What? However did this happen? I thought Christmas had just passed . . . yesterday. It works out there have been several “yesterdays” since Christmas and KABOOM, this is New Year’s Eve Day; within hours it will be New Year’s Eve proper and then – 2016.

So many times, people refer to some impending event with the teasing remark: Wait for it . . . Wait for it . . . I don’t think that’s appropriate here; no need to wait – it’s going to come and whack us on the head.

This year is going to be what I make it with my attitude, and, unfortunately, I am not a natural “upbeat” attitude maker; I am more the Chicken Little Sky is falling type.

But enough whining. Oh, now I remember, there’s never enough whining for me. It just comes so naturally and easily. Sigh.

Well, I think I see what a major New Year’s Resolution should be for me:

DON’T BE A BLASTED TWIT. Now, I just need to remember that resolution every day when I get up. I can TWEET, but I mustn’t be a TWEETING TWIT.

I have a major case of the Morning Drearies. The symptoms are primarily a profound aversion to actually starting anything. I have not started to go get the oil changed in the car; I have not started to even think about taking the shower I need to take before I can go get the car new oil and transmission fluid. In fact, I thought about it and started to get up off my compfy sofa and half-way up I thought, “Nah, humbug to that.” I sat back down.

But this is the real clue that I have a severe case of the Drearies – I have not even started reading any of the new books on my Kindle . . . and I have not checked the sites that have limited-time offers on good books – you know, the FREE or $.99 deal on the books that are best sellers. Once they offered The Inferno by Brown for FREE, back when it was hot, hot, hot on the bestseller list.

I need something to get me motivated, but preferably not a good kick in the ass, to use a bit of vulgar language my father would have frowned at. I don’t know, since the Morning Drearies are getting pretty darn close to being a case of the All Day Drearies, maybe in lieu of the Kick in the A**, I should line up for an invigorating Slap up the Side of the Head.

I think I might be going easy on myself; it may not be the Drearies at all. It may be the Lazies. I have not even brought in the dirty clothes from my trip to be washed – good thing it’s cold in my trunk. This is not a difficult task – bring dirty clothes in, open washer, drop them in, add soap and push a button. Oh, Heavens, I’ve tired myself out already. This does not bode well for an active new year and if I were to make New Year’s Resolutions, the list would be so incredibly long, even thinking of doing it is daunting.

I need fairy dust; I need some happy, cheerful fairy godmother to come along and sprinkle me with the dust of “Whistle While You Work” industriousness and motivation.

I wrote of driving back from Dayton Sunday in rain; well, I’m glad I didn’t wait until Monday to trek back. About three o’clock in the afternoon, the power went out here. It spent about ten minutes previously flickering on and off, toying with us, but I figured it would go when I looked outside and saw ice-coated trees and bushes moving stiffly in the wind. The solid glaze on the car and the vertical brick wall of the house was also a clue.

I wrote powerless rangers, but, of course, we weren’t rangers; it just sounded cool. And we did get a bit cool, with the heat out. However, since the temperature was hovering around 30, it didn’t get all that bad – especially for this one – me – who built a fire in the basement and then cuddled up under a big fluffy blanket on a couch when the night drug on.

I heard a cheer from upstairs and then through the blanket I had pulled over my head, I saw what now seemed like a very bright lamp. I thought about checking the time, but instead turned the light off and nestled down even more.

It wasn’t a long outage, but for one of the younger generation, it could have been Armageddon. Actually, it was a bit of an adventure – we used oil lamps and Yankee Candles and cooked hot dogs in the fireplace – and, of course, the soda stayed cold in the vestibule.

Cameron was most impressed with the stoplights being out and police cars at intersections; I was impressed that I got back without being hit or hitting anyone. Fortunately, it had not gotten dark when I picked him up.

Parts of LaGrange County are still without power and I am hoping the walnut tree that got caught in a microburst years ago and leans at about two 0’clock didn’t decide to just come the rest of the way down.

Oh, by the way, as a powered ranger, I strangely do not feel like picking up the clutter the restored light revealed afresh.

I kept telling him to move a little this way and that and finally, I wasn’t quite at the right spot, but I didn’t feel I could push it any further and so snapped this picture of:

Man in a Gnome Hat.

Of course, up closer, it looked that the tree that ate Dayton:

I drove through a lot of rain yesterday, but, surprisingly, only patches of heavy traffic. I think there may have been an accident on the southbound lanes close to Dayton because that traffic was lined up, all lanes full and not moving, for some distance. However, it could have just been the mass of people heading for one of the few crossings over the Ohio River as they guided their Sunbird vehicles Florida-bound.

I was even able to take the county road route around Van Wert – the one where you can practically drive right down the center of the road, not, of course, that I did that; my father said it was easier on the tires.

The temperature has dropped to freezing and that is what the rain is doing outside, so I am going to postpone my trip to LaGrange County for a day – tomorrow, the high is supposed to be 40 degrees and no precipitation. The little cast iron stove in the kitchen up there has been cleaned out and checked and I AM SO TEMPTED to go full pioneer – well, if you don’t count the ipad and Verizon connection and the Sprint phone connection.

It is windy and even at 8:00, barely light enough to qualify as daytime. In fact, it looks like a morning not fit for man nor beast, nor UDO.

Such little details to post about. Surely I could come up with something worthwhile? Thinking . . .thinking . . .thinking . . . thinking . . . well, apparently not. Do you want to read about the washing marathon that awaits me in the laundry room? I thought not. So there you are.

But next time, maybe I will write about Secret Mission Bat, who was called in when Guido kept going missing. But perhaps I am not allowed to write about SMB, his been secret and all. I hope I haven’t blown his cover. As far as Guido is concerned, I am considering fitting him with at GPS device – or a piece of twine around his foot. He’s a sneaky one. He’s trying to shake his mafia reputation and go stay on the straight and narrow, but I heard him tell a fellow UDO: “Just when I was out, they pulled me back in.”

Der Bingle and I had a quiet Christmas here in the Ohio Redoubt and today was also quiet, because I felt sick. Not a big sick, but a little intestinal distress here and there and a nose full of green stuff and overall a feeling of wanting TO JUMP OUT OF MY SKIN.

I didn’t, however, and even remained in my jeans and shirt. My skin seems more comfortable right now, and I’m enjoying being wrapped up in the Moo Blanket. Tomorrow, I’ll throw stuff in the car and head back to Kendallville. And, by gosh, I’ve just bored myself enough to stop typing.

Before I left for Ohio, I parked on Main Street and hurried over to drop my water bill payment in the outdoor slot. However, they had just opened and so I went in – the only early bird client on the foggy morning that had delayed my departure.

And for about 30 minutes, the water bill lady and I “kept Christmas well” to cite Dickens. She told me about the gathering planned for her house on Christmas Eve and her young granddaughter and “reindeer food” and the young lass’s intense worry that the reindeer wouldn’t be able to find it.

We talked of bubble lights and her son, who likes to hunt, giving out presents in his hunter’s cap with the ear flaps. We talked of making fancy cookies, something she does and my mother did, but I flunked in elf school. We talked of family traditions and magic and all sorts of good cheer things. And her smile was so sincere and warm as she shared with me – it kept me smiling through the fog and rain to Dayton.

Had there not been mist and fog, I would have been too early to enter the lobby; I would have dropped the bill in the slot – and I would have lost out on some of the cheer of the season.

I received a survey letter from a local funeral home; it was all very proper and dignified and I can’t fault it at all. It’s just . . . well, it’s right before Christmas and I had just been thinking of Scrooge’s ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Future. I saw in my mind’s eye as I scanned through the questions about pre-planning and funeral costs, the cold and lonely grave in Scrooge’s future unless he changed.

My granddaughter asked what I was looking at and I told her and she wanted to know if it was a limited time offer for a funeral discount. You know, die in the next 30 days and you can get a coupon for a family member sort of thing. Youth will find humor in things. At my age, I heard the echo of Marley’s chains.