KISSED BY A STRANGER.

Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross, to see a fine lady upon a white horse. Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes, she shall have music wherever she goes.
I woke up this morning, late, with that  nursery rhyme playing through my head, instead of Brown Eyed Girl, or Big Wheels Keep On Turnin’, the loud, jumpin’  music from last night at Cactus Jacks. There is no accounting for the twists and turns of the brain.
It was my intention to stay home New Years Eve, but a neighbor, Jan,  insisted I go with her to the Murphys Hotel. We arrived at 9 p.m. Planned to stay a couple of hours. Myself, Jan and Cynthia got our picture taken by Cynthia’s boyfriend, Dave.
The Murphys Hotel is about 150 years old and has a reputation for being a cowboy bar. But, the cowboys have changed considerably, I noticed.
Jan, the storyteller, regaled Dave with old stories from the hotel’s checkered history.
There was no band, the dance floor is practically non-existent. We danced twice to canned music. The people made it fun, but we all decided to leave the hotel and walk down to Cactus Jacks. The dance floor there is bigger, the band was better and it was jammin’.
Cactus Jack sells shirts called Plan B.
Translation:  After you leave Cactus Jacks and go to the Murphys Hotel,  you’ll come crawling back to Jacks where all the fun is. It was  fun. They don’t have a liquor license, only wine and beer. The grizzly was good, dark and chewy.
People watching is half the game. It was a dance free for all, everybody dancing with everybody.  Nobody obnoxiously drunk.

Some friends, Lianne Smith and her new boy toy popped in. She and others went from party to party. Over the course of the evening, I met old friends, kids, who are no longer kids, who  went to high school with my no longer kids. Then, I met a guy who graduated from the same High School I did, only twenty years later than me.
Cactus Jack provided paper cups of champagne at midnight. And, I got kissed by a stranger.
Anything can happen. It’s a new year. 2012 is here.

SEMI-IDIOTIC

It’s New Years Eve, a cause for celebration. A symbol that all things from 2011 can be put away and everything begins  anew. The idea  is semi-idiotic, but we love its symbol of hope for better things to come.  Why not make a resolution and promise to make the New Year personally better than the year we’ve left behind?   There is room for much improvement in this world,  so, lets celebrate: (Click the link.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GwjfUFyY6M&feature=player_embedded

Its time to get the party started and put all cares away:
http://www.nutsie.com/song/Auld%20Lang%20Syne/2144120?artist_id=1000315&album_id=2813801

And have a toast or three to good things to come:
Here’s to the bright New Year
And a fond farewell to the old;
Here’s to the things that are yet to come
And to the memories that we hold.
In the New Year,
may your right hand always be stretched out in friendship,
but never in want.
In the year ahead,
May we treat our friends with kindness
and our enemies with generosity.
“Let us resolve to do the best we can with what we’ve got”, says
William Feather
Worthy thoughts and deeds we set before us. It gives us a breath of happiness to see  the numbers on the new calendar.  Was the old year a good year?  A bad year?  We can spare for one day to set all of it aside and share with others, strangers even,  a bit of nostalgia.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvJRmdN9iyU

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM FAR AND NEAR

As a kid, growing up in rural Michigan, I never thought I'd become a world traveler. It still boggles my mind.
And looking back at this wonderful year of traveling across the United States and back, the wonderful experiences I've had, the amazing places and things I've seen, I'm in awe of my great good fortune to have met a ramblin' man who seeks to be an adventurer and pulled out of the ruts of life to follow his dreams.

I mentioned being a world traveler as well. Before I retired, I was interested in the world, other cultures, other peoples, other customs. It was my good fortune to become acquainted with the Republic of Indonesia via an exchange student who became an integral part of my life and introduced me to a whole new world of experiences. And, today I received greetings from Linda Djamaludin, one of the nicest, most interesting women I've ever met.

This is Linda, third from left, in costume, with some of her friends.
Below is Linda experiencing snow for the first time, at Bear Valley, something rather rare in Indonesia. (Photo from 1986).
Linda, who is muslim, also sent me the words to a song, Stand Up For Love.  There are words worth repeating:
     There are times I find it hard to sleep at night,
     We are living through such troubling times.
     And every child that reaches out for someone to hold,
     For one moment they become my own.
     If we all stand together this one time
     Then no one will get left behind.
     Stand up for life
     Stand up for love. 

If we could see the world as a world full of people who all want basically the same thing. Love, friendship, family, good health and the ability to have free choices, what a peaceable world this would be. Which is, by the way, my wish for the New Year. A WORLD FULL OF PEACE AND LOVE.       

CELEBRATING AN EARLY NEW YEAR

Sharon and Bert Sargeant visited yesterday with bottles of wine in hand. We toasted the New Year early since they will most likely be snowed in with a good fire and  plenty of food and water. In fact, they attempted to visit the previous night and were snowed in. Then the melt. So, they came last night
 Bert is also a local prankster who at one time ran a county survey line across the front of our property and convinced husband George that the County was planning to confiscate 20 feet of frontage to expand the road. He enjoyed seeing George turn purple. He also put a very cheap priced for sale sign on a friend's 49 Ford and gave his friend's phone number to field all the phone calls. Well, that's Bert. We've managed a payback or two along the way.

My brother Norman is staying for the rest of the week. He's had some amazing unconventional experiences and we've enjoyed rehashing old stories, about his visit to the Peoples Temple in 1975, and meeting the "False Christ"  Jim Jones. Jones, if you remember, took 900 people to Guyana in 1978 and induced them to commit suicide by drinking cool-aid spiked with poison. He spooked Jones. He attended with his friends, John James and family and declared Jones a fake. Mrs. James was so upset with Norman's declaration that they never resumed their friendship.
Norman's been rich and he's been poor but he likes poor for the challenge better than the ease of the "easy" life.
HAPPY NEW YEAR.
If you celebrate, be careful. We will have icy roads and plan to stay safely tucked inside. Yesterday, just going out for my shoulder therapy at 10:00 a.m., I found the roads were slick and treacherous and there were a number of small accidents locally during the day from the slippery ice.