Guess I ought to type up a short note summarizing the Events of 2005 for those people who send me cards once a year. Most of these annual cards have had a question about Katrina. If I don't reply, they may assume that I blew away with the wind. But, they do take the time once a year to send a greeting, so the least I can do is send them an update.

Who are these people? There is my uncle's third wife, who remarried after his death. He and #3 had a child about the same age as OD. Wife 3 and her new hubby never fail to wish me end of the year greetings.

There is a high school friend who was senior class president. He sort of knows what is going on, due to the efforts of the members of my graduating class who keep organizing reunions and mini-reunions. (But none of these people e-mailed me after Katrina.)

Next is a woman who was a good friend for a bunch of years, when we lived in the same towns. (Our husbands were both missile people and worked for the same company.) Once in a blue moon we write each other.

Then there is the college friend (and, as I recall, sorority sister) who insists on addressing mail to me as the legal possession of a (dead) male. (The format of Mrs. John Doe signifies what used to be the legal death of a woman. When a woman married she lost her personhood and her identity became subsumed under that of her husband. She had no legal rights to any part of the family estate--if they divorced she could be sent off without even the clothes on her back. The children were the possession of the father. As a widow, she came under the "protection" of the eldest son. Most of the women who were accused of witchcraft were those who were not under the "protection" of a male. Anything they inherited went under the control of the husband. This didn't beging to change until the late 1840s, with the Married Women's Property Act in New York. Women's history tidbit of the day.)

So, I guess I need to dash off a brief summary of the past year so people know I'm still alive. It's sort of scary to realize that I have reached an age where that question might arise. (And it's a good thing I don't have many of those to write--I'm running low on stamps.)