Pat Taub
Being A Christmas Orphan
The surging Omicron virus had me scuttling my holiday plans to fly to Chicago to spend Christmas with my oldest son and his family. It was a hard decision, but it feels like a case of “Better safe than sorry.” Like many families, who are separated this year due to Covid, we will Zoom or FaceTime on Christmas day. Since I love to read, I will spend my Christmas with a book, and be comforted by the memories of past happy holidays.
Here’s a photo of David’s family from a dinner out on December 23rd.
David, daughter-in-law, Melissa and grands, Jane and Max
Joan Didion
Last week we lost the brilliant writer and activist, bell hooks. While still reeling from bell’s death, this week I gasped to learn that Joan Didion had died. Didion was a brilliant writer who could seemingly write about anything: she chronicled Haight Ashbury’s hippy culture in the 1970’s, went to El Salvador to write about their civil war, penned best-selling novels, and co-wrote award-winning screen plays with her late husband, John Dunne.
I was deeply moved by “The Year of Living Dangerously,” where Didion vividly and honestly describes her struggles to accept the deaths of her husband and daughter, whose deaths followed one another in the space of just two years.
For an absorbing personal take on Didion, watch the Netflix documentary, “The Center Will Not Hold.”
Joan Didion with her nephew, Griffin Dunne, who filmed the documentary about her.
I Love Lucy
I remember how in the 1950’s my family would stop what they were doing on Monday nights to watch “I Love Lucy.” Consequently I was eager to see the new Aaron Sorkin film. “Being the Ricardos,” which offers an inside look on the marriage of Lucille Ball and her husband, Ricky Ricardo during the filming of “I Love Lucy.” All the action takes place in one week, right after Lucy is accused of being a Communist. This was the 1950’s when the Red Scare was in full swing, pursuing celebrities with little supporting evidence. I was skeptical that Nicole Kidman could pull off a Lucy impression, but she does it brilliantly.
A Very Merry Christmas To All Who Celebrate Christmas!
My table-top tree surrounded by my mother’s glass Stuben animals and a hand-carved Ssnta, that also belonged to my mother.
