Holiday HoHoHo's from Boston!
1991 is drawing to a close, and, a decade after graduating from high school, I have to say that I no longer look like my senior picture. Oh, the resemblance is still there I suppose, but I've put on about 30 pounds in the last 12 months in spite of the fact that I'm losing weight in my hair daily. Unlike some of the rest of you, my hair line is where it always was, but the troops behind it are deserting at a rate worthy of the Iraqi army.
Aside from my impending status as one of the hirsutely challenged, 1991 has been a banner year in Bartlettdom. As you are all aware (because I'm using the exact same mailing list), in July of this year Beth and I took the plunge and bought a house out here in scenic Marlborough. If you have a map, you can trace my domiciles in a somewhat straight line from Somerville to Waltham to Marlborough (or Marlboro, if you prefer) in a direction decidedly away from Boston. This is not due to any growing distaste for the big city or the ocean or seafood, but rather a growing respect for economics (which is to say, don't spend more than you make).
If you don't have a map, Marlborough is about 40 minutes from anything. Like Waltham, there are no malls, but unlike Waltham there is a movie theatre here. And the house is very nice, thank you. It looks just about exactly the same as it did the day we moved in, except that we have finished unpacking. The only reason that we finished unpacking was that Mom was coming to visit and the pressure was on. While Beth had delusions of removing every last inch of wallpaper within the first week, she has now learned to live with someone else's taste (which in this case is no taste at all) until it is fiscally prudent to change it. By this time next year, something will look different, but no one can say for sure what at this point.
The other addition to our lives was our cat, Aurora. Aurora is an Abyssinian that endears herself to cat-haters by climbing all over you, and annoys everyone else by climbing all over you all the time. There are those who say that once you have pets you might as well have kids (sadly, I think I was one of them), but the jury is still out on that one. An alternate school of thought practiced by Beth's brother and his wife is that once you have one pet, you might as well have eight. The jury has long since ended its deliberations on that one, however.
In the midst of buying a house and a cat, we also went nuts this summer and took a trip to Scotland. The househunting thing was getting frustrating and the airlines were offering cheap airfares, so we took the plunge and made reservations, and then about a week later had our offer on the house accepted. Everyone was quite goodnatured about it, including the real estate agent, who said go ahead and have fun because it's the last trip you'll be taking for quite some time. So on the presumption that we would never go back, we rented a car at Gatwick and drove 1700 miles all the way up Inverness and back, by way of London, Cambridge, York, Lincoln, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Lake Windermere, Blackpool, Warwick and Windsor. Scotland turns out to be one of the more scenic areas of the northern hemisphere, in spite of the enormous deserts depicted on any postcard you might have received.
Now it appears that going back may not be such a remote possibility after all. To begin my fourth year in the Masterworks Chorale this summer I was appointed to the Board of Directors. Don't get too excited, my official title is Chairman of Physical Arrangements, a largely ceremonial position, since most of the arrangements are done for us these days. However I do get to go to board meetings and vote and hear what everyone makes and discuss vital chorale-type issues, whatever they may be. I'm also working on putting together a Chorale database computer system to replace the somewhat antiquated Chorale database index cards in a paper bag system they've been using. Musical organizations are a dime a dozen around here, but they are in danger of becoming a quarter a dozen as cuts in funding both private and public force them to scramble for other ways to raise revenue or cut expenses. We've even stooped to selling a fruit, a slightly embarrassing but surprisingly lucrative enterprise. But we're also organizing an exchange with a chorus based in Edinburgh which will hopefully lead to a return visit in 1993.
On the job front, I'm still at BKB and Beth is still at Purity Supermarkets, although they transferred her a few months ago to a bigger, cleaner store and put her in charge of a bunch of rich brats with no future. While we're out Aurora minds the fort and gnaws on the carpeting and chases imaginary rodents to keep in shape for the spring, when she'll probably get to chase a few real ones.
So enough about us, what's going on with you people? Don't be surprised if the phone rings with a Boston accent somtime before the end of the month. Have some Who-Pudding and Who-Hash for me, and Merry Christmas!