'07 from T-N

Our James Bond year is off to a good start. This morning, I bingoed in Scrabble. The word was P-A-N-C-A-K-E-S. 20 points as a stand-alone, plus an extra 50 for playing all seven of my letters. How could I do such a thing to my own mother? Well, she should know better than to leave the 5-point K vulnerable. Trounce and trounce A-L-I-K-E.

The next Scrabble challenge is yours, Murky. To reference a “three-toed sloth,” I only have A-Is for you. I was fortunate to spend my waning ’06 days in Boston, flitting from sushi to the New England Aquarium (zut a lors!), mostly on Mr. Words’ dime. Not only did he wait patiently while I gawked at the short bigeye, he happily viewed my top-ten favorite comedy, The Three Amigos (Los Tres Friends, if you prefer Spanish subtitles). Would you say I have a plethora of reasons to be grateful?

Resolutions . . . not so many. This year, I propose switching Thanksgiving Day with New Year’s Day. Think about it. Resolutions are revolutions, and revolutions take planning. Washington didn’t ice-skate across the Delaware. I need two weeks’ notice to change my sheets, at least two months to change my life. But I can be thankful in two seconds: Mom, Dad, Murky, Scrabble, W. and HTS, Ro-tel and DVDs, PDAs and charm bracelets. Thank you, thank you.

Last year, I resolved to do one (1) thing that nobody expected of me and one (1) thing I’d always wanted to do. If only I’d taken Behavioral Assessment at the start of ’06, instead of at the end. According to Pavlov et al., behavior change requires careful operationalizing of goals. Since I held few expectations in January ’06, I’m not sure how I envisioned the “one (1) thing nobody expected of me.” Driving blind into the California desert crossed my thoughts, but this would’ve been in violation of resolution #2. I’ve always wanted to cook twice-baked potatoes, but you’d expect that, wouldn’t you? I gave up.

Truth, I’d just as soon not make resolutions at all. If the idea is to alter my life for the better, then wouldn’t it be a solution, not a resolution? Re-solving has little appeal. When you come up with the definitive answer, let me know.

For now, I’m content to take a recent piece of advice and “resolution” from day to day, not year to year. Tomorrow I will tell my parents how glad I am to have begun 2007 in a cozy house in Tennessee. I’ll thank Murky for making the last week of ’06 one of the best. And I’ll play S-Y-R-U-P on a triple-word. 30 points.