Isn't it wonderful that I have all of you to talk to? Some random thought will cross my mind, and I'll want to share it, but the cat doesn't want to hear about it, so I turn to you.

Years ago, and it could have been 20 years ago for all I know, I saw a documentary about a family in the New York City area. They lived in an apartment, probably not in Manhattan, it was one of the other boroughs. I can't even remember the point of the thing, what they were documenting, all I remember is there was lots of just watching how they spent their time.

There were two older teenage daughters, and one of them graduated from college in the course of things, and the other lived at home. The mother had a job, but we didn't see her at work, we just saw her at home in her bathrobe endlessly playing some hand-held video game and talking at the dad and other daughter. It's easy to judge and say she didn't have much to show for her time, but it's easy to forget how it was to have a job that you go to: it wears you out, getting there and back and working all day, dealing with people and deadlines, even if it's a desk job. When you get home you just want to put on something comfortable and not have to think very hard.

For me, I enjoyed seeing a grown family living in an apartment, because although I lived in apartments when I was single, those apartments weren't my permanent home in my mind, no more than a college dorm room would be, they were just a transit center on the way to the real life I wanted to have someday.

I've always had trouble envisioning the World Trade Center buildings as being large enough inside to hold all those people because I never saw them close up; they look so spindly in the pictures. And I have trouble envisioning an apartment in a high rise being a home because it seems like the weight of a family's belongings and dreams would be pulled by gravity to the earth, and you couldn't step out the back door to throw out the mop water like you can in a house with a yard.

So the daughter graduated from college and the rest of the family went to the ceremony. There was something wrong with the mother at that time, so they surprised her with a wheel chair in case there might be too much walking. The college graduate's degree was something liberal arts, and she planned to look for a job as a administrative assistant/secretary in New York City. I was a little surprised at that, because I thought she was overqualified, but I guess I don't know what goes on in NYC with secretarial job descriptions.

So that's my random thought. Hope you are all having a great day.

Here's my cousin and Mr. Troutbend setting up her tree.