crowded streets

You may recall that in my last post, I wrote that I am, at the core, a solitary person and I enjoy quiet and being alone. So you can maybe imagine my discomfort on Monday given the following:



There were more people there than I have ever been around in my life. At one point, we couldn't move very well for about 30 minutes, as we were in the middle of a large sardine crush. I was wondering how soon I would know if I were, in fact, being crushed to death. Would it happen quickly, or would I be aware during the whole thing?

Quite honestly, it was the perfect setup for a dangerous situation. There were too many people in the city relative to the preparations. There were not enough police, and not enough information dissemination. So many people, frustrated and crushed together, is a toxic combination.

But I was quite amazed and heartened by the fact that it never even almost went the bad direction. People were smiling and laughing at the situation (though obviously pissed off at what was happening in general). There was no taking out frustrations on each other. Rather, there was a feeling of being in a rotten situation together and what more could you do than share in it? We shared horror stories with other folks all day. We helped elderly ladies who were lost as we were strolling down the interstate, and laughed with people as they struggled to crawl over the medians.

I was there in DC to celebrate the end of a presidency that I abhored, the beginning of a presidency that I have much hope for, and the historic moment that it was wrt the inauguration of a black president. I did all of those things and enjoy the fact that I can say I was there. But the most striking thing for me that day was the realization that humans, en masse, might not be as bad as I have always assumed. There was mob patience shown that day, mob kindness, and a general wish to just share the moment with each other. It was a nice thing to learn.

Recap

Being a self-professed and totally-accepting-of-myself type-A anal extraordinaire, there should be no surprise from anyone who knows me that my favorite holiday is New Year's. What's not to love about the ending of an old chapter, and then the beginning of a new one? ...about neatly tying up loose ends and packaging the old year into the box labeled "the past?" ...about a pure, clean, unblemished fresh new slate lying before me as I balance precariously up on the very left tip-top of the New Year's calendar on January 1? As much as I love the anticipation of the yet-to-come, I also love the wrap-up of the past year. I'll be the one parked on the sofa watching CNN's montage (to cheesy music) of the big stories from 2008, and I'll even shed tears for parts of it. (For what it's worth, I actually used to grade my years as well, and select songs for them. Haven't done that recently....Maybe I should return to this?)

So bear with me in this completely indulgent post as I reminisce over my past 12 months.

Without hesitation, 2008 will always and forever be to me the year that my country pulled its head out of its ass and finally made an intelligent decision by electing Barack Obama as our president. I've been wishing for this for 8 years, and anticipating it (with a name to my wish) for four years. I can't tell you why I instantaneously felt as strongly as I did in July of 2004, and I fully admit that then, it was purely a gut feeling that I knew he was destined to be my president. However, it ended up that my gut feeling was spot on and was only strengthened as I was able to shore it up with information, learning more about him through the years. This is a man with intelligence and integrity. This is a man of MY generation (I say with pride). This is someone who respects humanity, respects science and has ears to hear. He is the real deal (thank GOD). I wasn't sure exactly when he would become president, but the fact that it happened in 2008 will endear this year to me forever, despite the rest of the crap that happened worldwide.


So other than that obvious, my year-in-a-nutshell consists of the following:

This year I finally went into the field (Fairbanks, Alaska and Cold Lake, Canada) during our aircraft campaign. I am enormously glad I went, and documented some of my personal thoughts on the Discovery Channel science blog. For anyone who's interested, here are my entries. There weren't as many as I would have liked - I was sick for a significant part of my time in Fairbanks (99% sure I had Rubella, oddly enough - a mild but exhausting illness for a middle-aged gal).
here1
here2
here3
and here4.



We added a gorgeous sunroom onto the back of our house.



We had a fantastic vacation this summer in Boston and Maine - were able to see not only my boys play in Fenway, but got to spend time with not-often-seen-friends in the Boston area.



I learned this year that I was able to survive Jamie and Jamie and their beautiful children being located in Austria for the year. It's been hard, and I could not go for longer than a year without them, but I have survived (so far). But hurry home please. I need that honesty and acceptance and pure love from your family. Plus, my kids are a million times happier when their best friends are nearby.


We saw the Counting Crows and Maroon 5 and Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew."
I finished up a year of being PTA president and embarked upon a year of taking it easy in the volunteer department (am loving that, I tell you).

The Red Sox made the playoffs. I saw baseball-boyfriend Mikey play in person a couple of times.

Q and E were busy with soccer and baseball and Odyssey of the Mind and Girl Scouts and piano lessons and African Dance classes and science/math camps and cooking and art classes and Model UN and band and making excellent grades and playing with friends. I could not have imagined kids more fun, more awe-inspiring, more loving, or more all-around wonderful than the ones I ended up with.


As for my blogging life, it's interesting that I have been so consistent for the past several years with my blogging. I wrote 115 posts this year (111 in 2007 and 110 in 2006). October was my heaviest month, with 19 posts (pre-election build-up to be sure) and April and December were my slowest with 4 each (though this one makes 5 for December).


It's not been such a good year for a lot of people I know, though, or for most of the US or world. We have global warming issues to grapple with. We have an economic disaster on hand. There are many people I love who are now without a job. We have wars continuing to rage and the associated deaths of servicemen/women and civilians. Overall, 2008 has not been good to this little blue dot in the universe (from the human perspective, that is). However, since that perspective is the one I hold most dear, I'm going to throw all my wishes into improvement on that front during 2009.

A grade? I'm gonna give the world a C-. Only the election of Barack Obama kept us from failing. For myself personally, this was a B or B+ kind of year.

Year's theme song? What else? I didn't even have to think about it. This is what I played ALL NIGHT LONG on November 4 as I downed a bottle of wine and a bottle of champaign and cried and cried with joy as I emailed several of my friends through the night with cries of "WE'VE GOT PENNSYLVANIA!!!!" and "LOOKS LIKE OHIO!!!" as I told them to hang on and don't give up on VIRGINIA.... What a night to remember.

It goes along with my slogan for 2008:

"It was about f*cking time."

a more honorable existence

I suppose I've never written the obligatory post outlining the things that I am thankful for this year, have I? It's really a bit difficult since I've been solidly in a "find the cloud attached to the silver lining" mode for the last month or so.


It's a dreary day outside...

Here goes.

I am thankful to those who refuse to remain silent in the face of racism, homophobia, religious discrimination and sexism. It is easy (and cowardly) to remain in the safety of our homes and invisibility cloaks and privately condemn these actions. It is more difficult and much more honorable to respond publicly, whether it's participating in public protests against California Proposition 8, or refusing to let your friend stereotype a religion or race.

I am thankful to the climate scientists who have put themselves on the front lines of what remains of the climate change "debate" (realclimate.com, etc). The few remaining dissenters are quite uninformed and are wrong on all of the arguments I've seen out there, but they are also quite vocal, nasty, and persuasive/persistent, so to ignore them remains a mistake. It takes someone with an extraordinary amount of patience and an extraordinarily thick skin to respond to them. It is difficult for scientists who put in 60-80 hour work-weeks, and who have families and outside lives, to find the extra time and patience to power through the education of the public. It is much easier to bury your head in the comfort of your own research and assume that with time, the tide of public opinion will become powerful enough to ensure response. I am thankful for those who chose the more difficult path and continue to respond to ridiculosities with rational, science-based arguments.

I am thankful to those who volunteer hours and hours of their time every week to help make our public schools successful. It is easy to complain about the PTA or about school policies in the comfort of our homes while downing a few cold ones with friends. It is much more difficult to give up precious extra hours in order to plan fundraisers, print and distribute newsletters, and attend meetings.

I am thankful to everyone who has chosen the difficult path of action over the easier path of apathy and acceptance. For everyone who has acted rather than simply talked, I believe you have chosen the more honorable existence. So thank you.

If you love your country, thank a vet...

Hoo boy.
I managed to make it through my daughter's 4th grade Veteran's Day program without crying, but only barely.
Here's E saying her part.


(Hello! Can you GET any more all-American then a 4th grade class putting on a Veteran's Day program in a school gym decorated red white and blue in front of a painting of the Statue of Liberty?)

I was able to hold back the tears (barely) when Mr. O, our school's beloved custodian, came out to sing Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA" with the kids. He does this every year, and invariably gets a rock-star reception with cheers and stomping and whoops (Mr. O is very loved in our school). So here was this black man, our custodian, who is as kind and generous and humble and hard-working a man as I've ever seen, in a setting with about 100 kids absolutely adoring him, singing about his pride in this country, which has just elected its first black president. I can only imagine what he was feeling. (It was at that point that I looked at Q who was standing beside me and said "I'm trying not to cry." Q gave me the middle school eye roll.

The section where the kids sing the service songs and have audience members stand up during their song, for recognition??... (sob) That one gets me every time - watching moms and dads and grandfathers stand up proudly and giving a big thumbs-up to their 4th grader. I watch the kids so proudly singing patriotic songs and think - well yes, that's pretty much what it's about, isn't it?

Thank you, my country's armed forces. I believe this one thing very firmly. Our country has remained a safe-haven for American families, a place where liberty and freedom runs rampant, only because of the courage and the dedication our armed forces. It seems trivial to simply say "thank you," but it is all that I know to say. I'm a little verklempt, having just run through the wars that this country has been through since it's inception, and thinking of the sacrifices that have been made to bring it where it is now.

And on a totally different subject, then there was the outrageous fact that my baby looked so freaking big up there.



Sorry, can't help it:


and
(note the lovely bangs-job courtesy of her brother that year)

When did she turn into this pre-pre-teen up there wearing jeans and flipping her hair and whispering with her friend (lord, those two are gonna TEAR UP this town when they're older). She has always been the smile in my family. She's a happy kid. (She cried during Mr. O's song...she's also sentimental.)