resolutions

Okay, Christmas is over. What next? Of course, the dreaded new year's resolutions. I could be boring and echo what 99.9% of the population resolves every year - lose weight, exercise more, be nicer but I'm going to go with my old standby. This is the year that I'm going to finish my book. No, not the book I'm reading (although I have been meaning to finally finish Atlas Shrugged. I should get right on that. Right, Todd?) No, I mean the book I've been writing for the last five years. I know I'm not alone with having four or five chapters of a book hanging out in a drawer somewhere but, hell, this is the year that I'm finally going to finish that sucker. Then, I'll spend the next three or four years editing it. When it's finally polished within an inch of its life, I'll start shopping it around to publishers. That ought to take another four or five years. And then, when I've given up hope that anyone appreciates my talent, some visionary publisher will take a chance and publish the damn thing. I can see it now. Me, in all my AARP glory charming the latest Good Morning America host with my wit and insights. Signing autographs while hearing stories about how my book has touched lives. Sitting on the set as it's made into a blockbuster with George Clooney and Meryl Streep. Walking the red carpet after the movie's nominated for nine Academy Awards. (Okay, I might have to be using a wheelchair by that time, but that won't be a problem. George will push me.) As you can see, a vivid imagination is the least of my worries. Sitting my butt in front of the computer - that seems to be the issue. But, hey, this year's going to be different. Twenty-ten. It even sounds different. So, if you'll excuse me, I have to run. George and Meryl aren't getting any younger.

christmas, shmishmas

I used to love Christmas. When the kids were little, so anxious for Christmas morning that they went to bed with their slippers on their feet, it was fun. Their excitement ripping off colored paper to reveal their deepest desires was positively contagious, not to mention rewarding. (Was it wrong to make sure their most hoped for present came from Mom and Dad? I admit it, I had a hard time letting the fat guy get all the credit.) Anyway, it's different now. Christmas morning comes, nobody wants to get up, and the stockings are filled with gift cards to I-Tunes and Chili's. We're lucky if we get the tree up before the relatives show up for dinner. It's all too much work and money for too little payoff. While it's nice not to have to run around like a crazy person trying to find the "hot" toy, I find myself secretly longing for a grandchild to put the fun back into Christmas. But with my two a long (I hope long) way away from providing me with one of those, I'll just have to settle for the next best thing. A quiet, uneventful Christmas surrounded by my amazing family and a nice glass (or two) of red wine. It could be worse.

higher education?

When it was time for me to pick a college, I looked at state schools within a couple of hours of my home. I then used the highly sophisticated "dartboard" method of choosing my future alma mater. Hey, it worked for me. Things have obviously changed since those medieval days but I will never understand why so many parents ship off their "little darlings" to farway (translation: expensive) destinations of higher learning just so they can get their degree in hospitality management while they have the pleasure of working on their tan. Yesterday, I spent three hours with my son touring a culinary school. Here I learned that $80,000 would buy him an Associate's Degree which, if he's lucky, would get his foot in the door in an industry which promises long hours, backbreaking work and little in the way of real monetary compensation. Call me crazy but I'm starting to encourage him to get a plumber's license and get out there and make some real money.