I'm having a party today, for the family. I am the kin keeper. Every family should have one but there should be a retirement age for the job as there is for other, paying ones. After yesterday's downer re mail I am not in the mood. Why am I doing this? Someone asked me a few weeks ago (I told you) why I write a blog. Hey, why have a party? I'm already tired and I haven't begun my work. Well, yes, I have, I dragged all the food home. Now I have to prepare it and serve it and hope they eat it so I won't have too many leftovers. It's not like it was. My husband and I used to have regular pool parties for 75 or more people, one cast and crew party at a time, a barbecue for all, at our own expense, no subsidy from the theatre. Why? I think we were drunk with our own good will and grand-standing for each other. That had to be the reason. No one ever brought anything to help. I suppose they thought it was the theatre's largesse. And after Bill died, no one remembered my name. See? I've never dwelled on that. Is it tiredness or is it age? Anyway, I am not driven by anything now, just an obligation I must fulfill since no one else is doing it. I may have to erase this blog soon, but not today. Let me rant. No one is listening.

Now they've done it. You all must know by now that Canada Post has announced an increase in the price of a domestic stamp, up to one dollar for one stamp, effective in March, with no allowances for stamp hoarders. If you want to buy a packet of ten, the price per stamp will be only 85 cents. The question is, do you have ten friends you want to mail a letter to? I dealt with this eventuality earlier this fall when I considered ten things experts are predicting will disappear in our lifetime or sooner. Mail was one of them. It was already dying. Only now at the Christmas season are we receiving any personal greetings, perhaps even letters, from our once-a-year friends. Their reasons are much the same as ours: to reassure them and us that we are well and living somewhere within a stamp's reach. As it is now, the pitches and pleas for donations far out-number the glad tidings of the season. As for e-mail, our go-to-courier, the pitches out-number the pleas: on-line flyers and bargains and sales and coupons all instantly available at the pressure of a finger. Thank heaven I keep forgetting my passwords! What's going to happen to birthday cards (also graduation, wedding, new home, retirement, and first divorce)? I really dislike those online schmaltzy greetings (animated and accompanied by computerized music) that we are suffering now, not too many yet but wait for it. I'm old enough that I can afford to stop sending cards, because I can't afford to send them. So I'll stop. If I die before next Christmas, you're sure to find out somehow. People still talk. Let me take this unpaid, unsolicited opportunity to wish you a happy holiday season and a merry whatever, as long as it doesn't cost too much.