Good Riddance to 2020

Published 12-31-2020

Never in 44 years have I been more inclined to try every one of the old wives tales that surround the start of a New Year.

Buy a broom... It’s on this week’s grocery list.

Pot of beans on New Year’s day? Yep, that Christmas ham bone isn’t going to boil itself.

New calendars must be picked, and read to hang.

Banging pots and creating a ruckus as the clock strikes 12 a.m. You know my family is up for anything that is noisy.

And my Christmas tree will stay up until my birthday... a personal tradition of sparkling lights to celebrate another year around the sun.

Any and all are welcome after what has been one of the craziest, surreal years in modern history.

And all might be necessary to ward off another year like this last.

Not going out on a whimper, 2020 continues to shock. News of the morning bombing in Nashville was not how I thought our Christmas Day would start, but we all could thank God that no innocent people were killed.

Adding to the surreal aspect of the bombing, Vince and I were just in Nashville last Tuesday. Just a couple short blocks from where it happened, and right down the road from where we stayed downtown when my dad came to Tennessee for a conference last February.

Definitely surreal, but very on brand for 2020.

I’m definitely ready to put the anxiety and fear, so prevalent this year, firmly in the rear view mirror.

Easier to do when you don’t turn on the television, and avoid cable news like it’s the plague.

Vince hasn’t been as inclined to turn on the news at night when we retire for the evening, even when I wasn’t complaining about sinus pain and pressure this past week. Listening to ridiculous political arguments from people who spend all day bloviating on Twitter when your face feels like you got smacked with a 2x4... is not my idea of restful recouperation.

I did break my politics free Christmas season with news of the next round of COVID relief finally making it’s way through Congress. Like 2020, what Congress classifies as relief for the American people is beyond crazy.

I don’t need to go through the list monies flowing to foreign aid and K Street lobbyist gimme’s to know that instead of a Christmas Goose we got a lame turkey, along with the invoice with payment due stamped across the top.

While Congress now scrambles to pass an amendment upping relief and cutting bigger checks for working Americans after a White House speech threatening veto of the entire package, President Trump doubled down with Congress, and suddenly Democrats were more interested in negotiations.

As long as President Trump can’t claim credit... anything is possible.

I’d say it was part and parcel for 2020, if politicians hadn’t been pulling these same shenanigans for as long as I’ve been alive, treating taxpayer dollars like the world’s biggest slot machine set to pay out for everyone but the people continually feeding it money.

I didn’t think it was possible for my disgust with Washington D.C. to get any worse than it already was, but these last few months have brought out a new high, or low mark, as it were.

Time and again, Congress has served it’s masters, the donor class. Multinational corporations get liability waivers, as American’s unemployment benefits - necessary after the government locked down jobs and lives - were held hostage.

Like payoffs for the Kennedy Arts Center, bills padded with pork for local projects, the sausage stuffing is the only sure thing coming out of Congress. Every Congress.

I don’t expect better during our long awaited and much lamented “return to decency” that the Biden Administration represents to all those talking heads.

Unless familial degeneracy, drug use and foreign payoffs are now considered something decent. Or bankrupting our country past the point of no return.

My family does tell me I see things in pretty stark terms, but something tells me that this isn’t one of those times that I’m missing some nuance.

And after four years of manufactured outrage at every twist and turn of the Trump years, a cacophony of noise so loud that signals could be detected on Mars, it will be entertaining watching the national press corps again become polite and submissive with someone not named Trump behind the press briefing podium.

It’s already begun, in between stories of Trump’s “refusal to leave the White House” are glowing profiles of the “first dogs” and Senator Kamala Harris’s marriage.

Safe bet that the national media will absolutely forget the name of former SF mayor Willie Brown, who gave Senator Harris her start in California politics.

Not to mention the list of oligarchs and foreign power players who have bankrolled the Biden’s recently amassed personal fortune.

Sometimes it’s good to be part of the old boys club.

•••••••••

One tradition I’m skipping this year is the resolutions.

Anything worth doing should be worth doing without waiting for a date on the calendar.

And lets be serious, how many people are still sticking to anything like a resolution by the time mid February hits.

After everything 2020 has wrought... what would be the point of limiting your options before the clock even struck midnight on December 31st?

Imagine all the people who resolved to quit drinking or lose weight in 2020?

Talk about a losing proposition.

I’d be more interested in hedging my bets until at least mid March... and we can all make sure that whatever residual crazy left over from 2020 doesn’t wind it’s way into 2021 as carryover.

That thought tends to keep me up at night. So much for practicing less fear and anxiety over the unknown. I’d resolve to not be worried... but you know.

••••••••

New Year celebrations end up being somewhat low key at our house... music, snacks and video games tend to be on tap ... along with the favorite beverages - adult or otherwise. Vince and I have never been ones to venture far the last night of the year, and this year is no exception.

Heck... you can most always find us at home on New Year’s Eve... even when there isn’t a pandemic.

Not that I’m worried about catching the ‘Rona at the bar... that’s what 70 proof alcohol was made for. And after this danged sinus infection I figure I’ve hit my limit for winter ick.

At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

Actual medical advice may differ.

No matter how you celebrate... Have a Happy New Year!!!