Can someone please tell me what happened to 2016? Seems like it should still be with us. I mean heck, it was Thanksgiving just a couple weeks ago. Now it’s gonna be a whole New Year!! Lots of people will be making very merry on New Year’s Eve, and many will also make promises in the form of resolutions to (hopefully) do some things a little better. Actually, that’s exactly what my New Year’s resolution has been for many moons now.   I just keep it simple: Try to do better.

Maybe you noticed that the title of this week’s Happy Friday!!! mentions revelations, not resolutions. Well that’s because I like to have fun with this writing stuff; so if you are not interested in such silliness please run to your nearest widescreen TV and watch a few thousand cat food commercials while I plunk the keyboard and write what will likely be my very last run-on sentence for this year; although it will certainly NOT be the very last one I will write, because my friend Dave likes them and also my friend Kathleen and maybe others; and although my punctuation may be questionable I really don’t give a royal SnickerlyDoodle about it.

So there.

OK. Now I am making with the New Year’s Revelations. My intent is to take some time tested sayings and offer shiny and productive ways that you may or may not find useful in your own lives. There are many such sayings that seem to have been with us for eternity, but that can’t be possible because we are still here. Anyway, here are some that come to mind and my reactions to their bronchial indigestion.

1) A stitch in time saves nine.

This makes no sense to me. Maybe it’s because my limited experience with stitching is in the form of an emergency repair on a pair of britches, or perhaps replacing a button. Ever bend over to pick up a penny and hear a nasty rrrRRRIIIPPPPP!! ?? It’s rather embarrassing. Especially if you have to traipse about looking for someone who has a sewing kit. Then once you’ve found that person, you have to be careful how you enter / exit the room so they don’t get frightened that your undies (or God forbid, your hiney!!) are hanging out. No, for me, a stitch in time is merely a stitch in time.

2) A penny saved is a penny earned.

Well that’s a nice thought. Remember that penny I bent over to pick up and my pants ripped open?? There was a cost of more than a penny to find someone with a sewing kit for cryin’ out loud. Well OK, there was no actual cost of money; but there was a price to be paid for the embarrassment of it all. And ya know, when I toss pennies into the change bucket at home, I don’t think I’m really earning anything. I’m just emptying my pockets. Besides, all my wages are direct deposit, so there are no actual pennies when I put stuff in the saving and / or checking account.

L) He who hesitates is lost.

Now there’s one I can relate to!! Remember that one time when we were coming back from Canada and you weren’t even there but I’ll tell you anyway?? Yes! My Beautiful Girlfriend and I had just crossed the border and entered Port Huron. Mind you, on the way to Canada we had no problem. But on the way from Canada, I got a little bit kerfuffled. There I was, minding my own business, watching the signs and forgetting the exact route, and then (uh oh, I can smell another run-on sentence), and thinking to my self, “hey Self, I think you missed your exit,” but my Beautiful Girlfriend and I were chatting and I was wondering and pretty soon we’re on I-75 going south and WHY THE HECK DOES IT SAY WE’RE ON THE WAY TO DETROIT WHEN WE LIVE IN MUSKEGON??

I’ll tell you why, I hesitated!! And then we got lost!! Well, OK not completely lost. I mean, if you’re in Michigan and you go too far south you hit either Ohio or Indiana. Too far north and you hit the Mackinac Bridge. Too far west and you’re on the shores of Lake Michigan. So we weren’t lost, just… ummm… on an adventure. Thankfully I keep some prehistoric road atlases in my car for just such an occasion. Remember road atlases? You know, printed maps? In a book?? Yes, I still have those. And thankfully the car has a compass so we were able to navigate. A big plus: we stumbled upon Crockett’s Country Cafe in Columbus, Michigan (never even knew there was a Columbus in Michigan) and had some very nice bison dinners with more than enough to have leftovers for the following day.

We hesitated, we got lost, we ate well, we went home. Not such a terrible thing.

To finish up, I’ll include one of the most time-honored sayings that may have helped avert conflict between friends and loved ones:

9r) You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friend’s nose.

Can’t argue with that!! Another variation of that is: you can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you can’t wipe your friends off on the sofa.

I can honestly say I’ve never thought that picking someone else’s nose is a good idea.  And wiping them off on the sofa??  Hey, what you do in the privacy of your own home is your business.  Well, OK I have to retract that statement about not picking someone else’s nose; only because I’ve helped my Lovely Girlfriend to raise two kids. I’m sorry, but my professional opinion is that anyone who has kids but hasn’t dealt with kid boogers has never really been a parent. And of course now we have grandkids, but both of them are getting very adept at nostril maintenance.

Well that’s probably enough for now. Please, all of you who read this, PLEASE have a blessed New Year in 2017. Don’t know about you, but I have much for which to be grateful. If I can keep that foremost in my mind, life goes along pretty well.

Thank you and Happy Friday!!!

Hope you have a safe and enjoyable New Year’s… there’s a party goin’ on at Grampy’s house if you don’t have any prior engagements…

Santa Claus is coming already! I suppose you folks all have your shopping done, right? Well, not me. I always wait till the last minute. It’s kind of a ritual, I guess. There may come a time when I quit procrastinating, perhaps tomorrow or the next day. But until then, look for me at the all night department store, right into the wee hours of Christmas Eve.

Wonderful rationalizations get cooked up in a part of my brain (which I lovingly refer to as the “lazy cortex”) around this time of year. First of all, I figure the number of other shoppers in the middle of the night is way down; and that’s the way I like it. Therefore, I tell myself, it’s best for me to shop later at night.  Secondly, since I’m always living from paycheck to paycheck anyway, the last check of the year is the logical choice for holiday shopping. Sure, I suppose I could squirrel away a few dollars here and there to prepare for the holiday season. However, that would require something terrible of me: discipline and planning. Those two concepts just scare me to death!

I did do a little shopping for my Beautiful Honey Pie while on a business trip to Pennsylvania last week. Because of a tight schedule and absolutely NO CLUE where to go, I asked Siri The Nice iPhone Lady where the nearest shopping was. She directed me to Promenade Place; which appears to be where all the rich people go. Although I’m blessed in millions of ways, I’m not independently wealthy. But I ventured into a jewelry store with hope of finding a nice pair of earrings for my sweetie. I knew I was in trouble when none of the items in the fancy glass cases had prices on them. Then I found what seemed to be a reasonably priced pair of turquoise earrings. The nice man said, “those are 4-0-5.” And he didn’t mean 4 dollars and 5 cents. I thanked him for his time and hit a two other stores called Francesca’s and Charming Charlie’s. Between the two of those I found about 6 pairs of nice earrings that fell well into my price range.

I had grandiose plans of stashing some of the jewelry for Christmas; but the rule when I travel on business is that I “bring back a surprise.” Even though I was only gone for a couple days I missed my Baby so much that I ended up giving her all the loot in one shot. That, of course, meant I had to go on the hunt again; with Christmas drawing ever nearer.

My wife just shakes her head and laughs at me, bless her soul. And this year, with the economy “in recovery,” the stores are enabling my last minute mania.  Stuff just keeps going down in price!  It’s amazing!!  Of course you have to be willing to wade through hordes of other procrastinators.  And unfortunately, some of them are getting rather ornery.   I was in Meijer the other day (our local everything store, for those of you who don’t know Michigan), and it was a complete madhouse.  People packed and zooming all about.  After I finally arrived at the cashier, I joked with her, “well you must be completely bored today, what with it being so slow and all.”  She smiled and related how nice it was to have the time whiz along.  “So, at least folks are in a good mood,” I added.  “Nooo,” she said in a low tone, “people are nasty.  Getting mad ‘cuz nothing’s in stock, or it costs more than they think it should.”

Like the cashier has any control over such things.  Unfortunately, our wonderfully materialist world has all too many folks convinced that Christmas is all about the presents, instead of the peace on Earth and all that stuff.  Couple that with the pressure of uncertainty in the job market… heck, uncertainty in the world, and people get a bit antsy.  Then add a little “holy cow it’s only 4 days before Christmas and look at all I gotta do,”  and some folks get downright nasty.  All that lovely Christmas spirit gets converted into scowls and hustle-bustle.

I don’t get ornery… I’ve just pretty much accepted the fact that my Santa mode doesn’t kick in very early in the season.  In other words, one thing about my holiday shopping is pretty predictable: I’ll be running through all the stores with my just-before-Christmas-paycheck like a head with my chicken cut off (or something). By the time I reach the last checkout, I’ll be too exhausted even to balk at those crazy tabloid headlines.  Something like, “120 YEAR OLD WOMAN CLAIMS TO BE TRUMP’S TWIN SISTER,” would usually prompt me to snicker or chuckle. By then, it will just be a cold stare, and robotic “hmmm.”

I’ll fumble for the credit card, cram the receipt in my wallet, drag all the stuff to the car, and it’s home again, home again, jiggety-jog. On the way home, I love to tune the AM dial and look for that distant station playing Dickens’ “Christmas Carol.”  Maybe sing some carols while it fades out.

The approach to the homestead involves a little Santa trick. I kill the engine, coast into the driveway, sneak inside with the goodies, and hide somewhere to make lots of crinkly noises with wrapping paper until 4 a.m. Finally, I’ll stash the loot under the tree, and flop into bed; vowing to start at least two days earlier next year.

Or not.

Maybe if I learned a few things from Grampy, all the Christmas presents could be built right at home!!

So there I was, 36,000 feet in the air, inside a plane, with no parachute, on my way to Allentown, Pennsylvania, traveling for work, and now I’m making a sentence that’s not only way too long but also has too many participles and perhaps even gerunds (gerunds??); and of course I kept maps that I printed from the Googling of Directions, which is probably not really a proper thing but lots of people say it, and although I had all these printed maps with directions they were of little use to me because I didn’t memorize them and so I cried out for Siri.

It was already dark outside when I finally got to the rental car. Even though I had printed directions with maps; it would have been rather difficult at best to follow them without having an accident. I needed help fast, so with blind faith I started talking to Siri.

“Siri,” I said to my iPhone thing, “I need directions to 4100 West Rock Road.” Being the obedient techno-servant that she is, Siri commenced to getting the directions. All I had to do was press the green “Go” button on the phone (while parked of course) (I’m too young to die) and she started telling me where to go. It was the first time I ever tried it, and it only happened because I saw people on the Television Thing talk to their iPhone things in a similar manner. So God bless her, Siri started telling me where to go with step by step instructions. I’m sort of used to having people tell me where to go, so this wasn’t difficult (ha ha, I make joking there).

For the most part, she did a wonderful job!! Although there were three small drawbacks: 1) Siri’s activity was very demanding of my phone’s battery power, L) once she tried to take me to a place that wasn’t there (invisible maybe?), and $) there was one instance where she wanted to drag me where I didn’t want to go. I can understand the drain on the battery; I’m sure a lot is going on in the iPhone Computer Brain Thing so that consumes energy. However, there was one instance in the wee hours of yesterday morning when I was on my way back to the airport. Siri was rattling off directions as I drove through all the serpentine, hilly back roads of the Pennsylvania countryside. We came to an area where she blurted out, “turn left on Penn Avenue.” I saw no Penn Avenue. She said it again, but she didn’t realize I’m not much of a morning person; especially at 3:45 AM. I scolded her thusly: “there’s no Penn Avenue you stupid farblejink!!” Well, OK, I may have really called her a different name using vernacular that refers to a female dog.

Then she wanted me to take a route to the airport that I knew involved a toll road. “No thank you,” I snarled, and I stayed on I-78 a bit longer. In spite of my rudeness she simply adjusted the route and told me where to go again, this time with a route that had no tolls. Such a nice robot lady!!

My professional path has brought me into a job in computer support; so one would think I would have abandoned printed maps long ago. Well although I’m very grateful to Siri for preventing me from getting lost in a strange land, when I travel for fun my navigation is much more primitive. I often use a combination of printed maps, a Rand McNally Road Atlas, and the compass in my car. Sure, Siri makes getting from point A to point B pretty easy… I didn’t really have to think. The only drawback is that I didn’t really learn the lay of the land. I merely learned how to get to places by following orders.

Well speaking of taking orders, I bet Santa is working overtime trying to get HIS orders filled…