Greetings of the Season

The End of 2016 is in Sight

   There was a time when toward the end of the year I would get a hold of attractive paper and fill a page with a report of the year’s events. These sheets would have to be folded and stuffed into envelopes and then stamped and mailed to relatives and friends. No more all that. The internet and the existence of an established blog leave only the job of writing.

   While that report would of necessity be considerably shorter than those end-of-year letters of yore, since getting on to 90, I do much less than I did say twenty years ago and, especially, because  I am resolved not to discuss my various Wehwehs (German baby talk for hurts) of which I have my share—big nuisances, but none life-threatening, so far. Instead I’ll have some comments about activities by the two generations of my hosts.

   If it isn’t clear, for the last four years or so, I have been living with my daughter Ellie’s family in the Noche Buena district of Mexico City. Its noches don’t seem to me to be distinctive; what dominates the neighborhood, rather, are the close by Plaza de Toros, the largest bullring in the world and a bit further on an equally voluminous Estadio de Futbal.

  The house, vintage 1950’s, is commodious, with my room on the second floor, a decent size and bright, furnished mostly with things of mine that go way back, with the chair I had as dean, comfortable, easy on my back, now reupholstered. The desk, just right, came from a local Office Depot, but was assembled in the house by one of their experts.  

   I spend a lot of time in that room, which I keep warm with an effective little heater. Excessive sensitivity to cold is one of my old age symptoms. I seldom go out of the house without a sweater under my jacket. Since I’m not at all a dresser, I’m happily in tune with the informality of local sartorial practices.

   In the front of my desk sits my Big Mac, not edible, but the center of my attention for a good part of my day at home. Except for checking emails, much of my mornings is spent with the New York  Times, now on internet, for decades before on paper. It’s an addiction that goes way back. I actually worked for The Times for some months as a “copy boy” (now probably an extinct species), after I got out of the Navy, waiting for my start at Columbia College. 

   Besides the Times, I of course use that computer to write (and not only for my blog) and to be in email touch with numerous friends and relatives. I have previously sung my praises to email as a way of communicating. Here I just want to say that it is what keeps me to some degree in touch with my former life.

   There you have what I might call a steady state account of my life, but I have surprisingly little to add about day to day activities. I get in a walk almost every day, shrunken in size from earlier days and always accompanied by someone, since I’m too wobbly not to fear falling. But that has been working very well, with one of several English-speaking companions.

   Besides those walks, I get out of the house (forget about doctors’ visits) with the family, especially to restaurants: Mexico City is a great place for eating. I also get to concerts, now mostly to Ellie’s with the Sinfonica Nacional of which she has been principal clarinet for over a quarter of a century. They perform in the splendid Palacio de Bellas Artes. But I don’t get to as many concerts as I used to.

   There is always the sound of music in the house; I call it Hausmusik: Ellie practicing, and mostly advanced clarinet and oboe students of Ellie’s and Miguel’s who teach them here, one hour apiece.

   When my grandchildren were still at home, we had a lot of interactions (to use a term I dislike), but now we communicate mostly by email and phone, with Max in his third year at the Rhode Island School of Design and Eva at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. Max’s chief interest is animation, a very time-consuming task. He emails his clever one-minute cartoons, convincing me that he will get a good job in that industry when he graduates. Eva, now a freshman, is working at  a variety of artistic products and told me that she will bring home a poncho she has made for her fiber class. Both kids are doing well, but of course they are mostly not here, giving me my second “empty house” experience.

   I’m of course in touch with (son) Mark and his wife Shannon. Right now Mark is in Paris, filming stage productions for a Korean company, supervising a huge crew making use of seven cameras. Shannon is at home in Los Angeles and has shifted her main occupation to selling entire businesses. That takes a lot of hustling.

   I want to conclude by saying that I’m remarkably fortunate to be in Mexico City, embedded in a family, rather than at some retirement place, however posh and expensive. Ellie, my daughter, has adopted me as her third child and is a great “mother” to me. I wouldn’t trade my present lot for any other.

  But now I want to convey the best wishes to all my friends and readers, in the hope that you all have a most pleasant holiday season and, Donald Trump notwithstanding, a very good 2017!

   Cheers to all, Rudy