The Sadness of Sunday Afternoon

Another sick day here, another day of things not quite getting done-- hello, laundry, you know I'm looking at you, spilling out of the hamper, taunting me.

Image from this blog page

And it was Sunday, which starts out gloriously as a weekend day, but ends up as a lowly school night.  I find there is something particularly sad about this slide from frivolity into practicality.  Even if there are chores to be done,  errands to be run, a Sunday morning off work  is usually full of promise, with the whole day spread out before me like a fresh sheet of paper waiting to be filled with random doodles and, occasionally, a spark of genius. 

Today there was early coffee and the Sunday papers(best papers of the week): The Sunday New York Times, and, also,the local Arizona Republic, which can be read in its entirety in under an hour, but carries the store ads and, especially, the coupons.  I feel we got a good Sunday Republic if the total value of the coupons I clipped exceeds the cost of the paper.  By that humble standard, today was a winner.  The Times is always a winner, just because of the sheer luxury of getting a magazine inside the paper-- and every few weeks, two.  Another way today gets into the win column:  The "T" style magazine arrived, and even Delia enjoyed it.  She's at that age, with one foot firmly in childhood, and the other drifting  into the girly world of shoes and clothes and jewelry.  She spent as much time poring over the high end retail ads as she did looking at the Walmart Toy Guide which arrived in today's Republic.  It wasn't the real toy guide, the thick one that usually comes the weekend before Thanksgiving, but it was a good 16 to 20 pages of Holiday toy preview.  A bracing reminder that Halloween has officially passed and we have entered into the official shopping period.  

After the languid early paper-reading period, the day seems to speed up somehow, and before you know it, it's lunch time.  I make the first vague, sweeping announcement that there better be some homework done so that we don't get down to the wire on Thursday night at nine o'clock trying to complete worksheets and computer lessons.  But then, I'm still reading the paper, and thinking about how I can sprinkle the chores and errands I'd planned for today throughout the week so that I can hang on to the weekend and maybe fit in a nap.  Then it's suddenly three o'clock.  My homework reminder gets a little more strident, but remains unheeded, until I decide to start dinner around five, trying to clear some of the debris of the day on my way to the kitchen.  It's a big enough apartment, but somehow, the clutter piles up on days off, so that there are little projects in every room.  Then I hear, "I can't pick up now, I have to do my homework.  You tollllddd me I had to start it today, so I am.  And anyway, she was the one who left that there."  

The whining has begun, right on cue-- that's how we know it is officially a school night:  there is whining at dinner time and a trillion requests for assistance with bathing and reading and vocabulary and fractions-- all while I am trying to chop or brown or mix something.  Yep, the weekend is over.  Tomorrow will only be that much harder if the groundwork for the morning isn't laid tonight, so you have to go with it, be a responsible adult and supervise and assist and pick up-- because, seriously, no one will admit to having left the markers on your bedroom floor and the scissors and construction paper in the living room.  And no one will admit to setting up a picnic, complete with dishes and play food, for four favorite dollies and ten of their closest stuffed and furry friends, under the dinner table.  "I don't care who did it,"  I whine right back, "Just pick it up before dinner, or don't be surprised to find your toys in the trash."  Yeah, I'm that mom, the one who consistently threatens to just lose it and throw everything away.  There is a scramble, and most of it gets picked up, but I still find myself reaching for a toy croissant and bunch of plastic grapes when I clear the table after dinner.  

See what I mean about Sundays?  Some time between three and five, when you're not really looking-- because maybe you did go out and do those errands, or you finally dozed off there on the couch for a few minutes, or you watched a movie you've seen a hundred and eight times but always get sucked in by when you stumble across it-- some time in the late afternoon, the weekend is over and you're plunged back into the demands of the working week.  It's like looking around at a party and realizing someone you wanted to say good-bye to has already left.  You missed your chance, and so, even if it was a great party and you had an awesome time, it got stepped on a little, just there at the end.  That's the sadness of a Sunday afternoon.

The Week on a Page

I need to tell you I've got a cold.  It is a simple change of seasons affair, I suppose, but I take no comfort in that fact, because to me, any cold, even the slightest irritation of the throat or plugging of the nasal passages and sinuses is a personal assault to be received with a complete lack of grace and dignity.  having a cold makes me cranky:  Why me, Lord?  Why am I so accursed? Picture me, if you will, shaking my fist at the heavens with one hand, and clutching a used tissue in the other. 

I mention this, not as a play for sympathy, but as a point of information.  I started the blog post a day thingy yesterday, and today, my one day streak is threatened by a nasty virus.  I was actually coming down with this most of the week, but there was no time to try to fight it, so today I am really feeling sick, and yes, more than a tad sorry for my own self.  But,  I am soldiering on.  With just a few hours left on the clock, I've dragged myself from the sofa, still clutching a tissue, and stopped shaking my fist at the heavens long enough to write a quick post. 

My plan was to give an account of the week, so I'm going to dive in, letting you know that I worked three days, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, at my post office job, which you can read more about here. Those were also school days, of course, and Tuesday was our "early day" when I drag the kids out of slumber an hour early and Fiona and I hustle Delia to school for her chorus class, walk home again and then head back to school an hour later for Fiona to get to kindergarten. 

Speaking of kindergarten, my days off were spent helping with Fiona's class trip to a farm, and at the "Fall Party" which included pumpkin painting and a healthy snack.  The journey to the farm, which is about forty freeway minutes across town from the elementary school, was loud, but blessedly uneventful.  The farm visit included a chance to pick vegetables (we got some really nice cucumbers, zucchinis and radishes, which we have eaten several nights this week), a chance to feed and pet baby pigs, chicks, and lambs (though the goats, which are known to bite, are off-limits), a chance to find our way through a corn maze, (which finishes off in a "corn classroom" where we learned that corn is in everything and that each strand of corn silk corresponds to a kernel of corn on the ear) and, of course, a chance to bounce in a bouncy house-- so, all the regular farm activities you'd expect.  After lunch, a mandatory stop at a "porta-potty," and some more good old-fashioned running around, the kids each picked a pumpkin from the "patch" and re-boarded the bus for the forty minute ride back to school.  Some of it was fun, and the kids had a good, but smelly, time and all of them made it back, though several head counts were required.  On the whole, it could have been much, much worse.

The pumpkins were put to good use Friday, at the class shin-dig, where the kids applied paint and stickers to customize their farm-picked friends, then set them in the sun to dry while they (the kids, not the pumpkins) sucked juice from boxes and ate clementines cleverly decked out as mini jack-o-lanterns by the extremely efficient room mother.  I am a less efficient, some-time room helper, and this time I was tasked with "mummifying" the juice boxes with white duct tape and  applying "googly eyes" to give them a holiday feel, even though this was a "fall party," totally unrelated to that pagan celebration, Halloween.  Did I mention that there were 55 juice boxes to mummify and eyeball?  Did I mention that it took me the better part of three hours to open the industrial sized box of juice boxes, take off the straws so the kids wouldn't feel like we'd purposely frustrated them (though, for a moment, my inner evil twin considered leaving them on, under the duct tape, just to see what would happen to 55 frustrated, thirsty kindergartners) then wrap each box for the desired mummy-like effect? 

By the time I got to googly eyes, my fingers were sore and I had twenty minutes before I had to leave the house and transport said juice to the school.  To my credit, I was able to stick eyeballs on roughly half the boxes... I made sure that Mrs. Efficiency's little girl and her whole table got juice with eyeballs, so that she could claim to have had the full party experience.  The kids who got juice without eyes were told that they had "mystery juice," and it was their job to guess the flavor... that went over pretty well, I think.  Everyone had fun, got plenty to drink, and went home with a paint-covered pumpkin and hands that smelled nicely of clementine juice.  One little girl briefly got upset about paint dripping on her pumpkin and ruining the face, complete with eyelashes, that she had lovingly designed.  The kindergarten teacher (of whom I am a loyal fan) walked over, asked missy what the problem was and then told her to reel it in and stop being such a drama queen.  "We're moving on," she said, "wash up and join us."  My thought is that it's not a really good party unless someone winds up crying and splashing water on their face-- at least that's what I learned in college.

Thursday was Halloween, which entailed a quick change worthy of a big Broadway show.  It was a work day, so the girls were at the Boys and Girls Club until 5:45 and their brother was due to pick them up for trick or treating at six.  Fiona ran around in her underwear for a couple of minutes before getting her ballerina gear on and Delia got half-way into her owl costume, then sat down and started making a rubber band bracelet which she adamantly swore must be completed immediately so that she could give it to her brother's girl friend.  That night.  Really.  Tears ensued, threatening to ruin the owl mask I had cut out of construction paper and glued together.  Luckily for Delia, her brother had more patience than I did, and he talked her down, and into the rest of her costume.  For the record, he used all the soothing tricks I had used on him years before...

Of course, this would have been a spectacular post if I had taken pictures of any of these events (not work at the post office, maybe, but the stuff with the kids, for sure).  I have a picture of Fiona on the farm in my phone, but no idea how to get it into the computer and onto the page.  And I really wish I'd gotten a picture of those juice box mummies.  The rest of the week whirled by too quickly for me to capture it on film, though I'm beginning to wonder if things really happen if they're not posted on Facebook... But that's a topic for another post.

Na No... What Now?

This month (yeah, it's November-- for those of you still in a candy-induced haze from last night's Halloween festivities) is officially designated as National Novel Writing Month, known by those in the know as NaNoWriMo.  The idea is that, if you write a bit every day, you can produce a 50,000 word novel in the course of a month.  Why they have chosen the busiest shopping month of the year is beyond me-- perhaps as an antidote to the rampant commercialism that has pervaded our holiday season, perhaps as a distraction for those who are tired of NFL football, perhaps-- but I digress.  You get the idea:  write every day and you can finally stop whining that you have a story to tell, and not only would it be an awesome best-selling behemoth of a novel, it would be a kick-ass, yet romantic and hilarious movie as well.  I see Channing Tatum and Emma Stone as leads.

But don't think that this is an announcement that I am planning to write a novel-- not this year, at least.  No, the thing is, other writing forms are riding the NaNo coattails to encourage all sorts of artistic expression.   One of those hangers-on is the art form known as the blog, hence the even hipper, though more cryptic, NaBloPoMo-- National Blog Post Month.  To play this game, you sign up at BlogHer and pledge to post every day on your blog for the entire month.  "What's in it for me?" you might ask-- and well you should, because, do you even have a blog?  Should you blog?  Is now the time to start?  I'll leave those deeply personal questions up to you and get back to what's really important here: me. 

I have decided to try to push myself to be more productive with my writing and this NaBloPoMo thing, despite the ridiculous name and how hard it is to stop and capitalize every other letter as I type, seems like a good way to do it.  I have recently, somewhat to my own surprise, identified myself as a writer when I met new people who innocently asked, "What do you do?"  Of course they didn't ask, "what do you do for a living?" to which I would have had to answer, "Me? Why, I am a gosh-darned fine part time postal counter employee in a bike shop in a strip mall next to a mid-sized supermarket." When I say I'm a writer though, people immediately follow up with "Oh, what do you write?" And what do I say?  Well, I get all mealy-mouthed and mumbly, and I roll out a gem like:
"Oh, you know, essays... stuff about, you know, being a mom...like,being a person, you know, oh.. I have a blog."  Yikes.

So, ahead of the New Year's Resolution game, I'm going to commit to writing every day, and since the possibility of public shame is an effective motivational tool for me, I am going public with this NaNoBlo thing so that I will at least feel like someone will hold me to this.  I realize that my loyal fan base is comprised of my handful of tolerant and wonderful friends and family members, so I know, deep down, that the risk is low-- I mean really, the possibility that up to ten people will know that I slack off and fail sometime around November 5?  I shudder!  I really do. 

But seriously-- I need a kick in the butt, and I really do want to write beyond the confines of this blog, so I'm going to use the daily commitment as a way to make myself step over the mess in our apartment, ignore Bejeweled Blitz and Words With Friends, and restrain myself from checking Facebook, for at least an hour a day.  I want you, anyone out there reading, to call me on this if I don't follow through.  I think it's NaNoBloPo legal to take weekends off, but today, on this first day, I'm gonna say that I am going to post every day.  You don't have to read, but maybe you could just check in and see if I'm writing. 
Now, let's go through the kids' candy and see if we can skim off a few decent pieces before they notice!  See you tomorrow...

Goldilocks Territory

This summer seemed eternal in Arizona, and I've got a gigantic list of things I've been putting off until cooler weather came around.  Like going for a walk or anything else that involves being outside for longer than five minutes. We passed the mark of 100 days over 100 degrees two months ago, but had to soldier on. You know what they say, "everyone talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it." 

This picture is from Deviant Art.

But the hot weather has finally broken here, and I am beginning to remember the better aspects of Southwest living. It especially helps to see snow at the higher elevations in the Rockies already, knowing all the while that we are heading out of our extreme weather as other regions are heading in.  We're still hitting highs of mid nineties in the late afternoons, but the difference between that and highs in the low hundreds is kind of amazing.   It means you can breathe outside in the afternoon without feeling like you are somehow inside a preheated oven.  It is cool enough overnight now that we can sleep with the windows open and feel the natural breeze and listen to people and traffic, rather than the forced air and the incessant hum of the air conditioner.  We're almost in Goldilocks territory:  not too hot, not too cold, just right.

It's not the same the same as autumn in New England, certainly. And nothing makes me wish for the cool winds and turning leaves more that the profusion of seriously cute sweaters and boots on sale at the mall and online.  But there's really no point.  I probably own all the sweaters I'll ever need while even if we live here until I am reaching for a cardigan in the old folks home. And the idea of putting on boots, no matter how incredibly adorable they are, just makes me hot and tired.  It is no small consolation then, that I just scored five pairs of flip-flops and a bottle of pedicure-perfect red nail polish for under 10.00 at my local Walgreen's, because even though we wear them year-round here in the desert, the "sandals" go into the clearance sale anyway.  Soon it will be time to put the blankets back on the beds and stop sleeping on top of the sheets.  We may actually pull out the comforter by Thanksgiving, and then I can enjoy the four or five months of the year that it looks like I really made my bed after I got out of it.  This must be what people mean when they talk about enjoying the natural rhythm of the seasons.  

When I think about the relief I felt when it finally cooled down, I realize that it is very much like the recognition that spring is finally coming back East, when you step out in March or April and feel that the air is soft and sweet, instead of cold and bitter.  Mike said something similar-- leaving the windows open the evenings when he grew up in Buffalo used to mean that summer was finally coming, but here, it means that summer is finally going.  And we don't mind.  

Completely unrelated...
I am happy to say I have a post on another website, The Equals Record.  This is a piece about moving to Maine that didn't appear here originally, so it might be new to some of you.  I have had a couple of other pieces accepted around the web as well, so I will let you know when you can look for those.  For those of you who already followed the cranky link on Facebook, thank you for your support!  Thanks for reading.  I'll be writing more in the meantime. 

Maybe Next Year, Genius

This image is from this blog.

So, yesterday, I have to say,  was a bit of a disappointment.  The list of MacArthur genius grants came out, and again, I wasn't on it.  In case you were left off this list too, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation(familiar names if you watch much PBS programming) awards money, known as "Genius Grants" to talented and creative people every year to invest in their work and productivity.  "Well, lots of people didn't get such a grant," you might say. And yes, only a handful of people a year have a qualified representative of a quietly filthy rich foundation tap them on the shoulder and say, "Hey you, you're lookin' smart.  I mean really smart, so how's about we give you a little dough-re-mi so that you can go off and work on something. Don't worry about expenses or anything, because you just won the smartypants lottery..." I know, I know, but still, it would have been nice, just this once.

This year's winners were especially lucky, because the stipend has gone from half a million dollars to $625,000, which is paid out in quarterly installments over five years. Somehow the words "half a million dollars" still sound like more than $625,000.  I guess the real geniuses say two thirds of a million dollars, which sounds like plenty to me.  Just the word "million" linked with the word "dollars" sounds like a lot more than any number of thousands.   I think this sort of meandering nonsense might be a sign of why the MacArthur people didn't grace me with one of their grants.

The genius grants are draped, if not shrouded, in some secrecy.  The recipients don't apply, but are nominated by an anonymous committee and then chosen by an anonymous selection panel.  The word genius makes it sound like this grant is only given to geeky nerds holed up in laboratories at the top of some university's ivory tower-- and it is given to those people, but it's given to real people too. Real talented people.  Writers, artists, dancers, poets, even philosophers get these things.  I was just reading that Jonathan Lethem, an excellent author from Brooklyn, got the call about his grant five years ago while he was at the car wash.  This is the kind of tidbit that gives me hope-- even people with dirty cars are eligible for the MacArthur grant.  Not only do you not have to do mind-boggling work in utterly unintelligible fields like theoretical physics, you can live in Brooklyn, and have a dirty car.

This image is from here.

This years winners range in age from 32 to 60, and the oldest person to ever receive the grant was 82, meaning I am still in the running, with several good, productive years to go.  This eases the sting of the recent realization that all those lists of "20 under 30" and "30 under 40" and in just half a year, even "40 under 50" are no longer something I can aspire to.  This lifts my spirits as I swill my generic vitamin water and apply for yet another hardship deferment for my student loans.  Another oddly comforting thought:  the awards began the year I graduated high school.  Coincidence?  I prefer to think not.

The idea of the grants, as I understand it, is to give creative, talented people the opportunity to concentrate on their art/science/vocation free from the strain of having to make a living.  Yep, that's right, it's the chance to "quit your day job" if you want to.  One of this year's lucky winners, the very fine author Karen Russell, mentioned that she was happy that she would be able to stop moving from one place to another to take teaching jobs to make a living.  This is a woman who has won literary awards and spent time on the New York Times Bestseller List.  She also mentioned that she might use the money to pay for an emergency root canal, as she hadn't known how she would cover it before she got the call.  Not only is she a literary giant, she really knows how to live it up! Other recipients mention paying rent, paying student loans and paying other artists who work with them.  It seems that recognizing talent might just be good for the economy.  Maybe some other foundations will get the giving bug...

I think the only thing really standing in my way here is lack of achievement, but hey, that's still possible, right? Knowing that some MacArthur Foundation scout is out there, looking for someone to bless with this recognition can be the inspiration I need to write every day.  I've got to get to work now, so I can be ready to get the call...

The Lovely Sounds of Thank You and You're Welcome

Last week, I spent the last three dollars and sixty-six cents of our nutritional assistance-- also known as Foodstamps. We have been in the program for a year, after multiple weeks of spending hours on hold for multiple telephone interviews which qualified us for a no-expenses-paid  trip to the DES office where my husband and I and our two little girls waited five and a half hours to be asked for I.D., photographed, and fingerprinted, so that we could solemnly swear that we were poor enough to receive family nutritional assistance and federally subsidized health insurance for the girls.  Not that we had been singled out for such treatment.  We waited those hours in a large holding pen, er, waiting room, crowded with other similarly eligible Arizonans.  Then, until last month, we got a couple of hundred dollars a month  loaded on a debit card which could only be used for food. It had a distinctive Arizona sunset skyline on the front that was instantly recognizable in the store, so there could be no mistake about the person using it and how they got it.   But, it helped to keep us from starving, so in retrospect, I guess the wait, and the way I felt when I used the card, was worth it.  

When I got my current job, which is part time, at the state's minimum wage, we submitted the changes in our income, by mail, not in person, (though there was a twenty minute telephone interview which came after  I stayed on hold for an hour and 57 minutes, hearing over and over again how important my call was) and were found to be $1.71 over the eligibility limit for assistance.  And so, I spent my last $3.66 on milk and bread and put the card away in my underwear drawer when I got home, just in case we ever need it again. Because really, I never thought I would need it at all, until I did.  

During all the years I worked, I never thought that I would need help buying food.  But when I realized that we could not manage without help, I told myself that all that work had also included those  mysterious "FICA" deductions that seem to take such a bite out of our paychecks.  I told myself that I had "paid in" for a long time, and now for a while, I was going to have to use those benefits... kind of like paying for insurance and then having a medical bill paid.  

I just wrote that like I didn't wrestle with myself and feel inadequate and guilty and shamefully over-educated and foolish about every transaction I made with that desert sunset debit card.  Clearly, I still can't quite get over that:  being the worn-out woman with the hungry kids hanging off the side of the grocery cart, making sure that we weren't buying anything that looked like a treat and feeling like I needed to somehow justify my very existence.  I'm working on it, though.

To say that we lived frugally is an understatement.  We had recently been living the working graduate student life, then the working graduate student life with little children, so we were used to a relatively low standard of living. This last year though, keeping food on the table has been the priority and other things, like haircuts and clothing and shoes and doctor's visits for grown-ups fell completely off the radar.  We got a lot of help from family and friends.  A lot. Of. Help.  If you bought us dinner or groceries, or gave us a ride, or brought us a pizza, or gave things to the girls, or made sure we had gifts at the holidays or took us for coffee, a bagel, and a much needed laugh this year, you know who you are.  I love you all the more for that help and for giving that help without making it obvious that needing help meant we were kinda dumb.  I really love you for that last part.

My mom has said that one of my first sentences was "I can do it myself!" I have never been comfortable asking for help, because I am not someone who feels comfortable needing help.  I love to be able to offer help-- to be helpful-- but I have never been graceful about being the one who is in need. This year, especially, has been about learning to take help gracefully and gratefully.  About learning to say thank you without apologizing at the same time, without feeling like I was just kinda dumb because I didn't have a job and money to manage without the help.  I've been reminded over and over again that people don't help you to make you feel bad, they help you to, you know, help you.

We still struggle, but I'm looking forward to the time when I will be able to offer help again, and offer it the way it was offered to us, casually and openly, and with no strings attached.  Our friends and family have been such wonderful examples, and I've learned from them.  I have learned to say thank you, and really mean it, then let it go when someone says "You're Welcome."  Those are lovely words.  

Image from here 

Happy 5774 Everybody!

From Tablet magazine

So, you know you're one of the chosen people when you get not just one new year, but two.  That's right, Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, is tucked into September every year to give us the chance to reflect and reform and to get a free pass on sweets, especially those made with apples and honey, the customary foods symbolizing the wish for a sweet and happy year to come.  The year (5774) is considered to be the anniversary of man's creation.  The recollection of the ending year that inevitably accompanies the new year is built neatly into the Jewish program, as Rosh Hashanah is ten days before The Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, the day that G-d inscribes the names of those deemed worthy into the Book of Life for the coming year. Since none of us are theology scholars here-- well, I'm not, anyway-- and because I will surely make mistakes, I'm not going to delve any deeper into the religious roots and themes of the holiday, but if you are so inclined, and your new year's program for improvement includes study, you can read more here, on this site, and here.  As regular readers know, this blog is only peripherally about events and people and stuff in the world, so now we'll get to the heart of the matter:  what does Rosh Hashanah mean for me? 

The days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are meant to be a time of reflection, repentance, and forgiveness, to clear the slate for the year ahead.  Of course, as a compulsive reflector who doesn't need a holiday set aside to feel like there are things I could do better, I've already got a list of ways to try to improve 5774.  Here's a small sample:

1.  Let It Go. 
Not just say I'm letting it go, or simply know that letting it go is the right thing to do, but really Let It Go.  What is It?  Well, that depends, but for me, there are kind of a lot of things that seem to cause a sudden swell of bitterness or envy or regret.  Usually these things have to do with the past, or other people, or stuff I can't fix or control.  This year, I'm going to try to recognize them before that bitter taste or ugly word comes into my mouth.  Then I'm going to, you know, Let It Go. 

2.  Remember that the good fortune of others doesn't somehow subtract from my life. 
Sometimes it seems like there is a finite amount of good stuff that can happen, and it all seems to happen to other people.  I have actually heard myself tell other people that envy isn't logical because what someone else has wouldn't have necessarily been mine.  I am hereby telling that to myself:  someone else's money or free time or awesome vacation of which they Face booked several pictures every hour, doesn't take anything away from me.  I need to remember that when I start to feel twitchy about my own situation, wondering what I ever did to get shut out of the good stuff that someone else is getting. 

Next year, maybe I'll try to start working on the idea that the good fortune of others increases the good in the world, so I should be happy about the happiness of others.  Look for more about that in 5775...

3.  Take Responsibility.
Often, I think about things in terms of cause and effect.  When I'm thinking about the causes of difficulties in my life, it is pretty common for me to think about situations or circumstances or people (actually, I especially think of people) that I can blame as the cause of my unhappiness.  This year, I want to try to take responsibility for difficulties when I can, so that I can feel like I can make changes for myself.  To paraphrase, If not me, who?  After all, I can only change my behavior.  I know this, because for years, I have been utterly unsuccessful at changing or controlling how other people act, and frankly, I'm ready to give that right up.  That should leave me some time and energy to work on my own self.  Everything isn't my fault either-- I know that-- but only I can take responsibility for my actions and change them to make me happier. 

These are just the major issues for me.  There are a lot of sub-topics and side issues too convoluted and annoying and painful to go into here.  Not to mention, I'd like to be a little svelter, a little healthier, by 5775.  So there's plenty for me to work on while I try to cut back on the salt, fat and sugar.  And no one is saying I have to be perfect.  We're only human, after all, and this is not the religion in which people are expecting to be nominated for sainthood.  That's why Rosh Hashanah is celebrated every year.  There's always a slate to be cleaned. 

The days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur give us the chance to set up a good new year by Yom Kippur, when the new year's rituals come to a close.  Yom Kippur is a day of fasting and prayer, ending at sundown with a light feast to bring us back into every day life.  Unfortunately there is no mention of champagne, noisemakers, funny hats or other such New Year's revelry in the Torah, but, as long as you don't overdo it or give yourself something you'll need to repent next September, what could it hurt to have a little fun?  Here's to a rockin' 5774!