Date: Tuesday, December 31, 1997 at 20:47:59 PSTSubject: Happy New Year!
Hello to all my dearest family and friends,
Here I sit in Northern California, and we have had almost an inch of rain today and it is still coming down steadily.
The New Year approaches and I have no intention of going to any parties or celebrating at all. For those of you that drink and “party hardy,” well, I am just a “wallflower.”
I like the Japanese view of New Year celebrations. They approach the coming of the first day of the new year with a totally clean house, they have cooked ahead for many days [I think it is nine days], rice cakes made of rice gluten and other traditional delicacies. They get to bed early, send a New Year's greeting to all of their friends, in the form of post cards that are all delivered on the first day of the new year by the postal service.
They are sober, clean, freshly shorn, and take extra care to be polite to everyone and not to do anything that could presage a bad omen for the upcoming year. They traditionally pay off all of their debts to face the new year debt free and absolved of all burdens of a financial nature.
They visit friends and carry little red envelopes to each of them with cash gifts for insuring that the year will be prosperous for everyone.
So, when the New Year rolls around tonight at midnight, kiss your significant other, or the strumpet or gigolo you are with, and do it quietly, I will probably be asleep. [Old Fart mode]
Written by Dale E. Malone, You
were not sober, were you?
The Great & Wonderful Kahuna wants to know!
Last
modified: April 26, 2009