Dear C,

Glad to see you have come back to life, full of your usual vim and vigor after the trials of a week in Montego Bay. My own exile here in Florida continues through the weekend, but the good news is that as we know absolutely no-one down here, there is no obligation to celebrate the New Year. Actually, that's not quite true: there is a  couple we play tennis with down here, but they seem if anything keener to avoid us than we are to avoid them. Always shocked and a little miffed when people I can't be bothered to see apparently feel the same way about me, but I find it's best not to dwell on such matters, don't you?

Congratulations on getting your youngest cherub into gymnastics camp. Whatever it took, I am sure it was worth it, as I gather you can actually win a gymnastics Fullbright for college these days. If only they had one for eating, my entire immediate family and I would be scholars too. After all, how many families can boast of being able to eat one meal while simultaneiously reminiscing about great meals past, or planning for the next? As a matter of fact, my one regret about voting for Obama is that the man apparently likes to fast on Sundays and eats protein bars washed down with iced tea for breakast. And this is the 90lb weakling I'm trusting with his finger on the trigger? Thank God for Michelle and her real food-loving rump, for bringing some much needed gravitas back to the White House.

Wish I had the solution to eldest son's 7-times a day bathing habit, but I trust that the communal cold showers at his boarding school will rapidly cure him of that. Either that, or he may be forced to seek the comfort of strangers in public bathrooms for the rest of his adult life, but it's all good character-building stuff, right? Do hope his New Year's Eve celebrations go well, and that if you confiscate any good stuff from his friends' backpacks, you'll be wiling to share.

Off to embrace my God given right as a forty year old to eschew occasions of forced jollity. Plan is to celebrate the New Year by staying in to watch a movie, then lights out by 10pm. If only we had a dime bag or two of pesto to mark the occasion, life would be perfect.

Happy 2009!

P.

Dearest P,

As we discussed earlier today, your constant correspondence from your forced retreat is really no more oppressive to me than any of my many other urgent obligations.  Although the children may suffer for it, you certainly know the ways I try to compensate for any time I must take my family's ever- present demands.  Although my preparations for the inauguration continues unabated (much like eldest son's showers), I fear my priorities fall short of those DC insiders jostling each other for the best view of Obama's right hand on the Koran (ooh, sorry, Bible).  Although I started the day with a sense of high-minded purpose, I fear I've fallen into a trap from which many midwestern housewives never recover: the trip to Target.

It all started innocently enough: the advertisement for the cubicle with bins at a hefty discount and a desire to hide youngest cherub's toys from all those fancy houseguests we soon expect to fill our humble abode.  Sadly, although it all began with a clear purpose, I was inevitably distracted by all the other bargains which I  knew would make my life, if not simpler, certainly more perfect.  Also had two cherubs with me on the occasion which meant not a single solitary complete thought was ever allowed to work its way through to my conscious mind.  So, naturally,  I ended the day with a second trip to said store to return the mistakes and purchase additional appropriate additions to the cubicle that I had neglected to notice the first time.

The point of all this, dearest P, is simply to suggest the measure of a life is certainly in the details.  Although my dear housekeeper stoically assembled all necessary parts of cubicle, I once again failed to take the giant strides in one day that I really feel I must in keeping with the progress we all expect now for the country.  Perhaps, like Obama, l will take to skipping meals and ingesting protein bars but I doubt it as I did manage to have a terrific little Vietnamese Pho in between all that ragged running.  I did, however, think about offering to bring some back next time for the housekeeper.  That is, I think, a real measure of progress to which I will cling quite proudly. 

C.