Vegas Convergence

Yesterday was a long day. It started when the alarm went off at 4 am and didn't end until Ma'ikwe and I crawled back into the same bed at 1:30 am (technically today).

In between we dropped off a friend at the Quincy train station (to catch the 6:12 am to Chicago), delivered a quart of honey to the doorstep of a sleeping customer in Hannibal, and continued on down to De Soto (less than an hour south of St Louis) to spend the day with my son and his family (Ceilee, Tosca, and their daughter Taviyn), who were visiting Tosca's family over the Christmas weekend.

I'd last seen them in October and figured this would probably be as close as I'd get to them until April at the earliest. So it was worth 9+ hours in the car to visit for 11+ hours.

My next visit will almost certainly be in Las Vegas, which is where Ceilee has been living the past four years, and where Jo, my daughter, will be living in a few days. Even as I type this Jo is caravaning to Vegas with her partner (Peter) and her mother (my ex-partner, Elke). Jo & Peter just closed out two years in Toledo yesterday, and life in Vegas glitz belt should offer considerable contrast with life in the Midwestern rust belt.

It's a bit weird that both my kids will start 2011 living in Vegas, which I don't consider to be an affirmation or natural extension of the agrarian homesteading values in which they were raised. Yet there's also a logic to it. Tosca was originally drawn to be in town for sommelier training; Ceilee likes it for the mild climate, the free-wheeling business environment, and proximity to natural recreational areas. Peter's career is in television (electronic promotions), and Jo has a budding career in food service. Vegas makes sense for all of those reasons.

Even though it's 1600 miles west, Vegas is a relatively inexpensive place to get to, and whenever I have work on the West Coast I'll get a chance to stop by (either coming or going) and see both of my kids in one go. If I'm successful in launching a two-year facilitation training program in northern California this year, that will translate into eight chances to see my kids over a 24-month period. Pretty sweet.

This coming Friday evening I'll be sedately ringing in the New Year over at Dancing Rabbit, (where there's a 50-50 chance I'll still be up at midnight). My kids, meanwhile, will be smack in the middle of Sin City where every kind of excess known to humanity is close at hand. While the juxtaposition is startling, I reckon we'll all be having a good time, with each doing what he or she wants to be doing. At the end of the day (or year), I reckon that's as good as it gets