Happy Holidays!

[wordswordswords]

May I add a belated Happy New Year here?

I'm sorry I haven't been around much. I'm not Twittering or even Facebooking. I've never signed on for Twitter and my Facebook appearances are pretty much limited to occasionally playing a game.

I've been busy with moving. It should be old hat for me since I've moved many times already, but after 26 years in one apartment, my moving skills had got rusty.

In the last week or so my cat was sick, and there had to be a housecall from a vet and a trip to another vet, and now there will be a couple of additional vet trips.

Anyway, those are my excuses, for what they're worth.

Wyndham, I'm so sorry about your deployment! I don't know if it's good news or bad news that the US is sending more troops to Afghanistan. It's just too bad you're being sent.

I hope 2010 will treat everybody well--with good health and good luck and everything else that is good.

[RobertGraves]

...and wishes of the season to you Words.

I have decided to say twenty ten rather than two thousand and ten. You?

[Tenarke]

I haven’t really figured out how I am going to pronounce it. I am still struggling with the fact that 2010 has arrived at all. If it has, then this July will bring with it my 80th birthday and I am still trying to get my mind around that fact.

How the devil is this happening to me?

When I am quite done with denying its existence I will address how to pronounce it.

However, for the rest of you young’uns, please go ahead and have a happy one.

Don’t mind me.

[RobertGraves]

Crikey Tenarke! I am half that and wondering where the time flew!

[Wyndham]

Yes, Happy New Year everybody. I haven't been around much, but I've been pretty busy tying up lose ends. Left for a holiday on Boxing day. The wife and I (and our Lab Alice) spent ten days in a rented house on Long Island. Odd time to go, but Lisa had always wanted to go there, and we wanted some place we could take the dog so it seemed like the thing to do. Very pleasant and quite relaxing -- not at all like our usual 24/7 see everything possible ordeals. Woods were full of deer, which struck me as odd, considering its only 90 miles from Manhattan. Nearly lost Alice twice when she took off like a rocket after them.

So, I'm leaving on Monday. Probably won't be able to get back in touch for a while, but will have internet access.

Thanks for the well wishes, and hope you all have a very happy New Year, Tenarke especially.

[RobertGraves]

Good luck, young man!

[Wyndham]

Thank you Robert. I have always had good luck, truly.

I'm halfways looking forward, and half apprehensive that I won't measure up.

Not a good augury, actually. I consult Canadian military history, and I recall the few surviving members of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, at the Somme, sitting up in a field hospital and asking the adjutant if the Colonel was pleased. Issue was that they were worried whether they'd acted like real soldiers, in the tradition of the British Army. They'd just suffered 97% casualties.

Now, that's not me, but I do hope to do well.

You guys take care. I'll be in touch.

[RobertGraves]

A sense of humour will take you a long way in the zones you're about to inhabit, one would imagine.

Best of Canadian luck to you!

[wordswordswords]

Best of luck to you, Wyndham, as you set forth. I hope you'll have the easiest possible time of it there.

I seem to have started saying twenty-ten without even thinking about it. Now that I've thought about it, though, I'll stick with twenty-ten. It's shorter.

Brevity is the soul of wit, etc.

[pinkozcat]

Happy days for Christmas 2011 and a successful 2012 to all those who still visit ... and to those who no longer come here.

I am about to spend the first Christmas in my new apartment; something to look forward to.

[wordswordswords]

Happy Holidays to you too, pinkozcat--and anyone else who's here--and congratulations on your new apartment!

Now you can have the fun of finding places to put everything.