Donna was in bed by 10:00 PM on New Year’s Eve, but Polly and I rousted her out just before midnight to see the first snowfall of the winter. It was still coming down a minute later, making it the first snowfall of 2015 as well. We heard a few gunshots mixed in with the firecrackers, also a helicopter flying low overhead … presumably the police looking for muzzle flashes. Not sure what it is about firing guns into the night sky, but it’s a New Year’s tradition around here. Fallujah on the San Juan River, that’s us.
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Our dogs aren’t bothered by fireworks or gunfire, but I always hear from Tucson friends who have to comfort theirs on New Year’s Eve. Poor things.
Well, I got up this morning determined to make a fresh start. I wiped down the office desk, cleaned out the browser caches, deleted trash and junk email, and rebooted the iPhone, iPad, and iMac.
I’m not big on resolutions, but I’ll go this far: I resolve to walk the dogs every day. I’ve been a horrible slacker in that department, and the dogs and I are too fat as a result. I fell behind on visits to the gym during Thanksgiving week and the first part of December, but over the last two weeks have been getting back into the groove. Someone compared getting on a scale to asking Dick Cheney to list all the things that are wrong with you, and that’s pretty much how I feel.
I’m throwing some baggage over the side for 2015. No more throwback Thursday photos on Facebook, for one. So 2014! I’ve been posting on Tumblr and Ello, but it’s been like talking into a dead phone … zero interaction with other users, never a comment, nothing. Twitter, Daily Kos, Facebook, and the comment section of my blogs are, by contrast, quite lively. My friends are on the other end of the phone, and we’re having a conversation. So I’ll continue tweeting, Facebooking, and blogging in 2015, but leave Tumblr and Ello to the Tumblrites and Elloians.
I had a lot of fun with the Donkey Hote account on Twitter, searching for and retweeting illiterate posts, photos of misspelled signs, screen caps of garbled Fox News chyrons, and eggcorns in the rough. Lately, though, finding new stuff has become a chore, so I’ve decided to throttle back. If I stumble across something new, genuinely appalling, and funny, then game on. But my daily blast of tweets? Done for now.
So what’s on for today, the first day of the new year? Donna and Polly are going to sew, at least until the football games start. While they watch the games I’ll be smoking ribs and sausages, which we’ll have later with baked beans and corn on the cob.
Happy New Year, everyone!
What’s on for the first day of the new year, um, it’s a Thursday so it’s a hashing day. The first Gypsies’ trail of 2015 and King Rongjon is setting it.
I just now discovered Donkey Hote and you’re scaling BACK? Nooooo… well, okay, because I am an inconstant Twitter friend, at best, and am no longer an obsessive commenter on blogs, I can’t ask anything of anyone. But I’m following that account, now. Who knew–oh, never mind, was I seriously about to ask that? No. I’m just impressed with your little gems, there.
I think throwing the baggage overboard is a good idea. I’ve announced my goals for the year, only one of which gets laser focus. But what’s unmentioned is similar to your baggage-toss: I want to write more and idly fritter away time on sites where there’s little or no real interaction. So, that leaves my blog, Facebook, and Twitter – for the most part. And I will try to read more and comment more on friend’s blogs – so long as they’re not writing bland, meta-blogging pablum for the masses. I’m so over that, and I’m over pretending it’s awesome. Life’s too short.
I don’t have dogs, but have re-discovered MapMyRun and SparkPeople and I plan to USE them. And my Fitbit. My plan: Use it AND lose it. 🙂 If you read my linked post, below, you’ll understand that failure is really NOT an option.
Holly Jahangiri recently posted…Truth or Consequences: 2015 Resolution Roulette
Freudian slip? I meant to write “…and NOT idly fritter away time…” but what I actually wrote could be true, somewhere in the slacker recesses of my brain.
That, or reading Donkey Hote’s rubbed off on me. Yeah, let’s go with that.
Holly Jahangiri recently posted…Ringing Out the Old…
Burt, you live a charmed life. Say hi to the Gypsies for us!
Holly, love your comments, and thanks! Donkey Hote isn’t finished. I’m still looking for new eggcorns and such. More and more, though, the ones I see are intentional and ironic, and I want to find genuine ones. When I do I’ll retweet them. When I first found “flaming young” a few months ago I thought I’d died and gone to heaven! Hear you on the writing … I bought a copy of Scrivener and promised myself I’d start organizing a memoir this year.
I found this site last year because of the airplane content. Stuff like learning that my favorite F-15 is 105-0 in direct air combat is near priceless to me, but I have to say more and more it is the domestic bliss posts that I enjoy the most. Happy 2015, Paul. I look forward to what the new year will bring for both of us.