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It’s new year’s eve, and I’m finishing out the year exactly where I want to be - with LJ at the lake. It’s sunny, in the 50’s, and just beautiful. I’ve been pondering the year soon to be past, and like the others, there have good times and not so good.

We started the year on a very sad note, with our life-long friends Dot and Neill English dying within one day of each other in January. It was unexpected, untimely, and heartbreaking. They were only in their 70’s, and it was ironic that they died one day apart. They were inseparable in life; it’s only fitting that their end was the same.

In March, we celebrated my brother’s birthday with him and his wife here at the lake. It was a lovely weekend and made me very aware of how it seems Steve and I grow closer each year. It’s nice to have that kind of relationship with a brother.

April brought a huge thrill for LJ and me. One of our favorite jazz singers, Stacey Kent, and her husband, jazz saxophonist Jim Tomlinson, came to Edmond, Oklahoma. They headline Ronnie Scott’s in London and Birdland in New York City, and here they were coming to the University of Central Oklahoma of all places! We grabbed reservations and hightailed it. And they did not disappoint. They put on a beautiful show, and we met them and got CD’s signed after the show. If you’re not familiar with them, I highly recommend them.

In May, we took one of the trips a lifetime to Italy with LJ’s sister, Janet. We went to Rome, Tuscany and Bellagio. It was a beautiful journey and it was really good to spend it with Janet. I loved Rome, but San Gimignano and the surrounding area is still my favorite. I will say, though, that my only disappointment with Bellagio was that I didn’t run into Mr. Clooney. I’m sure he’s disappointed, too.

June brought our 39th wedding anniversary. We spent it at the lovely W Hotel with dinner at Lola. I still can’t believe it’s been that long. In some ways it only seems like a few years. I’m ready for many more.

October was a huge month. First, you know if you read this blog that October brought Hurricane Ike which wiped out Bolivar Peninsula and Crystal Beach. It still makes me tear up to think about it. However, we went with the Barnetts to Lake Murray, Oklahoma and had a wonderful time with them like we always do. We’re already talking about trying to get back to Galveston next year even though Crystal Beach is gone. And finally, we had the Hawkins cousins’ reunion at Country Woods Inn in Glen Rose. What a blast. And what a month!

November brought the best news of the year - the election of Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Even though the economy is tanking and the Middle East is teetering on annihilation, there is hope for the future.

I am finishing the year bittersweet. We spent Christmas with my family in Kansas City. While it was really wonderful to be with my Mom and my sisters and their families to celebrate, it is just too difficult to witness how Alzheimer’s destroys a human being from the core out. My Dad is no longer a person I know. It is painful to have your father ask what your name is and whether or not you finished college. I can only hope that this doesn’t drag on for long. As he said when we were there, “I am lost.” I don’t think he’ll be found again on this earth.

But life goes on, and tomorrow will be a new year. It will bring good and bad as it did this year, but it always brings new hopes. And that’s what keeps us all going. HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE.

My favorite new year’s dinner, Chili and Cornbread.

Beef Chili

3 T. vegetable oil
3 lb. ground chuck
3 yellow onions
8 garlic cloves
1 jalapeno
1/2 cup chili powder
2 T. cumin
1 T. oregano
2 t. coriander
1 1/2 cups lager beer
2 1/2 cups beef broth
1 can (28 oz.) crushed tomatoes
1 can kidney beans (rinsed and drained)
1 can pinto beans (rinsed and drained)

Brown ground chuck in 2 tablespoons oil. Drain thoroughly. While meat is draining, saute onions, garlic and jalapeno in remaining oil. Add meat back to pan and add remaining ingredients (through beans) and stir completely. Simmer over low heat for at least one hour or more if desired.

I do not understand how two people can look at the exact same set of circumstances and see things so dramatically differently.  I am one of many folks on an e-mail list of my high school classmates, and I periodically received newsy e-mails.  Many are the kind that let us know that someone’s mother or father has passed away; sadder still are the ones that let us know one of our classmates passed away.  There are invitations to “mini-reunions” and occasionally to clubs where some band we all liked in high school is playing. 

I’m not particularly close to any of my classmates because I didn’t exactly feel like I fit in in high school.  I was most assuredly a late bloomer.  But I’ve allowed my e-mail address to remain on the list because I just like keeping up.  When sappy “remember how much better things were being a child in the 50’s” come in, I just delete them and don’t give them much mind.  I’m of the opinion that if that sort of thing appeals to you, you’ll think your childhood times were better than the present no matter when you grew up.  My memory is too good for that sort of mind game.

Anyway, something happened this week that kind of threw the high school newsy e-mails topsy turvy.  One of my classmates sent out a ranting about how Obama wouldn’t provide a legitimate birth certificate to prove his citizenship, and when we get to the bottom of this constitutional travesty he won’t be “much of a president from Leavenworth.” (Huh?  Leavenworth??)  I went to snopes.com where my belief that this pronouncement wasn’t worth a bucket of warm spit was confirmed.  I went back to the e-mail and responded to the address list that the statements were false and that could be confirmed at snopes.  I also opined that our high school newsy thing was probably not an appropriate forum for the political agenda.

Boy, were the hounds ever loosed.  The original sender made all sorts of pronouncements about how snopes.com didn’t have all the information, and went on to justify all things evangelical and Palin and warning us that our country was falling apart.  Soon after, another of my classmates talked about pots and black kettles and reminded us about the current administration’s penchant for getting us into wars that have killed thousands, undermining the Constitution with warrantless wire taps, torture, and rendition, and removing statutory constraints on lending institutions to the point that we’re ecomonically drowning.  It was beautifully written, if you ask me.

But I’m pretty sure it’s not over, and I’ll get another e-mail explaining how the last one completely misses the point.  Which is my point with this post.  What makes us see the same thing through such different glasses?  Is it perspective?  Priorities?  Fear?  I would welcome your ideas, no matter what color glasses you peer from.