Just when the days begin to grow a little longer, we’re faced with cold drizzly rain, just like they have in the place that I escaped from. You can tell me that it’s “good for the lake,” or make up any other excuse you like but I didn’t sign on for this weather and after living in this climate for more than 30 years, my comfort zone only spans about seven degrees F … and that goes for my cats, too.

Like everyone else (except three-year-olds) I marvel at the alacrity with which 2012 has passed. When a new year comes, I always feel like I’ve gotten away with something, like I’ve faked out the fates one more time. I guess we really slipped by this time, what with the Mayan predictions that it would have all ended last week. (I don’t know why Mayans are credited with such special gifts of prediction, anyway, since they apparently didn’t see their own end coming). It’s good that 2012 is passing, though. It’s gotten all messed up and tired and we could use a fresh start. So here’s to 2013, 12 months that we will surely mess up in short order.

The sky is blue, the roses are blooming (and so is a really dumb azalea in my garden that doesn’t know it’s in the wrong country), the poinsettias are two stories tall, humming birds are swarming around any blossoms they can find and thousands of birds are itching to be counted in the Audubon Society’s Christmas Count.