What Are You Doing New Year's Eve? (written by Frank Loesser, so many covers!)

Happy New Year's Eve Day!  Whew, what a year (major understatement... 😝 )

Chico, Rob, and I (Eric has to work) will gather about 7:00 p.m. at Sarah's for sushi delivery, a bit of champagne, and maybe a Disney+ offering (ooh, kinda hoping for Taylor Swift's Folklore:  The Long Pond Studio Sessions documentary/concert?).  Definitely leaving there before the ball drops (Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen!), and crazy traffic and fireworks ensue.  Broward County actually has a 1:00 a.m. curfew.

Much more to say but, for now, I'll just wish you all a day/evening of reflection, gratitude, and anticipation as to what 2021 will bring.  Hoping that the stroke of midnight sees you in the arms of a loved one and, if that's not the case, hug yourself for making it through these difficult times.

Here's/cheers to Better Things... 💞

If you were able to look back at your most brilliant successes, stunning comebacks, amazing catches, and smokin' ideas, Susan, and you were to find that virtually all of them seemed to materialize out of thin air, when you least expected them, and that they had exceeded even your greatest expectations at the time, how excited would you be about the new year and whatever else I've got up my sleeve? 

Hubba, hubba - 

  The Universe

P.S. If I've ever helped you before, Susan, don't you think I can do it again… and again… and again… ad infinitum? Actually, it ought to be even easier next time, with your new saunter.

SONG:  What Are You Doing New Year's Eve (written by Frank Loesser, so many covers!)  Here's one of my favorites, by Mary Margaret O'Hara... 💖

BOOK:  Alchemy 2020: Concoctions of the Quarantine by Cheryl Poepping

POEM:  Twenty Twenty by Lana Hechtman Ayers

This was the year breath became death.

The year the grandparents and great grandparents left us by the thousands, taking their wisdom with them into the great oxygen mask of the heavens. This was the year we covered our mouths and smiled with our eyes if we were able to smile at all.

This year handshakes became passé and hugs a mass hallucination we once had.

This was the year we transformed into a tribe of screens.

The year we finally acknowledged how crucial delivery drivers and supermarket stock clerks are. First responders heroes now more than ever.

This was the year we remembered how to bake bread, learned how to garden.

The year we discovered different species of trees possess distinctive aromas.

This was the year we binge watched and wore out pajamas.

The year we took our pens up and our notebooks seriously.

The year we were speechless.

This was the year we discovered the Zen of handwashing, observed all the delicate shadows the moon tats across night lawns.

This was the year we cancelled weddings, Christmas, died without anyone familiar by our sides.

But this was also the year we took unscheduled strolls in the forest alone, attended the sea’s susurrus lectures, hiked higher than ever before.

The year we feared air and loved air and drove less, thus clearing the air. This was the year we did more fretting, more regretting.

We vowed to vote and kept our promises to ourselves and others.

This was the year we stood up to racial injustice in the myriad ways we could—in the streets, on Facebook, writing to our senators, calling for action against the police, donating to causes, celebrating artists of color, holding our white tongues so the underrepresented could be heard, acknowledged, admired.

This was the year we used our phones to make actual calls, voice to voice, not just for texts and emojis.

The year we cried and shook our heads and wrung our hands at the headlines.

This was the year we lost sleep, lost heart, found hope is action.

This is the year we said I love you over and over.

Sometimes to the person on the other side of the glass.

Sometimes to songbirds.

Sometimes to ourselves.

The year we said I love you to our fragile Earth.

Said I love you, I love you to the universe, and I love my humble place in it, no matter what.

QUOTE:  "If there was a time machine and I could tell my younger self what I'd be doing in 2020, there's no way I'd believe it." ~ Jonny Kim

Baby, It's Cold Outside (the James Taylor/Natalie Cole version)

Hi Susan! Here is your Daily Horoscope for Tuesday, January 5:

Though you may be the life of the party on other days, right now you'd rather sit quietly with close family and read or play games. It's not a sign of anything serious -- you just need a break!

It is f*cking freezing here in South Florida - I have not left the house in four days. It is the first time I have turned on the heat in years - with highs in the 50's during the day and lows in the 30's at night, expected to extend through the end of the week, this is not normal!

My bundled-up household attire has ranged from a thermal dress, a long black sweater and some knock-off Uggs I got from Target (rather than springing for the real thing, which cost upwards of $200)... to my cute embellished-on-the-*ss sweatpants, a long-sleeved fleecy nightgown and some chenille slipper socks - over the last few days, I have made a big pot of my ground turkey and vegetable soup... as well as my sister's chicken-corn chowder recipe, both amazingly delicious, nutritious and cold-weather-comforting... but soon I *must* get dressed to venture out to Publix, because I am out of everything (d*mn these menfolk of mine and their appetites... :-)

My friend Stephen is always trying to get me to move north (to the Boston area) and I repeatedly tell him there aren't enough socks in the world - however, it's a nice change of pace to stay inside, watch mindless TV, catch up on wishlist reading and To Do computer stuff... and just generally hibernate (bears and bears and bears, oh my!)...

SONG: Baby, It's Cold Outside by Frank Loesser (and there are a bazillion covers!)

BOOK: Santa Claus: Super Spy--The Case of the Florida Freeze by Ryan Jacobson

POEM: Cold Watercolor by Wyatt Prunty

We saw the birds jockeying for the feeder.
Inside, the networks fed us New Year's Day.
And then there was the snow, in thick raw blots
Down past a row of windows where it caught,
Turning the sills to ridges, as outside
The streets, houses, and yards thickened
From their named and numbered ways into
A watercolor unreadably white . . .
And all the while the manic snow descending,
Sometimes glazed against a pane but mostly
Falling from itself into itself
Under a low, bruised, and indefinite sky . . .

Until the things I watched to measure change,
A recent stump, raised flower beds, porch steps —
Had disappeared, with the snow still falling
And the gray January light fading,
Fusing the trees and houses in one shade . . .
Suddenly a shadow now, beyond the glass
That mirrored us with looking out,
Ourselves out there, watches and rings reversed —
As reporters had the years reversed,
We said, looking out, seeing us looking in.

QUOTE: “Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.” ~ Edith Sitwell