New Year's Redux

Blogger seems to have eaten my New Year's Day post, which is mildly inauspicious, but you win some and you lose some. I hope you all have had safe and celebratory weekends despite the rather grim ending of the year. A midnight change-of-the-calendar custom I recommend if you have friendly neighbors: Go outside with musical instruments and good friends and serenade the skies for just a few minutes. I was loaned a wooden lizard who had slats strung on cord for its body, so when I grabbed its tail and head and flexed them back and forth, a joyous percussive noise resulted. There were recorders and cow bells and child-sized xylophones at hand as well. Our miniature jangling parade was all the sweeter for not being in some massively organized and crowded public square. Try it, you might like it.

I am going to stop linking to the TsunamiHelp post in every post, and have instead added a link to it on the right hand side, which I'll leave there as long as seems helpful. This is an important story I intend to keep reading about and commenting on, but I hope people will not be offended or disappointed if I move back towards my usual mix of serious and funny subjects. Life must go on, and let's hope the new year will bring some much needed improvements.