Coasting and Rolling Through 2015

How was 2015 for y'all? For me 2015 brought some welcome ups and an unexpected down.

UP ~ 2015 began as I was, at last, comfortable wearing regular shoes after dealing with a slow-healing flesh wound on my left foot through much of 2014.

UP~ I'd had indication, over Christmas 2014, that I was one of several beneficiaries of an aged aunt's estate in England. My initial reaction was that my share would probably cover a nice meal out - if we were lucky. I was wrong. When I eventually received the money it was enough to go a long way towards replacing our 10-year-old car with an almost new one, which we did during the summer.

DOWN~In March I accidentally stumbled and fell when out and about in New Mexico, on a trip celebrating husband's birthday. I'd been taking photographs at a solar observatory in the mountains, not looking where I was putting my feet. No bones broken, but falling with throat coming down very heavily on the rounded edge of my 35mm camera left me unable to speak. A visit to the emergency clinic in Alamogordo resulted in CT scan, which resulted in further investigations by regular doctor, ENT specialist and hospital back in Oklahoma.

UP ~ All was well that ended well.

UP ~ Sometime in June I heard that I was to be one of many beneficiaries of yet another estate of a relative in England, this time that of a cousin who had died suddenly, unexpectedly in late October 2014.

DOWN-ish ~ This second windfall-to-be is still to come owing to a series of "complexities", according to lawyers dealing with it. The situation has now begun to feel quite unreal.

So, I've experienced several positive personal outcomes for which to be truly thankful.

Husband Anyjazz has been generally well, thank goodness. We attended his High School class 60th Reunion in Kansas in September, met many others who are also weathering their senior years with aplomb and optimism.

Husband became great-grandfather for a third time in May when a grandson and wife welcomed a baby boy, Milo, born during one of Oklahoma's famous hail storms with tornado attached.

Son-in-law Jeff, though, has had a very nasty, worrying year - a real "annus horribilis"! The latest of several health issues he has experienced, including two surgeries, has been due to a fall, from a table, while cleaning a light-fitting. He fell heavily onto their hard-tiled kitchen floor, shattering one heel bone to smithereens. After months of wearing an horrendous contraption on his foot and leg, screwed into his bones, he's at last in a slightly less horrible cast-like support, hoping that in early in 2016 he'll be rid of that too, and learning to walk again free and clear of any contraption but, perhaps, a cane...and walking, we trust, into a much happier, calmer year than this has been for him, and for his wife.

And so...how was your 2015?


UPDATE~ Should've included these - new arrivals during 2015:

 Baby Milo (great-grandson)

 Thanks to Auntie Mary great-grand-car!

Sundries for Saturday and Sundray

Proverbs to Live By, a little book unearthed by husband, during an unusual tidying attack, threw up three proverbs (from Italy, Japan and Germany respectively) which immediately brought to my mind a news story popular during the festive season just gone (think films - think "The Interview")

A book whose sale's forbidden all men rush to see, and prohibition turns one reader into three.

One dog yelping at nothing will set ten thousand straining at their collars.


A man shows his character by what he laughs at.

What will 2015 have to offer TV and film fans? To my own taste, not a lot, if lists now available are anything to go by. There'll be sequels to three Young Adults in Dystopia series: The Hunger Games, Divergent, The Maze Runner, I'll probably make the effort to see those. A science fiction film, The Martian , based on a novel by Andy Weir has possibilites.

Well away from dystopia and science fiction, a BBC/PBS mini-series Wolf Hall, based on the novel by Hilary Mantel will be a must-see for me, due to inclusion of Damien Lewis in the cast - he's playing Henry VIII - a far cry from his roles in Homeland and Band of Brothers.

Wolf Hall

England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the King dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The Pope and most of Europe oppose him. Into this impass steps Thomas Cromwell: a wholly original man, a charmer, and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people, and implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?
- Written by mccutcj2

We'll certainly make an effort to see what will be the final seasons of couple of TV series we've followed, on TV or via DVD : Mad Men and Justified. David Letterman is due to retire from The Late Show in May, his last week or so should be worth a look-in, and it'll be interesting to see how Stephen Colbert changes the flavour of the show - or not.

 "Kindly take us to your president!"

 "I remember when the wheel was just in science fiction stories"

Poem by Billy Collins, Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003.

Man in Space

All you have to do is listen to the way a man
sometimes talks to his wife at a table of people
and notice how intent he is on making his point
even though her lower lip is beginning to quiver,

and you will know why the women in science
fiction movies who inhabit a planet of their own
are not pictured making a salad or reading a magazine
when the men from earth arrive in their rocket,

why they are always standing in a semicircle
with their arms folded, their bare legs set apart,
their breasts protected by hard metal disks.

HERE'S TO 2015!

"No one ever regarded the First of January with indifference. It is that from which all date their time, and count upon what is left. It is the nativity of our common Adam."
- Charles Lamb


What can be said in New Year rhymes,
That's not been said a thousand times?
The new years come, the old years go,
We know we dream, we dream we know.
We rise up laughing with the light,
We lie down weeping with the night.
We hug the world until it stings,
We curse it then and sigh for wings.
We live, we love, we woo, we wed,
We wreathe our prides, we sheet our dead.
We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,
And that's the burden of a year.
- Ella Wheeler Wilcox


"We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but for potential."
- Ellen Goodman

2015 - More of the Same ?

It seemed to me, more than usual, that on reading some psychic and astrological predictions for 2015 those doing the predicting are not being very brave this year. Or perhaps the reason is that the only appropriate overall prediction is really "more of the same"...but that's boring, so writers pad it out with more, and different, words!





We can be 99.9% certain that the world will continue to heat up a wee bit more during the coming year. Winter will prove a little more extreme temperature-wise . Climate upset is very gradual, at times hardly noticeable unless one can clearly look back some 40 years or so.

More of the same.

Troubles in the Middle East will continue...they always have, and always will. Flashpoint and cast members may change, but sadly "the song remains the same".

More of the same.

US politicians will remain mostly in gridlock.

More of the same.

Some economies will teeter , some water and food shortages will arise.

More of the same.

In the USA many and varied distractions will fill online websites, TV talk shows, blogs and newspapers, often pushing what's truly important to a stray forgotten paragraph, buried.

More of the same.

Some "celeb" or other will utter non-PC commentary, or undue criticism of some other "celeb", or have a wardrobe malfunction, or write a book or make a film in inordinately bad taste, and thereby cause a momentary furor in social media, while achieving lots of free publicity for themselves.

More of the same.

Facebook and other social media sites will continue to leech readers from blogs until their lifeblood all but dries up - but some bloody-minded bloggers will continue scribbling - and more strength to 'em!

More of the same.

What I hope will definitely NOT be more of the same:

Passenger aircraft missing without trace, or being shot down, or crashing for any reason - all lives lost, as in 2014's three tragedies: MH370, MH17 & Air Asia 8501.


A sorely needed change I hope might happen:

Drone use and torture will begin to be seriously discredited, through public opposition to both, as well as to police violence against civilians.