2012 Starts

* New Year's Eve started off with the mail, and in it came a check after the sale of MrsRW's stepfather's property in Tennessee. There is a little more coming from the sale of the possessions that were auctioned off but this constitutes probably the last time we get the benefit of a year-end windfall, so we better make the most of it. Back when I was doing national sales and the building market was booming I would usually get year-end bonus checks from 20-30 G and even though I studied hard on how to put that to work for us the plans worked out but never went as well as they could have. We'd wind up having to fix the house - roofs, driveways, siding, the whole bit. And all that sort of took a lot of the steam away from the boon. This time, possibly the last time, we need to work seriously on reducing debt to make every month even more stress-less. We think we have a good plan. But this is the kind of thing I don't understand a lot of "modern couples" doing these days - keeping the money separate. Like, one of them gets a bonus check and that money is THEIRS and the other one's paycheck pays THEIR bills and so on. I guess MrsRW and I grew up in an old fashioned world because we have never done anything but bring all the goods back to the communal nest. Anyway that was deposited on Dec 31 and so there are good expectations, financially, for 2012.

* That in no way is meant to say everything is hunky-dory around here. We still have a major family issue to handle this year and it's close and rather heartbreaking so far. Not something to expound on yet - if ever - but it couldn't be more hurtful. So to be honest the wonderful windfall is really in perspective around here. There are more important things than money, and sometimes they're all screwed up.

* Last night for the first time in I - don't - know - God - how - long MrsRW and I had a New Year's Eve to ourselves. No babysitting (the newest granddaughter is still breastfeeding so that crew didn't go anywhere) and our best friends were out of state visiting family. So I did an old fashioned morning jaunt to a couple of markets and came back home with some steaks from an honest-to-goodness butcher shop like from the old days in the neighborhood, and side dishes from a green grocers'. We got some Veuve Clicquot (the bottle of champagne cost more than the steaks and dinner fixings, can you imagine?) and stayed home with a couple of movies off the cable, and I want to tell you - if you haven't seen these two you need to.

Have I ever steered you wrong on movies?

The first one we watched was called The Help. Notable for a young female cast, sprinkled with small and important roles played by Cicely Tyson, Sissy Spacek and Allison Janney (West Wing). It was absolutely great. How come I NEVER heard of this movie when it came out?

The last one - which we stopped at one point so we could have a midnight smooch - was just as enjoyable though for a different reason. Woody Allen's Midnight In Paris (I keep hearing people say it is his "best ever" and I don't know if that's exactly right, but it SURE is a winner regardless) had MrsRW saying numerous times that this was a movie meant for me. It involved a writer visiting Paris who, at the stroke of midnight, goes back in time in Paris where he meets Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds, Picasso, Dali, Luis Bunuel, Man Ray, Gertrude Stein, and an enchanting young woman he falls in love with. The two subplots - his rather poorly conceived upcoming marriage to a woman who is cheating on him with a total pedant and the fascinating young lady from the past who turns out to be equally enamored with the even FURTHER past - totally make this flick. Seriously. If you haven't, you ought to. If nothing else it's notable that the whole thing was filmed in Paris and leave us not forget to mention just how beautiful that place is. sigh

* So, typical of me I guess, I see all these movies late in the game and probably long after y'all have seen them already. I'm a putz, what can I say?

* There are a couple of other things to talk about, one being an actual resolution I'm making for myself this year (yeah sometimes I do that, when it's really important like when I quit smoking cigarettes or lost 20 pounds) but this is already long enough and I'm not sure it's even interesting to anybody but me so I'll skip that.

* It's enough to tell you that I am putting my entire reputation on the line for the stuff upcoming in issue #4 of Thrice. I am telling you now - it's going to be the best ever and the writers we're collecting will seriously blow your mind. There's no theme to it this time, except my one guiding principle will be "it has to be something I CAN'T WAIT to show my friends what we discovered." I am frankly head-over-heels about it and there's just only two accepted stories in it so far. But 50 submissions! I guess we got people's attention. So I'm going to be spending much of January reading bad fiction and trying to come up with polite rejection letters; but the stuff that we're taking is going to absolutely blow your mind. I mean it.

All 4 now. Anyway... here we go....