Gott Nytt År

As I wrote on Facebook last night:

A blessed 2010 to all - may our anxieties lessen and our courage increase. May you enjoy health, joy, passion, new adventures, old comforts, and keep your sense of wonder.

As my best friend said to me this morning on the phone:

Enjoy the vanda orchids and marching bands; I know how important those are for you.

Such high-level snark so early in the year. I hope Santa takes note.

My most vivid memories of the Rose Parade are from the year I was doing field education at a church in Pasadena. The youth group signed up do decorate a float. This was a way to raise a few hundred dollars back then. I've no idea what the going rate is nowadays. It involves working in around-the-clock shifts gluing flower parts onto the float. We had various lavender shades on our float which meant small orchids separated into petals of different colors. Not everything gets done in time for the parade so you make sure the side that faces the judges and the cameras gets done and the other side might have unflowered sections. It is exhausting and crazy. But then comes getting your chairs down on Colorado Boulevard and guarding them all night long. Cars drive by at the speed of molasses in, well, December/January and you inhale exhaust all night long. People are drinking, of course, and I had to deal with a teenager who had gotten hold of alcohol, vomiting in an alleyway.

If someone else has the Rose Parade on TV, I will glance at it. But - how to put this? - the glamor is gone.

I had a quiet evening at home, though I did actually stay up past midnight (not my usual preference). I ate pork and roasted potatoes and See's molasses chips and some of the cookies off the tree. My festive beverage was my usual Diet Pepsi. I watched Angels and Demons. This works so much better for me than going out past midnight, being with crowds, and driving home again amid the drunks on the road. I am ready for 2010.

Have not had a lot to say of late. I note that Satan's hero, Dick the Dick, emerged from his swamp to lie and distort, denying the danger in which he and his boy-king repeatedly put this nation and the mess they have created for us and the world. My wishes in his direction are unprintable.

Currently holding the United States Senate in utter contempt but why rail on endlessly about the same old stuff?

I've been battling bureaucracy in other areas, life has been overly busy (but I see light at the end of one tunnel at least). I am having lunch with friends later today and am getting to know some new folks. Who knows what lies ahead this year? For that I return to my wish for us all at the beginning.

--the BB