Oh, Mother: Trick or Treat

I reconnected online this week with an old, old friend and we were swapping our fantasies for escape from reality.

His is to get on a motorcycle, turn left and keep on riding. Mine is to join the Peace Corps and live in a country off the grid where day-to-day survival is at its most basic.

It’s a factor of our respective ages, I guess. But of course, we’re also seeing this financial debacle unfold while trying very hard not to watch too closely.

His kids are out of college. He owns 3 businesses, but most of his investments are in Colorado real estate and he thinks that market is going to hold better than mine on the East Coast. My investments are all over the place. Everytime I check a statement, despite my better judgment not to look, I get a little bit nauseous.

Never have I felt the need to be closer to those I care about than I do now. This is the silver lining of it all.

Jesse Kornbluth, whose Head Butler I’ve followed for years now, put it quite well: We need each other and we need beauty right now, in all its manifestations.

I shared this week’s dispatch with everyone I know and care about - including my sister who got word she'll be laid off at the end of December from the company she’s worked at for 16 years.

Halloween is proving to be a wonderful distraction from what’s happening, in both the real and virtual worlds.

My daughter and I got a jumpstart on our decorating. We’ve already blanketed the house in spider-web gauze and plan to pick pumpkins and apples and navigate a corn maze this weekend. She wants to be a nerd for Halloween, so we’re gathering all the bits and pieces for her costume.

We’re conspiring with our friends for a no-holds-barred blowout with full intention to take total advantage of Halloween falling on a Friday night. It’s the custom for one block in town to throw an all-night block party, where kids roam door-to-door and parents go stoop-to-stoop to stop and talk and eat and drink. This year, we really need it.

In MinyanLand, meanwhile, we’ve done up the bank in orange and black and are running a scavenger hunt all through October. I’m helping to host our weekly Friday gatherings at 4:00 and 7:00 p.m. EST.

Adults are welcome to join us. Come on. It’s free. You know you want to.

How is your family coping with the economic stresses? Weigh in on The Exchange.