Nope, I don’t like it any better, even after a break. In fact, I like it even LESS after a break than I did before a break. Sadly, I don’t think I’d like to be retired, either. I think DH would get on my nerves horribly, and I’m sure I’d get on his. So, I need to be at work. Not to mention that my income is now the main income in the house, and if I were to retire early, we’d be able to pay our bills. Just. No extras. Not really. I doubt that I’d find that very appealing. And, if the economy gets much worse, with groceries going through the roof, gas prices skyrocketing, and companies closing down left and right, even paying for basic neccessities could prove a strain. No, I need to continue working for multiple reasons, so I probably ought to try liking it a bit better. I wasn’t minding the thought of coming back to work after this week off with DS. I really wasn’t. We’ve been romping and running all over the place, staying up way past my bedtime, and by yesterday, the thoughts of sitting in my nice, quiet office all by myself all day was really quite appealing. Then, one of my colleagues - the fellow who is more my “partner in crime” than anyone else here - suggested that I join him and the head of our P.R. firm for lunch. Foolishly, I agreed. The conversation was geared to how to best “cultivate” a big giving prospect, and I found it utterly annoying and crass. How to make somebody feel like their money is going to serve a worthy purpose, and that *we* can be relied upon to see that it’s put to good use. Better use than anyone else might put it. Bleeecccchhhh.

This man is the “manager” of his family’s money. Literally billions of dollars, spread out over several generations of family members, very few of whom have done anything even minutely worthwhile with their lives, other than to turn their money over to this relative a graduate of the Harvard Business School - to be invested and and grown for them. The money originated with an ancestor who built a fortune in shoe factories on the north shore - back in the early 19th century, when lower class women and children could be locked into factories and forced to work 12 hour days for a few cents a day. As far as I’m concerned, this family ought to be giving far more away than they do; generation after generation has enjoyed lives of wealth and privilege - playing tennis and sailing at their country clubs, going on world tours, being waited on hand and foot, living in veritable palaces and summering in 50-room “cottages” in Newport -

 while the lower classes were worked to death in their factories, churning out the merchandise that allowed the wealthy to live their F. Scott Fitzgeraldian lives.

 Seems to me that they owe the lower classes far more than they’re giving them, and the very idea that their charity has to be “cultivated” leaves a sour taste in my mouth. (Which of course helps with the dieting, so there is that…)

Of course, this is not the place for me to rant about the class struggles in the United States, or to lambaste a system that STILL exploits the poor in order to serve the rich, but I can say, can’t I - that it makes me so mad that I CAN’T eat???? Which, is, of course, a good thing considering that I am trying to lose some weight here, so what am I complaining about, right? Maybe I should write a new diet book: “Losing Your Appetite as a Social Protest”.

Okay, enough of that. DS will fly back *home* to L.A. tomorrow afternoon at 5:25 out of Providence, R.I. I’ll leave Boston at 2:00, get back to Worcester by 3:00, take him to the airport with my DD, and then we’ll both sob together all the way home.

This weekend will be a relatively quiet one, which we probably all need at this point.

Then, the following Friday, DH & I will be heading up to the White Mountains, which I am really looking forward to. I love hanging about in shorts and T-shirts and philosophizing and debating and what-have-you. I am SO ready to just relax and let it all hang out.

I need to remember to bring a camera this time.

Have a great day, my jewels,

Z