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FIRST OLIO*.

I didn't really make any resolutions, Reader Dear. It seems so absolutely pointless**. I toyed with the idea of making a list: 1. Eat circumspectly. 1.a. No mindless eating of chocolate. 1.b. No eating to relieve boredom. 1.c. No eating (like a runaway freight train) of sweets. But as I toyed with this notion, I was also fiddling with a little cellophane bag full of chocolate-covered Ritz crackers layered with peanut butter that a generous soul had given me for Christmas. (I'd love to show you one of these fancy little concoctions [ah, yes I'd love to (alas)]!)

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When the time is right for phasing out Christmas, somehow I just sense it. Yesterday, when the wind was roaring and shrieking and doing all kinds of shenanigans outside, and the bitter cold was seeping through every pore of this old house, I happened to look at the Christmas tree and it was weeping! And I noticed it was looking a bit old for the pretty little jewels that it's worn since its youth, so I removed them.

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Last night I stayed up late, helping to count the votes in Iowa. Fascinating to be part of that down-home procedure! There were about eight ballots where the voter had tried to be funny (or perhaps creative): Beetle Bailey, Donald Duck (or was it Donald Trump?), Uncle Sam...goofy suggestions like that. I just pitched those on the pile for Mitt Romney**.



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This morning was another cold one, but the sun shone majestically on my Paper Whites, the roots of these bulbs spreading rapidly down over the Grand Canyon rocks, the pebbles of San Juan Capistrano.









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Last night it was late in the evening and sixteen degrees when a tenant called me. "We've been using space heaters to keep warm up 'til now. But we just tried turning on the furnace and it won't start. It looks like the pilot light is not lit. What shall we do?" Well, Dear Reader, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to find myself some appropriately white paper and draw seventy-five snowflakes upon it. Every day one snowflake will melt away (I haven't decided exactly how this will transpire, but I'm dreaming already of the seventy-fifth one meeting its demise!**)
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*Of Two Thousand Twelve.
**Humble apologies, Dear Reader, if you're a huge fan of resolutions.
Or Rick Santorum.
Or the one season where the word "bitter" is tossed around like a cold snowball.