Amazing winter that we are having and I’m not complaining.  What little snow we’ve had hasn’t stuck around long enough to get dirty.  I suspect the grandkids might be a tad disappointed but they don’t have to drive.  For myself, I’m perfectly content to get my precipitation in the form of rain.

Today has been sort of interesting.  The cataract that has been plaguing me on my right eye was removed, creating some fascinating visual effects.  While it was still bandaged with a shield on top of it, I was seeing snow-laden pine boughs and starfish in shallow, clear, rippling water with amazing colors.  When the bandaging came off, everything seen through that eye was pixilated for a while.  It’s settling down now but just before dark the faint sunlight was sparkling off raindrops as they fell (it’s been raining all day) and they looked like snow flurries on a sunny day.  Probably just as well that I didn’t try to drive anywhere because it was distracting.  The reality seen through the left eye and the hallucinations (I guess) seen through the right kept trying to stitch together.  Nobody warned me about that!  As one of the granddaughters said, it’s too bad I couldn’t take pics of what I was seeing. Tonight it’s mostly a little blurry and I should be able to drive myself to the follow up appointment tomorrow morning – I admit to being glad that the eye doctor is only five or so minutes away, though and that I’ll never have to exceed 30 mph.  A friend asked last night that I report on how the colors of my new flannel shirt look after the surgery and they are brighter – everything is brighter.  It’s like a really dirty window finally got cleaned…

Oooooh!  This is good.

I’m not very sorry to see the last of 2011.  It was a long, difficult year, almost entirely spent fending off the efforts of a former loved one to drag me into the hole that former loved one is digging to China.  For the past three New Year’s Days, I’ve sat here and assured myself that things have got to get better but the past year has disabused me of that pretty notion.  It’s not so much a half-filled glass I have as a half-filled paper cup with a hole in the bottom and I spend a ridiculous amount of time and energy (and money) patching the damned hole and stressing that the patch will give way and leave me (to mix my metaphors) with no lemonade at all.  I don’t see a way around it, since I need that lemonade to survive.  So today I’m sticking with a healthy dose of cynicism and just praying that I don’t have to spend as much time/energy/money in 2012 patching the hole as I did in 2011.  My friends and family – all wonderful – keep me going.

Almost 10am and I’m still in my nightshirt, lounging around but, hey – it’s Sunday and New Years and I’ll bet I’m not the only one doing so.  It’s raining and I’ve got no place that I have to be.  The rain is a little weird, though – I should check Wunderground and see if it’s going to turn to ice and white stuff later.  With the granddaughter’s soccer games yesterday, I had the little guy all afternoon – he thinks he should be able to play too, so is a three year old problem to keep corralled and off the field – and we had a good time, watching Peter Pan, coloring and discussing everything under the sun.  This next week is going to be a busy, hard one, so today is for relaxing.  A little wine, a good movie and a dog, who badly needs brushing.  What’s not to like about that?

Happy New Year, folks, from my house to yours.