2010 in Numbers

I finished three books on our trip to and from Santa Barbara. I read one hardback (Michael Connelly's "The Reversal"), read one on my Kindle app (Jon Katz' "Rose in a Storm") and finished listening to an audio book (Lee Childs' "Running Blind"). I started reading Nora Ephron's "I Remember Nothing" (which I'm loving) but I won't finish it before tomorrow night, so I can now state that I read 36 books this year, not as many as I would like to have read, but five more than I read last year, though I read more pages last year (15,390 vs. 14,131), presumably due to the fact that last year I finished two Diana Gabaldon books, and four other books that were over 500 pages.

I started keeping a database of books I'd read in 2004, because I realized I wasn't reading as much as I used to and this gave me an incentive...nothing like being in competition with yourself. Each year I've read more than the previous year, which is a good thing. There was a huge jump in numbers when I got the Kindle app because it became so much easier to read books because of both the larger typeface and the portability (easy to read in long lines at the post office or supermarket or during intermission of a show, for example).

My friend Char, who is not a television addict, probably reads 36 books a month, but I am doing well for me anyway. I don't think I had a favorite book out of the 36, though murder and crime seemed to dominate on the list.

When we were in Santa Barbara, the whole family went, with Brianna, to see Tangled, which was a fun movie. It got me to wondering how many movies we'd seen this year. We generally average about five or six, but this year we only saw three, one of which the private screening of our friend Matt Callahan's Camp Beaverbrook, about the summer camp that he visited each year as a child. The third movie was Toy Story 3, which I loved.

In contrast, however, we saw about sixty stage shows (>50 of which I reviewed), so we're not exactly stay-at-homes! The best ones were the ones I didn't have to review!

We had 17 foster dogs this year. Three of them were newborns and cold when I picked them up at the shelter, and, sadly, did not live. The others all thrived and moved on to forever homes (except Polly who, on January 1, will have been here one year and, of course, the Andrews puppies who just moved to a new foster home).

We had seven official cousins' days. The aim is to do it once a month, but travel plans and Kathy's health intervened. Peach and I did one "non-Cousins Day Cousins Day" when Kathy got sick at the last minute, and there was one Pinata Group cousins day.

We had the one BIG trip to Russia and two plane trips together, one to So. California to attend tapings of Says You again, and one to Washington, DC for cousin Kayleen's wedding.

There was a time when I wrote lots and lots of letters and was the post office's biggest customer. Now I write lots and lots of e-mails and couldn't even BEGIN to calculate how many I've written, but other than the letters I write to the Compassion kids (121 letters to the six combined), I wrote only FOUR regular letters this year. One was to one of my high school teachers, one was to my mother's doctor, one was to my old boss from years and years ago, and one was a note to the woman who took the Andrews puppies yesterday...that one was hand-delivered.

But I joined Postcrossing on line and have mailed 48 postcards to strangers from 23 different countries around the world.

It's no secret that I'm not a huge sports buff, but we have generally managed to make it to 2-3 Giants games in previous years. This year because of travel we didn't attend a single one, though I watched every single World Series game on TV. Does that count?

I didn't buy a single pair of shoes this year, which is not surprising because I think it's been six years since I bought shoes. I also bought t-shirts on line, but only bought clothes in a store once, a couple of tops for our Russia trip. Obviously buying clothes is not my "thing."

I lost two good friends this year, Merrell Frankel and Diane Clark. Merrell's death may have had a big impact on the world, but we were never really in contact much, but I still miss Diane every day.

This was also the first year since we met in 1999 that I have not seen Steve at all. The last time I saw him was a year ago, at the opening of Jimmy's show in New York. They have since moved to New York and have a better class of friends now.

And, as this year comes to an end, I report that I have written 364 journal entries--I had to skip one day when we were traveling home from Russia. I also posted 91 videos.

We're spending New Year's eve with theatre friends, as we have the last several years. I wish a wonderful 2011 to everyone!