Saying g’bye to unlucky 13 won’t be hard for me who at this point thinks it can’t go quickly enough. My wood supply has shrunk thirty percent more quickly than I’d like, so I must say I’m well over my quota for appreciation of cold temps followed by overcast skies and a never ending dandruff of snow. I was going to drag the Christmas tree from below, but that whim to carve enjoyment from the glacier of hard winter got frozen into immobility by a nasty head cold. It was my second this winter, putting me over the norm in that area of unpleasantness as well. I am ready for 2013 to go. If it wasn’t going to leave on its own I’d tell it to get out. I’m done with it. I hope my next trial of wintertime will be in Samoa where bitter cold would be replaced by a lesser vexation of grit chafing between bare toes on a Pacific beach. The odds of my going to a tropical paradise are, however, low as I’m more constitutionally inclined to hang around these parts to see just what in heck will happen next. Knowing Cook County what happens next is bound to be interesting as the little mouse of population living here shows an impressive appetite for grand projects. I personally favor having our own aircraft carrier but that’s possibly too practical for this part of the North Shore.

The lead-in paragraph is supposed to show a strongish degree of frustration with the current. It’s not that I don’t try to get in the swim (the about-to-open public funded YMCA complex offers a pool), but there are times I get the annoying feeling of having so many opportunities, assets, and progress to get behind I’ll run out of time, energy, and pocket book for doing my part. Too bad we can’t pass a levy on excess. Aside from the membership fee to get into what I’m otherwise helping to pay for there is near an hour driving and gasoline costs to get there followed by the joys of stepping from a steamy chlorinated north woods environment into winds arriving direct from the arctic. We should at least have a publicly supported Polar Bear Club to keep pace and to provide a more rugged contrast suitable to the up-north. However, the demand for a Northwoods YMCA Spa must be a lot higher than ever I’d imagine and I’ll soon be calling the facility an asset to the community because the sponsors surely believe that and so an asset it will be. That’s official and you hear it from me, who has hardly been a supporter on account of wondering how long we’ll be able to keep affording an asset of such magnitude. That’s why I’ve favored the aircraft carrier plan, an asset that’s movable so we could flog it off on someone dumber than us to enjoy for a while. You can’t do that with a money sucking hole in the ground, can you?

I apologize if my seasonal frustration is out of hand or offensive, but I have trouble with this every year. I make the strongest possible effort to get in the spirit of things, participate, and keep my eyes open to opportunity but never once have I seen a single crawling bird, much less the four required. Chickens with little berets are impossible to find as well. Even Amazon does not stock those, so in these parts a person is out of luck. The other fowl are almost possible. Pigeons and doves both make appearances (though not in season) along the north shore, but how one tells if the doves are fertile is beyond me. Thankfully the partridge is easy. Finding one in a pantry has been elusive as spotting a one legged cat in February clawing its way across a frozen pond. I’d like to participate and experience the touchy feely warmth of whatever it is people get from all of that smiling mush but it escapes me every time as I swerve into trying to determine just what makes a hen “French” and why I’d need OR want one as part of a Yule celebration. Do any of you know (I mean personally) even so much as a single person who has experienced holiday satisfaction due to a French hen? I don’t. I know folks who’d enjoyed a ham or a Collin Street Fruitcake, but I can’t name a one having the least benefit from birds a crawling or lone partridge lurking in a pantry. All humbug if you ask me.

In the spirit of facing a new political year I will blame my ill will spirit on phone banks that this time of year go into full assault on our tender impulses. I seem to get two to three such calls a day. Will I contribute to breast cancer? I will not, and furthermore I resent being asked, as if I ever in life desired such a thing. I think having a stranger address me on the phone about breasts is unseemly to say the least and is most definitely presumptuous. Another group calls to ask me to join their make-a-wish effort which I do immediately by wishing they’d go away and making my wish come true by hanging up. I’ve never cared a spit of their name was Marilyn, Frank, or Denise. They are strangers calling at dinner time. I’ve sometimes responded saying “Let me call you back. What time do you go to bed?” I’ve yet to get a satisfactory answer to my query so why should they fare better?

Lastly, WHY do I get the first flow of seed and garden catalogs on December 27 when we are a good five months from thawed soil? If they were selling frozen strawberries or blueberries to be flung onto snowdrifts to be harvested weeks later after exposure to more snow and some sunny days it would make sense. I expect collusion with those encouraging me to seek seven plumbers engaged in pipe fitting, so I am not about to succumb to that trick.
2014 I’m waiting. Let’s see what you’ve got.