Pledge Drive

The pledge drive is why I'm blogging at the moment. I'm attempting to watch Pete Seeger's 90th birthday celebration on Channel 13, but naturally, every time anybody sings three songs, they leap in and start yammering away at you to send them money.

I have been doing absolutely nothing of any interest at all. We did go to Cornwall, Connecticut last weekend for a family party, which was great fun...food and music and endless talk. It was a very small gathering, only about 40 of us or so. Yeah, well, on that side of the family (Matthew's side), that IS a small gathering. The big ones run into the hundreds, because the family keeps track of all its relatives unto the 5th cousins (you think I'm kidding?), and if there's an ACTUAL family reunion, the numbers can easily get up to three hundred or more. I keep track of my brothers- and sisters-in-law and my nieces and nephews, and after that everybody is simply a cousin...if I tried to work out the degrees of cousinship I'd go mad.

I can't get arrested in terms of getting work in movies. One of my straight temp agencies called and wanted me to go do an interview for a long term three day a week gig, which I duly did. They want what I would have called, before it became politically incorrect, a girl Friday type - you know, just run around and do whatever needs doing - but I have a suspicion that I didn't get it. I think they could easily have gotten over the fact that I'm not quite a computer whiz (my Power Point, for instance, is practically non-existent), but my distinct feeling is that I'm too old and experienced for them. Two gals interviewed me, both of them young enough to be my daughters (by which I mean that one was in her forties and the other in her early to mid-thirties), and I had the feeling that they were both shying away from telling someone their mothers' age to go copy five hundred pages of something. As I can't think of anything I want less than a three day a week office job, however flexible it may be, this is perfectly fine with me. I had to do the interview to keep my unemployment (for some odd reason, they want you to look like you're hunting a job), so I was a good girl and dressed up like a grownup and went. Booorrring.

I must say, my family is an interesting group. It's really fairly rare that you attend a family party and sing along with an internationally famous (mainly in Europe) folk singing trio (cousins) and a well-known studio musician (brother-in-law) and discuss another set of cousins who at one point were in (I think) Peru tagging jaguars for wildlife conservation. Peru? Well, wherever the jaguars happened to be. This sort of thing happens all the time. I remember years ago - I don't even think Sarah was born yet - and Matthew and I were looking for his mother for something or other. In the middle of a crowded midtown office building elevator, Matthew turned to me and said, "Oh! I found Mummy. She's in Italy with the Dalai Lama." She was, too. She has also been found exploring underground rivers in Sweden in a wet suit - in her 70's. I always say that in terms of having a good role model for continuing to refuse to get old, she's the best ever.

At any rate, there is nothing happening in my life right now except that at just about exactly this time one week from today I will be boarding an airplane for glorious France! Yay!

Love, Wendy