Opinion

Well. I haven’t seen a mosquito in several months. There’s that to say about this weather. And that is nearly the only positive thought I can come up with.

I’m notoriously bad at booking hotel rooms, Air BNBs and all things related. It’s become rather like a running joke in my family at this point that no matter how hard I try to read reviews, etc, there is always something that I manage to mess up.

I got to spend last week in California, seeing people, doing things, from Irvine up to Sacramento, and people kept trying to get me to go with them to vineyards, though I no longer imbibe. I used to and then about 25 years ago I stopped. I am capable of idiocy on my own without adding intoxication to it. And I had a two-year-old daughter and I didn’t want her to see me drunk. She and I love silliness, which is a whole other matter.

This week my great aunt stopped by for a visit as she does, and of course, had to share some of her wisdom. She did scold me gently for not yet having a passport with my eldest child nearing departure for a new duty station in Germany, but also because she just couldn’t wrap her head around that I didn’t just already have one. The other bit of wisdom was a new saying that she offered that is maybe both a little comical and a little depressing.

For the first time in living memory, I was the only passenger in a TSA security line at a major airport — Tucson, noon on a Friday, a time you’d expect Arizonans to be heading for Nome or Juneau for a weekend of darkness, but no. I wended back and forth in the maze of barriers and the guy at the conveyor seemed happy to see me. I zipped on through and counted 15 uniformed men and women defending the country against one octogenarian liberal who’s never owned a gun, hasn’t fired an explosive in fifty years and then only a few bottle rockets, and arrived at my gate two hours early, and celebrated by buying a latte at a coffee stand that offers tables and chairs.

For three years running, Beyond Reason has considered the new year’s resolution. A new year’s resolution is just a goal, a commitment, ranging from the very specific (lose ten pounds/only eat a whole food plant-based diet/save $5000) to the very abstract (workout more/eat better/save something). In a vacuum, a new year’s resolution isn’t funny. Luckily, a new year’s resolution, however specific or abstract, involves a human. A human is funny. A human with goals is the gift that keeps on giving.

Are you staying warm? I am having trouble feeling warm enough even though the thermostat is set at 70. I guess I still have air leaks, especially when the wind is blowing 20mph out of the north or northwest. Just put on another sweater, I guess. Then Ma Nature is going to tease us on Wednesday and Thursday by warming up for a couple of days before she plunges us back into the deep freeze on the weekend. I’m sick of winter.

As the time draws near the end for my eldest child’s deployment with the Army to the Middle East, we now look forward to a new adventure as he plans for his next move to a new duty station.

When Chip Carter spoke about his father, Jimmy, at a memorial service in Atlanta and told how, when his dad noticed the boy got a poor mark in Latin, Jimmy studied Latin so that he could teach his son, I recognized a standard of fatherhood a good deal higher than my own and I felt bad for a moment until I recalled that it wasn’t my father’s level of fatherhood either. He was a father of six kids and I recall that when I got a C in math, it was my problem and he didn’t get involved.

Rob Perez This time of year, every trip to the mailbox results in a handful of holiday cards. I mostly like holiday cards. Like a… Login to continue reading Login…