12- 2017

Dear - ??? (This communication was apparently not originally addressed to anyone in particular.  Not even the fam? So let's consider it a letter to the universe. Therefore,) Dear Universe:

What’s with chocolate covered Biscotti. I bought some for Christmas, but nobody wanted any. So they’re a little dense and dry; so you might break a tooth. It has a nice subtle flavor and you can dunk it in hot cocoa about 53 times without it falling apart. Maybe the State of California should look into certifying it as an indestructible building material. Maybe people could keep one in their bag as an emergency weapon – or as traction in snowy country. Or if you lost your nail file, or needed a hammer, you’d be set. If any of you want any, just send me $129.95 for postage (hey it's heavy) and I’ll send you some. Individually wrapped and ready to go.

Last night was 12-31-17. We stretched feet to the fire with warm live cat-quilts on our laps, brainstorming blog posts. For once we didn’t go to bed with the chickens, but retired to our computers pecking away like one (two). I watched people in Times Square with frosted eyebrows wearing 80 pounds of clothing and trying to look jolly in the single digits. Out here on the best coast it was a balmy 44 (night)/ 64 (day). Then we put on jackets and went out to the front porch at 12:59, listening for pops and asthmatic fog horns. We kissed and hugged and I shouted “Wahooooo!” into the darkness. So that was New Years Eve. We didn’t formally open the front door, bow, and make a welcoming speech to 2018 - or weep and hold a funeral for 2017; but went back into the kitchen - where Dad looked around and intoned, “What do we have to eat?” Pause. I ventured, “How bout some – crackers?”… “(leftover) Leftovers?” He: “No, I think I’ll just go to bed. It’s not good to eat this late anyway.” I suspect that qualifies as a “boring old people” moment. But you’re only as old as you feel. (I’m not saying any more.)

We’d been invited to Lisa's amazing party next door at the White Mansion, and I RSVP’d we might show, depending on whether company had left. Guess we still felt overwhelmed by the company even after they'd gone (read about it in Kathy's SummaShare: "Grandkids have Left Siiiggghhh"). We could’ve dived to Dominic the DJ, cut grooves in her dance floor; hob-knobbed with happy neighbors (with happiness refills at the bar), and partaken of her 20? foot buffet. We could’ve appeared at the massive front door and hollered out to the 100 plus peeps, “We’re here! You can start now!” But then you wouldn’t be reading this, or our great-great grandchildren either. (Hi there, kids. BTW I hope the gene pool has been sufficiently successively enriched that some of you can rock the mic with a killer singing voice- unless there’s vocal cord implants under PelosiCare - or whatever.) (Pardon that.)

Jonnie spiffed up in jacket and tie for a 12-31 Young Adult fireside, with Breakfast at 11:00PM. (Their rockin dance was last night.) As he walked out the door, we yelled, “See ya next year!” (Need to think up a new corny thing we can only say on New Year’s, but none come to mind.)

This morning we discovered we have no idea where the 9-grain cereal is, and we own a bunch. They say if you can’t find something, it’s the same as not having it. (So by that logic, we don’t have anything. But all that nothing we have is taking up a lot of room.) I’d made my own, grinding up about 20 different grains, seeds, beans – but DH says it’s horrible. (maybe the 15 yr old sunflower seeds were rancid? Maybe pinto beans don’t belong in breakfast cereal?) But I will overcome (better than giving up and binge-watching Ben Shapiro run-in reruns while eating refined carbs.)

We met with some friends at a Japanese restaurant where you sit around a grill while the chef juggles eggs, fires 5-foot flames, and makes fried rice and meat with his dancing knives. The table is shaped like an L, so whoever sits at the ends gets no one to talk to – which was me. Mark was engrossed with the guy on his right (fresh intellectual meat.) So I spent New Year’s Eve minutely examining my food – as well as watching other people mouth inaudible but apparently side-splitting jokes across the loud table. After all that, managed to forget my box of leftover scallops and shrimp when we left. So, I rang out the old as an inadvertent wallflower (tableflower) with no riveting/or even companionable conversation, no leftovers for breakfast the next morning, and no (major) regrets. Except for the ones having to do with slacking off lately on my magnum opuses (or opera – if you want to look educated. That’s Latin. And not what automatically comes to my pedantic mind. But Felicem Annum Novum to all you peeps anyway.)

My new Annum’s resolution: Ad altiora tendo (I strive towards higher things)

via  Cacoethes scribendi (an insatiable desire to write).

To bulk up them opuses. And thus adieu to you – and you and you and you!