New Year Notes

It’s New Year’s morning, 2010. Last night we watched “Angels and Demons”. This was a sequel to the movie “The DaVinci Code” ……. not a term used in conjunction with babysitting the grandchildren.

Sacrificing additional sleep I turned on the TV at 7am and watched the Rose parade to pay homage to my mother. Mom always loved this parade. In fact, it was the main reason given why we eventually bought a color TV. It’s hard to believe Mom enjoyed watching this parade even though all the floats she was so excited with were in black and white.She always wanted to go to Pasadena to see if the flowers were really in various shades of grey or if they were, as NBC promised, “In Living Color.” I watch to perhaps catch a glimpse of Mom standing street side, cradling a huge bouquet of ruby red roses in her arms, eyes large with wonder as the spectacle of colors pass.

With the New Year comes renewed energy devoted to setting goals. Seems to me those who want us to set goals don’t issue this invitation because they really care. They want the goal flounderers to help them achieve their corporate objective of getting as much money as they can guilt out of us this year. We need to lose weight, become wealthier, be more organized, be happier or in more control with our lives, enhance relationships and take the pill that will ease our lives despite most of the ad is filled with disclaimers describing harm the pill will do if taken.

I’ve heard the phrase, “A goal not written is only a wish” so many times that I’ve set a goal to promote a law that if this repetitive cliché is mentioned again the offender will be tied to a pole and forced to listen to that Mexican soccer broadcaster yell “Gooooooaaaaallll! 24/7. I’ll begin movement on that resolution as soon as I can find some time to write that down.

Frankly, 2009 was a tough year. But there were some great things that happened: another grand daughter, Dad’s 90^th birthday that again reunited the family for a few hours. Trips to Lincoln, Nebraska, Las Vegas, San Diego and Utah, camping and jet boating with daughters and their spouses, all culminating in a grand crescendo of chaos with having all children and their families home for Christmas.

I wondered why I thought of “A Space Odyssey” connected with this year but realized that movie was “2001, A Space Odyssey.” However, I dug a little deeper and found another movie, “2010, The year we make contact.” This was the sequel to 2001 the movie where monkey-men throw bones at a huge domino embedded in earths prehistoric soil. 2001 also introduced us to the mutinied computer HAL that took control of the ship. I don’t remember a thing about the sequel other than it was “2010” According to movie review website IMDb the theatrical trailers catch line was, “Something wonderful is about to happen”.

Here’s hoping that the trailer is right, “2010, Something wonderful is about to happen.”

Make that a goal. You don’t need to write it down. I did it for you.