Does my title sound a tiny bit discombobulated? As if perhaps I had been partaking too generously of the Christmas and New Year feasts and imbibing too much of the wines and spirits of the same? Well, you caught me; I have. And it has made my New Year’s post, such as it is, a few days latte. I mean, that is, a few days late (will I ever recover from such treats as the delicious but perverse Bolthouse pumpkin spice latte my brother treated me to for the second holiday? Likely not for a while). And, as befits life in a cold climate (which is what this part of the temperate zone feels like now, going down below reasonable temperatures entirely), I am trying to finish up my first cold of the season, which started before baking time in November, let up or went away entirely in time for Christmas baking, then returned or resumed or just plain started all over again once I was on vacation.
At any rate, this is just a short season’s greetings post to acknowledge that I’m still alive, despite chills and phlegm, and have successfully made my way into a new year, with the help of close family and friends. I hope you have done the same (without the chills and phlegm), and I’ll be trying to finish up my sixth novel in the New Year (a novel which technically is the fifth of my non-sequential sequentially oriented novels, but the sixth one actually came out first, last year). As I explained at the time I published the true sixth novel, the novels are symbolically sequential, but not parts of a series which must be read in a certain order, so cheating in such a way was really only cheating my own expectations and goals. As well, I will be continuing articles and reviews of books, poems, stories, and etc. in the New Year, and trying to get back to a more regular posting schedule. Those of you who have been following my site for some time know that I have promised this once or twice already, but have been derelict in my duty thus far, often waiting more than a week lately between posts. This holiday season has so far been the longest hiatus in my memory since I first began posting in July 2012.
Be these things as they may, I’m taking this opportunity to wish all of you the best on what some people find the second most depressing day of January (January 2nd being the first). Don’t worry, though, there’ll be plenty of other days in January and February for those in the Northern Hemisphere temperate zone to get depressed, with the help of various weather systems still to come. Those of you in the Southern Hemisphere temperate zone can’t even gloat, because you’ll have your winter coming up as well! Still, we’ve all celebrated at least one New Year’s Day this year, maybe more for people who participate in more than one culture, so let’s look forward with happy anticipation and hope as best we may, since the saying goes that what you get is what you expected to get (otherwise known as the “self-fulfilling prophecy”). Happy New Year!
creativeshadows 
Happy New Year, Doc =)
I hope the l’il buggies work their way out of your system soon, and you can return to your insightful assessments and entertaining stories =)
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Yes, I hope so, too! I’m doing as all pre-schoolers are instructed nowadays and coughing into an elbow placed over my face (so that I can still use my hands to shake hands with people), but am also getting tired of all the aversive sideways glances I’m getting from people who don’t understand the gesture and think apparently that I’m Dracula trying to give them a cold. Thanks for the praise! And have a great time in what I guess is now your summer?
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Yes, I have heard of the ‘elbow cough’. I find it more fun to use your bicep and blow a ‘sneezeberry’ =)
Yes, summer now. The next week has four days 95F and above, so the air con bill will be on the up and up =\
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Happy New Year . . . I wanted to write a meanigful first post of the year and wasn’t even latte. It just didn’t happen. . . . At least it’s not cold here. 10°C
Stay warm and cheerful.
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Thanks. I’m gradually crawling out from under the cold, and am back from my vacation with family now, down to the business of the year, and getting well. Just a few remaining late gifts to open, which is always a special time too, because we get to have coffee together at home and go over them. It’s like a second Christmas! It was well below freezing the last night of my holiday stay, and so we all bundled up in our beds under extra blankets and gave in to turning up the oil furnace as well as the wood stove (wood stoves are sometimes more a frame of mind than they seem!).
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Happy New year, I particularly enjoyed the cunning anagram that you hid in the title…I caught it though ‘you having one’ is changed to…ah young ovine. Now the post makes a lot more sense!
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You’re too clever for me, and are even more giving me credit for cunning I don’t deserve! I’m better with palindromes, such as “racecar,” or “Madam, I’m Adam,” the sort of puzzle which my ten-year-old nephew is starting to delight in. But he (and possibly I) will soon be up to anagrams. Kudos to you!
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Happy New Year, Victoria. Monday WAS a HARD day! But though it’s blowing a gale and “cold” for here, I’m in Florida so how much can I complain?
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Same to you, Richard. And remember, all things are relative, according to some of the “sages.” If you had 20 degrees F yesterday, as we heard you did today, just remember that up in Vt. it has been -20 F in the last few days, and in New England it’s been -4! Just you wait until you get your luxuriating bod back up to the climate of Ohio, where I hear it’s been as cold as one of those things we can’t say in front of the children!
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I know. Yesterday was 80 here. Today was 50 and blowing a gale, quite a switch. I walked the dog for an hour and realized I was as bundled up as I’d be in Ohio today, where it is subzero!
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