe. Now I find
out from the movie that Mr. Facebook is a big fat cheater too. With the
popularity of cynicism, all of a sudden, I am being re-positioned as a moderate.
I know how the Republican party feels.
Increasingly I find myself believing in the flimsiest of ideas
– unfounded optimism. In our house this schtick (say: shtik) belongs to Carolyn. It’s the Christmas story – you have a
limitless spiritual line of credit that you can access. No matter how bad it
seems in the middle of your journey, your debt can always be restructured for a
happy ending (provided that you visit your ecclesiastic banker of course). Even
I am visiting this lender of last resort . No church of course, but the belief
that things will turn out fine. We just don’t know exactly how or when.
This year as always we celebrate both the midwinter
festivals, uncommonly, we are taking a decidedly optimistic view. We are firing
up the Irish Rovers family Christmas album on the Stereo, looking back on an
excellent 2010 and looking forward to an even sunnier 2011.
For iconic footage of 2010 search “Hannah’s Ride” on You
Tube and witness her freakishly successful surf ride in Australia captured in
high def. Or, just ask and we can send you the DVD of the school production of
Beauty and the Beast with Maggie as Mrs. Potts the singing teapot.
More of Canada’s less privileged children will have sports equipment
now that Carolyn has started at Canadian Tire’s Jumpstart charity. In fact our
children will probably have more sports equipment as well because she spends
way more time in Canadian Tire stores.
I managed to find a project with a beer company in Russia
this Summer. It was a lot of fun visiting Russia and St. Petersburg. Those
Russians have reason to be cynical, but no, they drink instead.
Heartwarming...literally.
We are looking forward to a 2011 filled with both kinds of
skiing including, maybe a trip to a real mountain. We’ll be pursuing boxercise, tennis, road biking, mountain
biking, volunteering and underage driving in remote places. And some of us will
be singing, endless singing and iPods, daily flute and saxophone ditties and
Glee. Not to mention food glorious food. We do our best to practice the ancient
art of eating together and often we don’t even text message during meals.
We are lucky that lately we have all been quite healthy and
that includes our extended families. Our only regret is that somehow we never spend
enough time with you our friends and family. Well, that...and the dreaded
facebook .
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