White Fang trots right through the rain racing down the boulevard. It’s as if she’s navigating a mountain stream. She stops occasionally to chomp at puddles, an instinctive stab at wild salmon. So far, nothing, though I’m glad she realizes the value of fresh fish … all those Omega oils and all.
“Good girl, try not to drown,” I urge her, as she prances along, her tail a pom-pon, a Roman plume. As a husky, she’s bred for rough sledding, which makes her an excellent selection for life in a Los Angeles suburb.
What a wet year it’s been, right? The clover is high and there are little toy lambs in the shop windows, replacing all those creepy socialist elves.
FYI, I have no use for lambs really, unless they come with mint jelly and the scalloped potatoes that I dream about every night.
Meanwhile, our Januarys have become a clinic in puritan self-denial, which I’ve never been much good at. All these puerile diets and “dry January” proclamations.
Friends and family announce them as if joining the clergy, somberly telling us: “Yep, I’m going dry in January — and maybe all year long.”
Good for you. Why don’t you just bang your head with a shovel while you’re at it. Why don’t you eliminate every tiny pleasure from your life — work out constantly, shun butter, avoid bread, become the sort of person I’ve always been (the dull kind nobody likes to dance with).
Anyway, that’s what January will do if you’re not careful. Proceed accordingly.
Sure, we should all aspire to improvement and renewal — but be real about it. For the next few weeks, the pool at the Y will be packed, and then these priests and priestesses of self-improvement will fade away, leaving swimming lanes for grouchy old grinds like me…stroke, stroke, stroke, stroke.…
See, life isn’t public proclamations. It’s quiet little promises you make to yourself. “Ugh, I don’t feel like working out today but I will.” Or, “Ugh, I just can’t go to work today but I will.”
Smile! Because that’s not such a bad life — stroke, stroke, stroke. Smile, because the undertaker is waiting.
You know who doesn’t make New Year’s resolutions? Kids, the happiest people I know. They just carry on messing up the family room, not making their beds, eating everything in sight.
And that’s why the sassy little squirts are the happiest people we know.
Take Puddles, my grandson. At 15 months, he has life figured out. Puddles plays with toy trains all day, particularly the little wooden ones, just like the ones I played with 60 years ago. Some things are timeless.
Little boys, for instance.
Long live these simple wooden tracks, linked together with pine apostrophes that fit together like husband and wife, never needing batteries, always good to go.
That’s the way I am: I don’t require batteries. My fuel source? Cold domestic beer and Buffalo wings — maybe a slab of meatloaf — and endless football games all weekend long.
Must drive you non-fans nuts, all this football. For me, it’s a sermon; it tweaks my soul. I find it restorative in ways I can’t even explain.
Some people feel that way about Jane Austen. Some people seek solace in Biblical passages or homemade pie.
As you may have noticed, I am my own Scripture.
So I continue to find deep meaning in the NFL’s overfed apostles, who try to knock each other silly for three hours once a week. I’m a little odd, no doubt. But then again, aren’t you?
For me, football is storybook outcomes, long shots, bubble screens, chubby dudes going topless in angry sub-zero weather.
“Look Ma, no shirt! Go Bears!”
It is the greatest live theater we have, if you measure such things in cornball smiles. Sure, Shakespeare had his moments, but he never attracted 60,000 moronic and screaming acolytes. Or, maybe he did. I was just a kid then, working the mines dawn to dusk. So who remembers?
I forgive football for too many things, perhaps. Honestly, baseball and basketball are much safer obsessions. So is knitting.
For whatever reason, football feeds the beast in us. It toes the line between precision and chaos. It lacquers the winter landscape in good times. It helps us roar a little.
“Should we really feed the beast?” you ask. Probably not.
Should we shun silly celebration?
That’s my point. Roar a little. Keep the undertaker waiting.
Coming Saturday: What’s with all these pregnancies?
Love this. All of life’s good things in moderation is a recipe for being as happy as adults are able to be. You are so right about kids. They just live in the moment, enjoy each event as it happens, and never stress about tomorrow. This applies to dogs, too. Maybe that should be our collective New Year’s Resolution: Swim your laps, but enjoy your buffalo wings too. And football, of course. Thanks for another pithy, laughter-filled day-brightener!
Caroll, you always zero in on the important parts so well. Yes, we have to live a little. Otherwise, what’s the point? I came across someone on social media bragging that she skipped New Year’s Eve, went to the gym. Fine, I guess. But there are some people who haven’t had a fun day in their lives. That’s not something to be proud of. Life is for living. Cheers!
Say it ain’t so! Dry January? How about One Dry Tuesday in September?
I have committed your retort to dry/diet/no fun January to memory. I’m ready to happily proclaim to the next person who tells me about it, “Why don’t you just bang yourself in the head with a shovel while you’re at it . . .” Still laughing.
Also, and may I say this is a much better way to look at life and swimming, the maxim should be, “Stroke, glide . . ., Stroke, glide . . . ” Because life (and swimming) is about hard work, but it’s better when you allow that hard work to propel you through life (and the water).
Happy New Year, Chris!
“Why don’t you just bang yourself in the head with a shovel while you’re at it . .” yes !!!!
You cracked me up again, Chris! A shovel to the head!!! Hilarious!!!
The only folks who are eternally happy besides kiddies…..are dogs!!
Sometimes cats as well but not often!!
Best wishes for the best of everything for you and your family — In this new year!
Perhaps only in January is the uncertain weight of rain’s aftermath sodden mood great enough to inspire these heated flareups of the spirit. Though there is a price to be paid for everything, nature being the cash register gal that she is, one doesn’t know while in the queue when you’ll be at the checkout counter, so it makes sense to put stuff in the basket you can consume “en route”. And then, of course, there’s always rush hour on the freeway going home– like much of life: slow death. The bottom line? The old saw, “Don’t Postpone Joy”. That makes more sense than ever in January…and maybe 2026….though much of the giddy, unbridled joy of Spring comes from things that have waited…it is a puzzlement, as the King Of Siam was wont to say. A football sage during the playoffs might just punt, hoping for an early Spring….