Before starting the new year fresh, it’s common practice to put forth the best and worst list for the year that was.  My 2007 was such a masterful, chaotic mish-mash of both good and misfortune that I’m not quite sure where to begin.  But because I like a challenge, here’s my best shot.

BEST

Movie: Sweeny Todd, A Life Apart: Hasidism in America

Book: Mao, The Untold Story – Jung Chang and John Halliday

Music: Lilly Allen, Celine Dion Live at Caesars and the Music and Lyrics Soundtrack (Hugh Grant singing like George Michael, need I say more?) 

Old friends familiar with my once oh so American’s Next Top Model lithe physique will be happy to know that last year was one of whittling… down. I jazzercised and ran my little but off until I was once again within a 10 pound shot of what I said I really weighed on my driver’s license.  I did this through strict math genius adherence to Weight Watchers points and keeping my New Year’s resolution of running at least one road race a month. I was thrilled by October to be keeping up with the cute pony-tailed blond cross country stars 20 years my junior.  I also switched jobs in 2007 with an extended summer recess in between during which I delighted in doing nothing but watching the Style Network, vintage clothes shopping and taking care of my man with whom I’m still ever so besotten.  The switch in occupation took years off of my haggard face and drained psyche and I’m happy to report my cheeks are once again rosy and business is booming!   

Domo Arigato Japan!  I got the once in a lifetime opportunity to tour for three weeks in Japan to places both modern and ancient.  From Mijajima to Mitsokoshi, the land and people proved magical… that is save a rainy day mountain hike complete with the wrong shoes and attack monkeys.  A karmic trip to Hiroshima, the coordinates where my grandfather had accompanied the bomb sixty years earlier, was an incredible, gut-wrenching and all-together essential experience.  Check out our pics of Nikko and Nippon at http://www.nosilver.org. Like Godzilla, Tokyo is my favorite place on the planet, although the bite I took out of it was a bit smaller and less filled with concrete. 

2007 was also the year I got some religious mojo back. Faith is a funny thing and has waned in years past as life disappointments and emotional debris piled up. I made a concerted effort to open my heart a bit last year and let some positive kernels of knowledge and hope flood in.  I have to credit technology and America’s super-pastor Joel Osteen in part for this, as Joel’s weekly Podcasts really touched my heart and laid the groundwork to rethink religion.  Can he be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize?  Experiencing the karmic connection and every day miracles with my Charlie Brown didn’t hurt either.  What I learned was that God is always watching over you and he’ll inject as many miracles into your life as you can handle. I can’t wait to see what 2008 holds. 

And speaking of miracles, I was blessed this year by a baby… no silly, not my own of course but my cousin’s.  It was incredible to experience pregnancy and the gift of life with someone to whom you are so close. As far as I’m concerned, baby boy Jonah should be the star of all Pampers and baby food commercials because he is the cutest little thing in the universe. His mom and dad are pretty amazing as well. 

WORST

Movie: The War, Ken Burns (I love Burns and thought his Civil War documentary was rapturous but the War was too overhyped, uneven and PC)

Book: The Yiddish Men’s Policemen’sUnion by Michael Chabon (I thought I would read anything Chabon wrote until this snoozer with forced narrative)

Music: Blackout, Britney Spears (Yes, Gimme More is on my playlist but the other tracks are wasted with her vocals barely a hushed, tired whisper) 

Those of you who read TLRG know it’s not my nature to accentuate the negative but the ground of one 2008 tragedy must be covered: the train wreck otherwise known as my ravaged knee. High on the race-against-the-clock victory  I had just experienced at the Kansas City Waddel and Reed 5K, I traveled to Philadelphia in October and summarily hurt myself in a train station mishap during which my knee became much too intimate with the marble floor. Many weeks of pain and a diagnosis of a torn meniscus later, I faced the knife no not a mini-face lift but for my knee.  I have been rehabbing on crutches and going without many things (walks, nookie, showers, you name it) for almost a month. It is challenging but I can’t wait to run (or heck walk or scamper) again soon. All the aches and inconvenience does however have an upside, time to nest and make a home with my honey in Kansas City.  This Christmas, unlike the normal traveling mayhem, I have memories of cozying down on the couch with my kitty and man watching marathons of Food Network favorites.  If I never had tragedy befall me, how would I know how to build a replica of the New York skyline with only breakfast cereal and a blow torch? I’m quite sure I’ll be able to apply that knowledge… sometime. 

As I close, I look ahead to 2008 with eager thoughts of once again running like the wind and traveling to Europe’s most beautiful hideaways and to Jerusalem’s Old City. I’ll have more tales to tell than Anthony Bourdain. I promise to blog it all.  My wishes for a fabu new year for all!

Love,TLRG

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Why does every autumn present the opportunity for close combat interaction with nature’s creepiest creatures? 2006 was the year of Bart the Missouri brown bat, alive and alert in my bedroom and now this arachnoid caper. I’ve lived alone in the Beltway jungle for what seems like a lifetime, a.k.a the number of years Kelsey Grammer has been a TV sitcom actor.  And most times I get along swimmingly, thanks very much. But yesterday morning my need for a constant companion was never more crystal clear.  All it took was one very long-legged, creepy-looking spidey for me to want a hulking male supermodel in my room stat replete with a very big flyswatter. (Who needs Harry the flabby exterminator when you can have Calvin Klein’s finest six-pack specimen?)

If you’re interested in the play-by-play, my efforts to kill this menacing, full-bodied creature with the lethal crush of a paper towel ball were in vain as it slunk off into the dank dark recesses under my antique wardrobe.  All day I heard the tick-tock of my office clock and thought, is it poisnous?  Like Ahmadinejad, will it bite me unprovoked?  Thank God for the Internet. Not only can you peruse stupid human tricks on YouTube but also all varieties of house spiders, venomous and non.  Does it matter that they don’t have teeth? Are eight legs really more potent than six? And what exactly is the “violin” type marking of a toxic brown recluse? While I couldn’t determine precisely what spider I was dealing with, I surmised that it was lethal but not aggressive, no consolation to a woman who sleeps in her boxer shorts at night, limbs exposed. After the frighty-spidey incident, about all I know for sure is this: until further notice and until Gabrielle Aubry comes by, I’m putting on my battle armor of sweat pants, long-sleeved tees and socks every night, Indian summer be damned. Better safe and sweaty than sorry. 

Caught in Charlotte’s Web,

TLRG 

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