Today was one of those days when the banks are closed and you don't get mail and are annoyed and confused about it until you remember: It's Martin Luther King Jr. Day!
First thing I did that took me out of the house this morning was go to my gym to work out with a personal trainer. There were several other people there and nobody said anything to me, or each other, about the holiday. There were no refreshments or decorations of any kind. Everything was business as usual.
Later my husband and I met up with some friends for lunch at a local restaurant. Two of the people, both of whom claim to be psychologists, were from out of town and the other one owns a successful local business. None of them said one word, even the psychologists who said (repeatedly) that they are "very spiritual" and "progressive libertarians," about the holiday or Dr. King, and we all spent almost two hours together.
Next, we came home and there were no messages about the holiday on our answering machine. (Yes, we still have a landline.) A long phone call with a good friend who is a nurse in Charlottesville also lacked any mention of the holiday, even though she lived through all that hullabaloo in the last couple of years concerning the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue from a downtown square, so you'd think she would be more sensitive.
Where is Maya Angelou when we need her? Oh right, she died in 2014. Apparently she took the holiday with her.
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