A new year, a new calendar

Calendars are a big deal around here. We have them stationed at various points about the house. There are the kitchen calendars, plural. One is a date book kind of thing which is opened to the current week and in which I keep everything: appointments, recipes to try immediately, notes on when the cats get flea treatments, etc. The other one hangs on the wall and is both color- and theme- coordinated. In other words, it'll have a lot of Tuscan colors to match the walls and will feature cats or... cats.

Upstairs in my study are two month to month calendars, one of them most likely a freebie. This year's is from the World Wildlife Fund although I didn't monetarily support them, but must be on someone's "she might" list. The other is of sunrises and sunsets and color-coordinates with the walls. I bought it at Walmart.

The final calendar in my study fills a bulletin board and sees The Big Picture of trips and schedules.

So, today is calendar swap day. And I'd best get to it. 'Tis a new year.

Have a good one. May it be blessed.

2011 begins

Here's the ubiquitous "Happy New Year!" And I mean it. I hope we all have a happy 2011, happy being whatever, well, makes you happy. If 2010 wasn't so good for you, then may 2011 be much better.

2010 was a good year for us: we've traveled, made plans to travel more, been with our family. I survived a thyroidectomy with only a scar--and a lifelong prescription for Synthroid--to show for it.

And I've wondered about making a resolution. I've never been big on them, their life span being somewhat less than that of any feral cat I've rounded up, had spayed/neutered, given proper vaccinations, and then watched get hit by a car crossing the street or who decides to go walkabout on my nickel. In other words, I've shied from resolutions.

But I have thought of two though and I'm really, really, really going to work on one of them. Really.

First of all, I'm considering jumping into the Facebook pool. I had a "lesson" from a friend yesterday. I can see where this can be a huge time-waster and a lot of fun.

Second--and this is the one I'm serious about--I'm going to pay more attention to names. I've written down the names of every customer service person I've talked to on the phone for years, the time of the conversation, the problem, the outcome. I've had the feeling that if I have to call back with a further complaint, I could say: "But John told me on June 14 at 3:10 PM CDT, that my refund would be forthcoming!" Pause. "What do you mean you've never had someone named John work in your customer service?"

Maybe that won't happen.

But the names of people in other customer service jobs, those are the ones I'm going to pay attention to. "Hi, I'm John, and I'll be your waiter tonight." When I walk out of the restaurant (and know where John has a new job now that he's no longer employed above), I want to remember that John waited on us. Or Beverly sold me the dress. Or Mick did the tire exchange.

I'm going to pay attention. It's a resolution. And now, it's public.

So which decade are you in?

All this hype about it being a new decade. Okay, people, let's all raise our fingers in front of our faces. Got 'em up there?

Count. Starting on the left. One, two, three... you know the drill. What's on the far right? Your little right pinkie finger is what when you're counting? That's right: ten!

That would be, the end of a ten. 2010. Next year's the end of the decade. I did hear a commentator on one of the XM Public Radio stations state that yesterday, so I know I'm not alone in this conviction. But perhaps we are just so ready to get rid of these first years of the 21st century, that we (media, you know who you are) have found a convenient way to package them up, tie them with a virtual bow, and push them back in a corner. Ah... 2010. A new decade.

Or not.

But these first years have been a difficult labor and birth process. Fetching the newspaper this morning, I looked up at our now-nonfunctioning (by choice, ours, not its) front yard light. Ten years ago, on the morning of Jan. 1, 2000, we had come in from spending the night elsewhere and found that a brick had been thrown through one of the glass panes. Happy New Year, someone had said and smashed part of our glass. We put it back together, much as we've been seeking to put ourselves back together in the wake of 9/11 and the Iran/Afghanistan miseries, terrorism on our shores and the recession. Now that I think about it, perhaps it is best to bundle it all up, declare a new decade, and march on.

But on a personal level, it's been a good decade. Both sons out of college/grad school, both married to wonderful women, two grandchildren healthy and growing. We've been privileged to travel to Australia not once, but twice! We've made new friends and learned to treasure old ones more deeply.

Happy New Year, no matter which decade you think you're in.