An Infuriating Year

This has been one infuriating year.

Ten years past the fall of the Twin Towers, three years post-Lehman and the apocalypse of the financial system as we knew it, we stand hard-pressed to imagine anyone not touched in the last twelve months by some outlandish, ridiculous, mind-blowing, devastating, distressing, demoralizing, upending, brain-bending, off-putting, mouth-dropping, peculiar, uncharacteristic, wild, dramatic, off kilter shit. 

Certainly, Messrs. Gaddafi and Bin Laden would agree. Not a good year.

How about Arnold and Maria and his now-teenage Latino love-child? Chao bello!

How was that bed in a cage, Mr. Mubarak? I guess it might be better to sleep in your jammies through your trial than actually face it.  Gabrielle Giffords shot in the head.

SONY and so many in Japan—not a good time.

Arab spring, Muslim rage. Tahrir Square in Egypt. Syntagma Square in Athens.  

Wildfires in the South and E. Coli in our sprouts.

And even with her husband’s pants down, Madame Strauss-Kahn still can’t understand why the Americans are so provincial.

Elizabeth Taylor, Betty Ford, Steve Jobs, Andy Rooney, Amy Winehouse, Christopher Hitchens, my Mom, Nick’s Dad.  All renegades. All persuasively contrarian people. All gone this year.  Must be some party there with the Freshman Class of ’11.

Yup, 2011.

Started for us with a great adventure: the prospect of a move to Prague…again.  Michael was accepted at the International School. Toyota gladly took back our leased car. We hired movers. We found a lovely home in the heart of the old city. We gave up our home in South Pasadena. Then, just two weeks shy of packing, our move was abruptly cancelled. Seemed they needed Nick in the US more than in Europe.  “Would it be a hardship for you to stay?” they asked him.  No house, no car, no school…but “no hardship” we said. “SCCREEEEEEEECH” went our proverbial wheels.

With only weeks to find a house before the start of school, we landed in yet another area in Los Angeles—this time in Sherman Oaks. It’s our third California neighborhood in the five years we’ve been here. Beautiful home; least favorite community.

What a year.

And yet…the need to remember that the sun will set, the moon will rise and there will be a new tomorrow has never seemed more important. Oooohhhhmmmmmmm.

We need to think about those memorable moments that made us smile.  Two Royal weddings inspired us this year with ceremonial pomp and circumstance almost as much as the ubiquitous Kardashians repulsed us with their unnecessary opulence.

My husband celebrated his one-year anniversary with Kit Digital, which  (since so many of you ask) defines itself as a global company providing end-to-end software and service solutions to manage video assets for its clients. “What?” you ask.  Just suffice it to say it’s a “next generation” company using old generation software, media, sales and computer geeks to sell software programs and services to companies that want to get their videos on all those many, many different platforms people use today.

Quite a year.

I finished a screenplay that no one’s bought. Counted over 1000 rejections from companies that never even called back yet claim to need people with exactly my skill-set and experience.  And took the GRE test for entry into graduate school after studying from “Math for Morons” and the “Idiot’s Guide to Acing Exams” to little avail.  Do I feel depleted? Yes. Defeated, no way.

Celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the launch of HBO in Hungary this year, along with nearly one hundred others, was a personal highlight. 

Now it's onward to a new beginning: this year I plan on entering a Master’s Program on the path to getting my PhD in Education. I’ve been spending more and more time in the classroom with Michael, guest lecturing at colleges in Multicultural Marketing and participating in various parent advocacy and activist groups.  I have not gotten so much out of anything in years as I do the gratification of teaching.

So what else is in store? Nick and I will celebrate 10 blissful (and at times not entirely blissful!) years on January 1. My son turns nine and we’re sure will continue getting the hang of piano and tennis. Logic and experience point to a move on the horizon. What can we say? We are, after all, Urban Nomads. Peripatetic entrepreneurs seeking our next game-changing opportunity, our next challenge.

With that in mind, we wish you a successful 2012 in which your dreams become your realities.  Don’t forget to smile and “Stay foolish!” (Thanks Steve Jobs …)