Apocalyptic New Year
Auld Lang Syne is one of those songs that we all know (sort of) and sing at the passing of things like the old to new year, but few of us have a clue as to what it means and what the song is really about. The song is about 250 years old and was a rewrite of an old Scottish folk song, done by the long-time national poet laureate of Scotland, Robbie (Robert, Rabbie, Bobby) Burns. The Gaelic language poem is about “Times long past” and it is like so many of these old Celtic folk songs that sing of the harshness of life. In this song’s case, the story it tells is the classic “you never call, you never write…” of the long-suffering friends and family that prefer to whine about that they are not getting in life versus what they might, indeed, have. That makes it a funny choice for a New Years song since the changing of the calendar should be an occasion for joy and replenishment less than a mournful wail against the ravages of time and distance.
While our Christmas is now in the rear view mirror, given that today is Boxing Day, since Christmas fell on a Sunday, the national holiday convention is to give employees the day off on Monday. That makes today an extension of the Christmas weekend and from the look of people taking walks in the neighborhood in what would normally be considered mid-morning, I think its fair to say that this is still a part of the holiday weekend. Kim has declared that it is a day when I should not expect too much of her since she needs a day to recuperate from the Christmas hostessing that she has been steadfastly engaged in for over a week now. Unfortunately for her, she only gets a few days to relax because while Tom and Jenna are away for the week, we do have to prepare for our New Years Party in six days. The timing of the holidays don’t change, but the days of the week that Christmas and New Years fall are different, but the same. This year they both fall on a Sunday, which means that we have two Monday overhang days in a row. I suspect that January 2nd won’t be as big a relaxation day as December 26th, but it will be a quiet day nonetheless. In the meantime, we have something like 30+ or so people who may come by for our party on New Years Eve.
I think we planned appropriately this year in that we like to host a holiday gathering and we are quite intent on establishing good friendships in our neighborhood. After three years of COVID caution that coincided with our move out to this hilltop, we have made 2022 our year to engage with the neighborhood. I feel that we have been quite successful in that effort and have each played our respective roles. Kim has taken point, as they say in the military, by joining the women’s group and then the garden club. She dragged me into the garden club since I am the gardener in the family. From there, she did what she always does and volunteered for the shittiest of jobs by taking on the local seller’s fair duties of coordinating all the seller booths. You are probably wondering what my exact role is in all of this. I am like the tank division that goes in after the initial recon patrol gets back and explains where the roads are and where the battle should be engaged. Specifically, at one particular and early-on garden club event, I engaged with three specific groups. First there was Melisa, a comely silver-haired woman who said, when she learned that I rode motorcycles, that her husband had a motorcycle and that I should go over and take a ride with him. I did what tank commanders do, I put it into gear and barreled off to her house down the street in our neighborhood. I went right up to the door and asked the bearded and pony-tailed man named Mike who answered the door if he was the guy rabble-rousing the hood with his loud Harley. He was a bit taken aback, so I quickly explained the Melisa connection from the garden club and we sort of agreed to do a ride soon. I am sure I left him wondering exactly why a tank had come by to interrupt his peace and tranquility garnered by NOT going to the garden club gathering.
At that same gathering I met a lovely and exotic couple named Faraj and Yasuko. They too lived just a few yards away from us, but in the other direction from Melisa and Mike. What I liked most about Faraj and Yasuko in the moment, was that while others in the Garden lub wandered off to tour the gardens and take clippings, they sat back in the shade with me and shared stories. I like gardening, but I much prefer storytelling. They were both wearing Hidden Meadows Garden Club T-shirts and I asked where one could buy such an item. They told me to drop off my preferred shirts and that they had a source for printing the club name on them. I did that the next day and am now a proud owner of both a short-sleeve and long-sleeve variation of a club T-shirt.
This Hidden Meadows Garden Club approach to socialization was working well for us, so I offered up my pride and joy hillside for a Garden Club tour. It seems that many of the members were familiar with our property from street level since everyone seems to walk by and wonder about this vast garden of succulents that surround this hilltop home. People are generally way too polite to just do the tank commander thing and come up the driveway to ask if they can look around (like I might), so the interest level in coming over to see the house and grounds was quite high. Even Mike broke his self-imposed ban on Garden Club events and came over for a look-see since I had by then driven my tank over a number of times to make unannounced visits, a disarming gesture that can either work wonders to break the ice or can easily send your tank to the bottom of the pond with an icy stare as to how dare you invade our privacy thus. Luckily for me (and I believe eventually Mike will come around to this view), Mike and Melisa were so taken aback by my tank commander approach that they chose to embrace it, probably as a dinner time story with other friends and family so as to start with, “you won’t believe this guy in our neighborhood who just drops by unannounced….” Next thing you know, Mike, Melisa, Kim and I had been invited over to Faraj and Yasuko’s for a pizza making party. Then that led to Mike, Melisa, Kim and I deciding that we would all go to Egypt and Jordan in early 2023. Who knew a Garden Club and a tank were all it took to make friends?
At that garden tour event, I met a whole array of other Hidden Meadows neighbors, some from our immediate hilltop enclave and some from Hidden Meadows proper. One such couple is Sam and Chris, who live near the Market and thus, near where the seller’s fair is held. It took all of two minutes for Sam and I to realize that we had a shared heritage of sorts in that we were both born while our parents were living in Latin America. I was in Venezuela and Sam was in nearby Colombia. I was there with the Rockefeller Foundation and he was there as a missionary. Close enough, as they say, for NGO work. Where my career took me all over the world via the needs of the global banking business, Sam’s work took him all over the world via the needs of the defense communications business. Somewhere along the line we each developed a deep and abiding belief in the importance of American values in the spread of liberal democracy around the globe. We have since added Sam and Chris to our little coterie of Hidden Meadow friends.
We now feel well-braced for what the new year holds (God knows in today’s rapidly changing news cycle). To lock it in with our newfound friends and our other close-by neighbors, we are globalizing our New Years Eve Party by serving foods from all around the world with a decided Escondido touch. Swedish meatballs from CostCo (thank you, Mike), Asian Gyoza from Chin’s Gourmet, Charcuterie from a lovely shop downtown, Caribbean pork sliders, Hummus and Pita and a Taco Bar for good immigrant intentions. Our global community including our Irish, Scottish and Nepalese neighbors should add to the Apocolyptic New Year mix.