2015 sucked. Some people had nice things happen to them, of course, but there was so much lousy weather, terrorism, politics and other varieties of tripe out there, I have heard from practically everybody–and said to myself–that I’m glad the year is coming to an end.
My favorite actor, Christopher Lee, passed away over the summer after a long and well distinguished career. I first got to know him from his groundbreaking (for the 1950s) portrayal of Dracula, as did many fans, but his body of work included historical figures such as Jinnah (founder of modern Pakistan), and major roles in (to name a few) Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. He even dabbled in heavy metal music at an age when most people cozy up to Lawrence Welk.
I gave myself the present of a banged up kneecap for my birthday when I decided not to step over a crack in the sidewalk. At least it wasn’t as bad as banging my head and spending weeks with a black eye like a did a couple years ago.
Hershey has apparently decided to discontinue York Pieces (the peppermint and dark chocolate variety). Also, I’ve found lately that Lean Cuisine is recommending that you not prepare their meals in a conventional oven. You’ll microwave everything and like it. Not this chick. I’ve gone this long without a microwave, so you’re out a customer.
I had two pieces of equipment at home which failed because of burned out solenoids. I’d like to know who created solenoids and tell them that they need to go back to the drawing board and come up with a better version.
On the good side, I discovered Scrub Daddy, found a new designer for clothes, rejected about 99 percent of bra companies because they don’t use common sense when designing their products, and read off my car’s manufacturer because they can’t put a transmission mechanic on duty on the weekends.
I was happy to see so much public exposure to bullying awareness. When I was in school, nobody cared if you were bullied, and nobody looks into the aftermath when victims leave the school environment. I’m also happy to see that most people don’t automatically think of an ethnic or religious group as being all this or mostly that. Especially when it comes to current Muslim relations, it’s smart to know that about 98 percent of them are just fine, and really we’re concerned about the two percent who might be radical enough to want to kill everybody. Heck, there are radical Christians and Jews out there, too (not to mention those radical agnostics down the block), but nobody pays attention to them.
On the other hand, we had twelve hours of power outages this past summer, so I had to evacuate and restock the fridge twice. We were lucky, though; one town was without power for nine days.
We had a polar vortex last winter. I remember the days when weather forecasting was cut-out clouds on a paper map and guesswork; now the newscasts have meteorologists and can see Armageddon coming days in advance.
I discovered Game of Thrones and am now watching Breaking Bad. Got to do something while waiting to find out what happened to Jon Snow in the spring.
Halloween saw sixteen trick-or-treaters. That was better than the nine the previous year.
Yes, these are the little things that make up a year. We’ll have more–both good and bad–just like them next year. Maybe things will be a little better or not quite so depressing. We just have to go through it and make things happen.
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