One of the long standing holiday traditions in my family has been getting a copy of The Old Farmer’s Almanac in our stockings. It was a rite of passage to see the hint of goldenrod yellow poking out the top of my sock on Christmas morning. (I was probably twelve or thirteen when I first received my own personal copy.)
Even now I have several year’s worth tucked on a shelf in my kitchen and a few stray editions on a small table in the bathroom. I faithfully circle the dates of the full moons, lunar and solar eclipses as well as any other astronomical events for the year. I can spend hours reading them and I learn something new every time I flip through one…the recipe for the world’s best cheese cake, how to hypnotize a lobster, whether or not George Washington cut down a cherry tree, how to feed chickadees out of my hand and the current number of covered bridges in North America.
One thing I haven’t learned from my well-worn and personally annotated pages of these almanacs is how to be a terrorist. Evidently the FBI knows something I don’t about the who’s who of almanac readers. (I suppose that’s their job…knowing things that most people don’t.)
Tuesday night, in a New Year’s Eve phone call to my dad, he apologized for being late in getting my 2004 edition to me. I was tired and giddy enough that I almost told him not to send it. “Whatever you do Dad, don’t write me a little note in it, don’t circle everyone’s birthdays and anniversaries on the calendar, and don’t get on a plane with one!”
Ah well, the madness isn’t contained to just the US. Landed Immigrants AND permanent residents must now have an official spiffy new ID card if they want to get back into Canada after traveling abroad. Happy holidays to all you hopeful Canadian citizens who were stranded in airports the past few days. Do you think they were sent a letter informing them that they needed the card in the first place? nope.
Oops.
My Writers’ Resolutions for 2004
Finish the revisions to my novel!
Find a ritual or practice that brings on the writing ‘flow’ in a more efficient manner.
Organize my mailing lists…email and snail mail.
Think ahead, plan ahead, think big!
Research new ideas
Read Read Read
Write Write Write
and
oh yeah, get me one of them spiffy new ID cards.
