Monday, August 27, 2007
August. We have spotted a slow trickle of tanned state employees wandering the echoing hallways of the State House. Must mean Labor Day approaches.
Aberration. The daughter goes off to finish her last year of college even so she started just yesterday. She leaves me with a pile of summer reads (I've counted fifteen books) that will be added to the five or so we still haven't finished from last year. The tape measure of life will be a different one for her now... one where things are measured in decades (your 20's, 30's, 40's, 50's, etc.) as opposed to those staccato segways of childhood, where everything is measured by the number of birthday candles on your cake.
Accolades. To the son who landed a job sooner than we could have ever hoped and starts September 5th. May it be rewarding. And may he remember to take out the trash and make his bed whilst saving money living at home...
AA. We may need to become a member at some point if hubby and I don't get out of this spiral of existential angst we always feel -- the root of which are the software industry wolves constantly nipping at our attempts to enjoy our sanctuary of a home in some semblance of financial secucrity.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Behind the Bonnet. No this is not your first glimpse of Anna Bloviations. We would be the one hidden behind the voluminous straw hat. Beneath that hat and Ray Bans is the woman I have known since grammar school. We once lived across the street from one another and were and are today great friends.
Perhaps it was the daily infusion of San Francisco Richmond District fog that made us have such remarkably parallel lives. She and I both grew up to love books and writing. Both of us married Europeans and lived abroad for many years. Both of us have dabbled at careers but for the most part are highly subsidized women with a propensity for travel, beautiful surroundings, good food, and nice clothes. It all sounds glamorous but any ex-pat knows that long-term life abroad and frequent moves can be very disruptive emotionally: kids yanked out of schools, the harrying logistics of moving, the initial loneliness and displacement one feels in a new place, the moody husbands whose job positions are constantly being upended for various reasons. The upside are the many interesting people one meets. One stays in touch with them and as we all get older (and usually more financially successful), a trans-continental network is formed. Case in point is Anna Bloviations' September trip to Mallorca and then to Austria to stay with friends and family. My friend's network extends to London, Warsaw, Paris, and beyond.
Speaking of beyond, in this photo we are looking out to the Ogunquit Harbor in Maine. If I recall correctly we were discussing the delicious-looking chocolate chip cookies we had spotted in a bakery and whether we shouldn't go buy some later. We may or may not have just criticized the poor choice of bathing suits a lot of American women choose. And then there is our idea for a book -- one geared towards a niche market of 40-something women thirsting for high-end erotica to enhance their sex lives. Not that we are speaking from personal experience or anything... we just think there may be a demand given the number of women who are looking terrific well into their fifties.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
The Yacht Club. The next day we were invited by friends to have a drink on the deck of a well-known yacht club overlooking a well-known, beautiful harbor. Sipping our icy Cosmos, we watched tow-headed, life-jacketed kids help their tow-headed parents manoeuvre their sailboats back to their moorings. A lobster boat gurgled by. To our right and left were men dressed in crisp khaki shorts and logo shirts; the women dressed in casually elegant linens -- all manicured and pedicured in bright tulip reds, corals, or French white (= $100 just for the nails). I remember mentioning to our friends how bizarre that these two so different parallel worlds could co-exist just a few miles apart.
And just when I thought there couldn't be another stratosphere, I picked up my grade school friend from the airport and drove her further up the coast to stay with her friends a few days before coming to stay with me. It's her friend's 'summer' home - an absolutely stunning just-built property looking across to Misery Island (the rest of the year they live in various apartments and country homes in Europe). The house, the grounds, the pool, the furniture, their exciting life, their two perfect children and sweet live-in Au pair from Poland, the GORGEOUS husband, the money coming out of their ears, the $30 bottle of white wine they opened for lunch along with a succulent sesame chicken salad and French cheese for dessert, my girlfriend's guest room view overlooking the Atlantic -- it was all too much really and I found myself in a funk on the ride back home. A funk because there is the kind of showy display of wealth that is so obscene and tasteless (Britney Spears) you just look on with disgust. But this wealth was subliminaly gorgeous. And yet, how much is too much?
Monday, August 06, 2007
Hubby has been in the software industry for over twenty years now which makes him almost as old as Jesus -- relatively speaking. The volatility of the industry is enough to drive a person off a cliff. That success is solely based on being at the right place at the right time is enough to drive a person to drinking (and we drink [Portuguese wine at $8 a bottle]). Not that we haven't done well, mind you. But not well enough that we don't hate Suzie-Nerdie-Engineering-Q who is sitting on $5M because she happened to have options at Company X when they went public. Oh I don't know... Good for her. Sucks for us. Suffice to say, I've had many a terrorist thought as it pertains to sleazy investors, slash-and-burn CEO's, and yes, just people who always seem to have luck even when they don't deserve it (or even if they do frankly). Sorry Jesus. I know revenge is a sin. Or at least I think it is. This atheist hasn't read her bible lately. I want hubby out of this business...If only my paltry-ly paid government job could cut the mustard (or part the sea!).
Sunday, August 05, 2007
