What are we supposed to do with a news cycle that ends in the dark? Russia ran another barrage at Ukraine’s energy grid over the weekend — the third wave this month, by Judy’s count, and Judy keeps count — and by Monday morning the Sunday shows had already pivoted to whether Mamdani’s transition team is, and I quote a producer I will not name, "too online."
I was at dinner in Cleveland Park. Eliza had the lamb out, the tall candles were lit — she only uses the tall ones when the lobbyist is coming — and the lobbyist, whom I’ll describe only as bipartisan because he is, on Tuesdays, arrived with a bottle of something Hungarian and a story about Davos that had been improved since November.
The television was on in the next room, muted, because Eliza will not have a television on at the table but will not turn one off either. The chyron read BARRAGE. The map behind it was the now-familiar shape of a country with most of its lights out. We did not talk about it.
We talked about the year. We talked about whose memoir was overrated. We talked about whether the Powerball was going to roll over again and what we would each do with $1.4 billion, which is an answer everyone at a Cleveland Park dinner has already rehearsed and lightly revised since Thanksgiving.
Judy, my sister-in-law, who works at the National Archives and is therefore the only person at the table who has read a primary source this calendar year, mentioned the substations. She mentioned them the way you mention a cousin’s diagnosis — quietly, between courses, with one hand on her water glass. The bipartisan lobbyist examined his cufflink with the focus of a man defusing a device.
"Margaret," Eliza said. "Please." She did not specify what I was being asked to please not do. I had not, in fact, done anything yet. But Eliza has known me thirty years, and she knows the look that precedes the doing.
The retrospectives, for what it’s worth, were already filed. I know because Eliza’s nephew writes one for a magazine I will not name, and he’d emailed her the link at 4:17 that afternoon. Twelve stories that defined the year. Ukraine was number nine. Number nine sat between a thinkpiece on group chats and a profile of a chef who only cooks with salt.
The lamb came out. The lamb was the only subject of unanimous consent at the table. The bipartisan lobbyist said it was the best lamb he’d had this year, which was generous of him, as the year still had two days left to disappoint him. Judy said the rosemary was from her balcony. The chyron in the next room had moved on to the markets, which were near record highs, which was apparently the part of the broadcast we were allowed to look at.
I am told — by the people who say "I am told" for a living — that the new year will bring a reset. I am told this every December. I have been told this for thirty Decembers. The reset is always scheduled for after the next round of retrospectives, which are always scheduled for after the next round of barrages, which are always, by some accident of the calendar, scheduled for after dinner.
We called it the lamb course. We asked Eliza for the recipe. She will send it on Wednesday, when the grid is still down and the list is still ranked and the candles, by then, will be put away for the season.