I recently received an invitation that made me miss newsrooms. A long-time employee of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel is leaving for a job at the Miami Herald and her colleagues are throwing her a “Going Awry Party.”
We went for our now annual pre-holiday trip to Palm Beach yesterday. After lunch in a shady piazza we strolled Worth Avenue, then drove to The Breakers to admire the Christmas decorations in the lobby. (They no longer, unfortunately, put up the walk-through gingerbread house.) Before heading home, we bought a bottle of water and sat in the courtyard overlooking the perfectly manicured green.
"Very civilized," I said to Hania.
"Semi," said a man taking a seat at the neighboring table.
Had lunch in Coral Gables yesterday with my friend David, who is in his mid-70s and experiencing some health problems.
"Turning 70," he said, "is like getting on a bicycle. You think you know how to ride it but then a wheel comes off, and then the handlebars."
Social media has made the end-of-year summary on Christmas cards unnecessary. That’s my view at least, and I’m sticking to it. Of course, some would say it’s made the Christmas card unnecessary, but I’m a traditionalist.
Yesterday I went to Kinko’s to make my annual Christmas cards. I took the drawing, which I had done Monday evening, and a few extra pens in case it needed any last-minute touchups. There, I purchased 60 sheets of heavier stock paper and fed them into a copying machine. Then I took the newly cartooned sheets to the cutting board. It was there I realized I had forgotten to bring an envelope to test for size. I went ahead anyway, folding the sheets, trimming the sides and then cutting the back. As soon as I got home I picked up the box of envelopes – left over from last year’s batch – and pulled out an envelope. Then I inserted a card. It fit snugly, leaving no extra space.
Also included in the Colm Tóibín profile in the New Yorker was the story, from The Blackwater Lightship, of the Irish man who is asked if he's come out to his parents as homosexual. He replies: "My brothers and sisters haven't even come out as heterosexual."