No resolutions

“Broken writing hammer”

    ROOFTOP – I don’t know how many New Year rooftop articles I’ve written, but it’s been a bunch. Let’s see, this is will be the 32nd year of the column, so I just imagine there have been about that many. Again, my math skills stagger. 

Before joining you up here this morning, I checked the archives to see what I wrote about at the beginning of last year. It was one of those meandering pieces, only longer. The crux of it all was that, in order to lose my double chin, I was not going to eat anything until I got down to the weight I wanted to be. One of those New Year’s Resolution things.  http://markhayterscolumn.blogspot.com/2011_01_01_archive.html

Here’s a line from the article: “The good news is, in a month or two, neither of us will notice my neck. That’s ‘cause it’s gonna shrink big time. It’ll have a single layer. Like a Lorna Doone. I like Lorna Doones.”

Interestingly enough, that was the last time I wrote the words “Lorna” and “Doone” together in a sentence. I wrote ‘em separately hundreds of times.

Less interesting is the fact that I fasted for about 10 hours that day last year. Too many leftover Christmas snacks. Santa! The man’s a fiend. So, here I sit, five pounds heavier than this time last year. Resolutions, humbug.    

So, this morning there will be no resolutions. None. Resolutions are the fuel of depression.  Mark Twain said that about tapioca, but it also applies to resolutions. Not only that, but it provides me with a word for the New Year which will not appear in any of my writings -- tapioca. I think I can go a year without that.

 I think it’s safe to say that each of us wants to do a little better in 2012 than we did in 2011. No one up here is thinking, “You know, I think I’d like to disappoint myself this year. Really smell up the corner where I live.” Is anyone thinking that? Put your hand down, Phil. Yeah, that was cute.

No, we all hope to do better. And, I’m off to a decent start, I must say. A couple of minutes before I climbed up here, Kay yelled at me from the living room: “Sweetie, I need your help moving furniture.” So, I went down there and she walked off. No explanation. I took it as a sign that I needed to move stuff… so I did. When she returned she said, “What are you doing?” -- Chasing Batman. What does it look like I’m doing?

That’s what I thought to say, but didn’t ‘cause I wanna be better this year. I said, “I’m moving stuff. You don’t like the coffee table the way it is? Here, I’ll move it at an angle. See? Is that what you want?” She said, “No, I want it in the guest room.” -- Ballistic did I go? No, I wanna be nice this year, so I moved the thing.

After I got all of that settled I hurried up here to be with you guys.  Oh, and good news. We can have a bunch of nighttime roofsits this year, ‘cause Santa got me a pack of eight LED flashlights. Eight! LED stands for Lloyd E. Dapper, the guy who thought to put tiny lights all together into one really bright light. Anyway, we’ve got a bunch of flashlights to share, thanks to Santa… and Lloyd. 

Second thought, we may not have many opportunities to sit on the roof or anywhere else. According to the Mayans, Armageddon occurs this year. Or something like it. Hey, I’ve seen the movie. It’s pretty powerful stuff. Truth is, the Mayans didn’t say the Apocalypse or Acropolis was coming this year. It’s just that this happens to be the last year on their projected calendar… so someone says, ‘cause I can’t read the thing. Chance is the person making up the calendar broke his writing hammer at 2012. That’s what I’m thinking.

I’m also thinking that it’s time we all climb down. We’ve accomplished about as much as we can for now. No resolutions, no tapioca, no writing hammer, but thumbs up to fleecy pants and LED flashlights. I’ve got eight of ‘em. We’ll give ‘em a workout this year. What say? – Next time.

END

To view Mark and Brad's review of La Mariposa Restaurant click on photo below.