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FAST-PACED PAPER WHITES (pushing upward)!























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WHEN I WAS A CHILD, I kept a diary for several months. It was red, with a tiny lock and a tiny key. Many Wednesdays, in my private musings, here's what I'd record: "Went to school, went to piano lessons, went to Betsy's house, went to bed." It tickled my semantic fancy that I could follow through with the "went to"s all the way to donning my pajamas and climbing into bed with my little sis.

Today, Dear Reader, were I still maintaining my penciled daily log, it would read: "Went to Costco, went to park, went to First Friday, went to bed."


And today, of course, I've got illustrations to illuminate the details!



At Costco there were Amish women buying in bulk, and the Little Actor, sitting atop the case of low-sodium chicken broth, was eating blueberries in bulk.


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At the park, I made four complete loops, striding briskly.
"This weather," I thought, "can't last! I'll do two loops for today, and two more for tomorrow."










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At First Friday, the galleries in the city were lit up, the streets were lit up, and I lit up when entering the ice cream shop.








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(Uh, Dear Viewer, still one more place to go, but
the photo illumination ends here. G'night!)
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I BELIEVE, DEAR READER, that chattering has slacked off since the new year began.....

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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.

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AND JUST LIKE THAT...the clock ticked past midnight, the ball dropped, and we all--all of us carousing here on the east coast of the United States of America--corralled our energy, hooked arms, breathed deeply, and took a flying leap into Two Thousand Twelve!! (Or, well...at least some of us watched the TV screen and said, "Hey, wow, it's Two Thousand Twelve!" in a slightly animated way.)

We, The Yard Man and I and all of us carousing (mildly, to be sure) in the den of our dear friends, had more to celebrate than just the fact of a brand new year. A good half of us who ate the chili and the shrimp, the hummus and the fruit salad, the fresh celery, chocolate shoo-fly pie and chocolate candy were able to chalk up another impressive win at dominoes! (Alas, no media card in my camera, which equals no photos, and the food table even more vibrant than last year!) And every last one of us got to laugh and rejoice in the gift of fabulous friendship! (Only a lucky two of us, it's true, got to say "Whoop-di-do!" and sing praises over the extent to which dear friends will sometimes stand [closely] by with a high level of helpfulness [about mid-head level, to be specific*).
It was another fine New Year's Eve. And I wish for you, Reader Dear: A HAPPY AND HEALTHY AND HARMONIOUS TWO THOUSAND AND TWELVE!
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*Oh, I would like to detail the details, but not participating in this aid to relief of suffering were my yard man and one or two others of this group of friends. They sat at the table where the dominoes game awaited, and they shook their heads and clucked their tongues and discussed the weirdness of the situation. Of course, they also laughed. They laughed at the weirdness and they laughed at the idea of remembering the weirdness every year from here on out, whenever this group of ten meets to celebrate a coming year and be thankful for the camaraderie and closeness of good friends (where even gracious gestures such as picking up an ear syringe and assisting in the ushering out of ear wax and the ushering in of a "new ear" (uh, so to speak) is not beyond the pale!**)
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**Ahhh, the relief of that "new ear" just hours before the new year, Reader Dear! (Ha, I waxed so eloquent over the wax removal that another friend stepped into line at the makeshift clinic! Can you believe it?! Weird!)
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