A Few Thoughts for the New Year

It's 2009! I guess I should be excited about that. But honestly, 2008 was such a good year for us after a series of not-so-good years that we were not in a hurry to see it end. There were no major illnesses, nobody was hospitalized, no injuries (this means Bill mostly), the bills were paid and we had plenty of food on the table as well as a roof over our heads. We added three (yes, three) vehicles - I'm counting the parts car. Nobody got fired from their job. We had very few things to complain about last year.

I am about as un-superstitious as a person can be. My mom, on the other hand, was fairly superstitious. I have lots of memories of her tossing salt over her shoulder after she'd spilled it. Once, I opened an umbrella inside the house and she was pretty alarmed. I learned pretty early on that I could get her going very easily - generally by walking under a ladder. Maybe that's why I'm not superstitious at all. That extends to making resolutions for the New Year. Mom actually used to call them reVolutions, I don't think she ever realized that she had the wrong word but it was part of her charm. She also believed that how you ended one year is how you started the next year. So I generally clean house on Dec. 31st, I like to start the year with a clean house. :)

So I don't make resolutions. I have a few general goals for the year, like I always do. But they are not written in stone and are subject to change. Although I'd really like to schedule one for Bill - clean out the garage! At least enough to a) put the El Camino inside and b) keep my craft area and Otter's craft area clean continually. I'm working on him, but I'm not holding my breath! :)

Also, he thinks he's finally decided on a name for the El Camino. We don't really name cars, but when we had the red El Camino and Otter was pretty young, we bought him a decorative license plate for it. "Wild Bill" was what the plate said, but in Otter's then very young mind the car was actually named Wild Bill. So it's more of a joke than serious.

We had a boat for a while (there is a point to this, so keep reading). The boat was named Cool Baby, after Otter learning the thumb's up sign and saying "Cool Baby" back to her daddy when he called her that for doing something funny. We didn't have the boat for very long, but it did get named - did you ever hear of a boat that wasn't named? It was called, what else, Cool Baby.

But instead of a decorative license plate, although we might still get him one, he's thinking of something else.

I'm about to derail again, but it's still part of the same story so keep reading. Bill is a big history buff (we all are), WWII is his main area of interest. He's long been fascinated with the planes of that era and he has a collection of photographs - most of which he's taken, of assorted planes and the wonderful nose art they have. While we had the boat, he was toying of getting it painted with it's own version of nose art. Remember the picture of (I think) Betty Grable, where she's standing with her back to the camera and is looking over her shoulder smiling? Picture a girl sitting on an ice cube instead of standing, looking over her shoulder with a mysterious smile. That is what he wanted. And that is what he's seriously considering doing to the El Camino. The girl on the ice cube is the Cool Baby (ice = cool), although in Bill's version she's not exactly dressed. I'm not sure if he would have her in a swimsuit or not, a naked lady painted on the front side of his car might just be a tempting target for somebody with a spray can or to scratch!

So the car is probably going to be called:

Cool Baby!

See, there was a point to all that! Aren't you glad you kept reading?