Happy New Year in Finnish is Onnellista Uutta Vuotta. Folks claim that because Finnish is a phonetic language, the words are easy to pronouce. It's like saying that you don't feel the heat in Phoenix in the summer time because it's a dry heat.

My Finnish is limited to a few words and phrases of greeting (Päivää), well-wishing (Näkemiin), and something else entirely (Haistaa napa, or "smell my belly button"). Of course, I had to look up the spelling of these words; I've rarely needed to write them. When my parents wanted to talk about something in secret, they would talk in Finnish. There might have been good reasons for learning Finnish, but eavesdropping on my parents' conversations isn't among them. There are some things that a kid doesn't need to know.

So, a new year. The day has dawned sunny and mild. We don't make resolutions for the new year. The cycle of our years doesn't begin on January 1. Most of the time, our year begins in the spring. For one thing, it's a time of renewal. For another, it marks the time when we spend most of our weekends at the camp, changing the pace of our weeks. And, finally, in April we will have just paid our taxes and reviewed our financial state in the process.

We stayed in last night, enjoying a fine meal of take-out lasagna from our favorite local restaurant. We watched Spider Man II (a pretty good movie) and stayed awake, more or less, until midnight. Earlier in the day, we went with Sandra's parents to see The Avaitor (also a good movie, although not, IMO, the Oscar contender that some have proclaimed).

Today we'll visit my father and tend to chores around the house. It will be a quiet start to this new year. Excitement, in the forms of elation, anxiety, and befuddlement, will find us soon enough.

Marley has a cut on his foot. The salt on the roadways gets into the cut and he limps along. This injury, however, hasn't completely sidelined him. He found a gap in our backyard fence (since fixed) and has gone on some memorable adventures, including barking matches with other dogs on the street.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy introduced the concept of the total perspective vortex. It's a way that humans keep their world imaginable. To try to comprehend the whole of everything is to run the risk of having your brain disintegrate, a sort of mental singularity.

Humor aside, this world is often too much for us to comtemplate for any significant amount of time. On the other side of this earth, 100,000 people have died, millions more are injured, homeless, or mourning. It took a great tragedy to push the war in Iraq off the front pages. We watch the images and we grieve. We try to take it all in and imagine what it must be like. And then we come back to our home, our familiar little corner, to our dog's injured foot. Rare are the people who can think about very important things for very long.

Today is trash day in our part of town. Driving home last night I saw the trash barrels overflowing with the by-product of Christmas. (I don't recall any part of the Christmas story that had the three wise men riding off to the dump.) It's no doubt a very long week for the trash haulers.

When I was growing up, we didn't have community trash pickup. (My father still doesn't; the house too far from the center of town.) That which wasn't burned in a barrel in the back yard went to the dump. The dump was the center of activity on Saturday morning. Rocky, the guy who ran the town dump, got to keep what he wanted out of the trash. He wasn't wealthy, but his house was nicer than you'd expect. His daughter, though, wasn't treated well in school.

We had a Studebaker pickup truck when I was a kid. As you know, then, as now, if you have a truck, it's not yours alone. People want your help moving all kinds of stuff. Some friends of my parents were getting new furniture and asked my father to take their old sofa to the dump. As my father was driving to the dump, he glanced in the rear view mirror and thought that the couch looked pretty good. Our house was on the way to the dump, so he stopped at home. The couch stayed at our house for another 20 or so years. My mother had to throw a spread over it when their friends came for a visit so they wouldn't recognize their old couch.

Last night we took five grandkids to see The Polar Express in IMAX at a furniture store, of all places.. (We wish that Lily lived closer so she could have joined us.) The movie on the really big screen is wonderful.

Sandra stood in line with the kids while I went to get the sodas. When I returned, I said "Hi, Dave." to a former co-workier.
"You know that guy?" asked Sandra.
"We worked together at IBM."
"He just cut in line."
"Yep, that's him."

After finishing his snow plowing route yesterday, Mike drove up to my father's house. Huck had already plowed his driveway and shoveled the steps and was getting the snowblower started to clear a path to the woodpile. Mike helped with that chore and then went along.

Even though fewer than half the people were in the office yesterday, it was difficult to find a quiet time to work. The people who were there were extra chatty. Once I started work in earnest, I was able to get some good stuff done. I stayed until after 5:30. As I've mentioned to Sandra, the work that I'm doing will either be an important breakthrough or a massive sinkhole of time, energy, and money.

On the way home from work, I stopped in to Blockbuster for a movie. I usually go there on a Saturday morning and the place is filled with parents and kids. On a weekday night, however, the store is shelter to guys with stunned expressions, each carrying a half dozen DVDs. It wouldn't have taken too many deflections in my life's journey for me to have wound up there. I wasn't in the A/V club in high school, but spent a lot of time with the shortwave radio in the science project room.

A story about this coffee shows up on the news wires fairly frequently, but is worth repeating.

This storm is having a much greater impact on the coastal areas, where some places can expect upwards of 18" of snow. We'll be lucky to get a third of that. Of course, the news of the earthquake and tsunamis remind us that our winter storms are an inconvenience, rarely bringing widespread devastation, misery, and death.

Not to say that these storms can't be dangerous. Yesterday we went out to pick up some groceries for my father and drove along the highway where a fatal auto accident that had taken place an hour and half before.

We were out shopping because my father's back was giving him lots of pain. The good news, I guess, is that there was a reason for the pain. He was out at the wood pile and slipped on a wet palette. The discomfort was enough that he took some of his pain medication. He didn't like the feeling of that stuff, though, and asked that we get him some Tylenol. He insisted, however, that he would be able to plow his driveway and handle the small amount of shoveling in front of the doors. I'll call him this morning and may stop there after work this evening.

Mike's made one pass with the snow plow already. Once the rest of the household is awake, I'll get the snowblower going.

We had a great time with our Christmas gathering and hope that our guests did as well. With much able assistance, we got the meal on the table on time and dined well. A small team packed up the leftovers so that we could clear the table for the desserts. In the spirit of celebration, we consumed the annual caloric intake of a third-world nation.

The day evolved at a good pace and we were able to talk with everyone, although not at any great length. One of our nieces is moving to Los Angeles in the spring. Another in our extended family moved into a new apartment last week. Joe gave me a framed photo of Tom Brady. Santa brought American Girl dolls to Krista and Tess. Krista came to the party with the cutest curls in her long hair.

As expected, my father stayed home. We'll take a container of leftovers to him this afternoon. We had suggested that we would like to take him out to dinner at his favorite restaurant, Denny's, but he wasn't too sure about that.

Sandra and I talked for quite a while after the last people left, reviewing what went well and not so well. Maybe we take this too seriously, but we want to do a good job. If we're worried about getting the water and butter to people while they're eating, we will hurry past someone who'd like to talk and no doubt will hurt that person's feelings. That happened a couple of times. Someone came in with a gift. I was busy in the kitchen and set the gift aside until too late. Feelings are hurt by the little missteps as much as by the bigger failings.

Serving a meal to 30 people would be a slow lunch hour in almost any restaurant. I had one job in a diner where I worked six days a week for $65 (plus meals, if I could stand them). Granted, it's a lot easier to cook meals for lots of people when you have commercial-grade grills, ovens, stoves, refrigerators, and prep counters. But the customers are grumpier and you've got management around. The co-owner of the diner would have his evening meal, a plain burger with a salad on the side, the Russian salad dressing made up of a mix of mayonnaise, ketchup, and relish. We sliced our own pickles and cut up our own French fries. Clarence did the fries. Clarence had a room-temperature IQ, but he could peel, blanch, and cut potatoes.

We have a quiet day ahead, with a visit to my father the only event planned. We are expecting snow overnight, so I need to bring in wood.