Time to roll it out-and give it a good kicking and send it on its way

 I mean that for the year-but if you want to roll out someone who really, really deserves it: give them a good, swift kick in the behind as you shove them out the door along with 2021. Maybe kick them a few times just to be sure...

HAPPY, HEALTHY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL!

So here we are, the end of another totally crappy year, and-I don't know about you, but I've learned a lot in the two years just about gone. I've learned so much about human nature-sadly- and I've lost faith in most of humanity. For all the good people who have made-and continue to make-sacrifices for others, even at the cost of their own lives, there are exponential numbers of people who are nasty, evil, moronic-and really couldn't give a toss about anyone but themselves. What a sad world...

Have I made any resolutions for 2022? I finally learned to avoid making any resolutions, because I end up breaking them within three days. Sometimes I break them the same day I made them!

I've made one resolution that I plan to keep as much as possible-and not only for the new year. It isn't diet-or exercise (god forbid!!). It's to live life differently, make allowances for people's faults and frailties (including my own), and to begin to live life on my terms, nobody else's. Nobody should ever tell you what to do, or how to live. We do have to do things like: pay our taxes, obey laws, etc. But nobody is entitled to anything. Tell people where to shove their sense of entitlement. 

I forgot: I resolve to write more often in 2022. Things happen; there will be a lot to say. So-it's the new year. Eat lots, drink lots, stay safe, keep others safe, resolve (like me) to live your best life. As far as I can tell, this is the your only life. And once time has passed, you can never, ever get it back. Whoosh! It's gone. So shift your bottoms and get living.

Oh, and never be afraid to tell people off, or tell people how you feel. I do it all the time. I wish I had learned that years ago! Who cares what other people think? Care what you think.

For All the Grumpies Out There

 For everyone who has bad memories of past Christmases:

CRAPPY HISTMAS--AND A NAPPY HEW                                     NEAR!!!

So there you are: my wishes for everyone at Christmastime. If you celebrate, then have a wonderful Christmas, eat twice your weight in goodies, drink yourself under the table (and everyone else, too).

Remember: this is the season when you can eat and drink as much as you want, because calories don't count. Believe me, I am going to do what porcupines do: hibernate. With plenty of food. And drink.

By New Year's I will probably be very fat-but happy-unless, of course, calories really DON'T count. They don't. We've had two years that we would all like to forget. So-eat and drink your way into a better year.

Time to pull out and dust off that nice bottle of Jack Daniel's!!!

Storming the Citadel (or, maybe, Just Call Me Toothless)

 Storming the Citadel sounds more entertaining. Unfortunately, it was far from entertaining at the time.

Two weeks ago-and it's taken a good few days for my ears to stop ringing. There was a police action in my building. I've seen these things on television, and occasionally in the news, but never up close and personal- very personal.

At 5:30 in the morning, there was an almighty banging on the front door of the building. I was already up (I get up at 5AM, always have done), so I was making coffee when all hell seemed to break loose. Bang, bang, bang-this went on for about ten minutes, and I wanted to go out to see what on earth was happening-but I thought better of it. Good thing, too. 

The door was forced open, and police in riot gear came storming up the stairs. Riot gear: helmets, visors, Kevlar, shields, batons-you name it, they had it-up to my floor, turned to go right past my neighbor's door to the next apartment, and proceeded to use their battering ram to smash through my other neighbor's door. They went inside, there was a huge kerfuffle, and then I heard the ram smash through one of the internal doors. By this time, there must have been at least thirty police, some in uniform, some in plain clothes, all making plenty of racket. And police officers began carrying things out of the flat, almost past my door, down the stairs-and more officers were standing outside everyone else's door. I was looking through the peephole in my door-usually used to see who is coming to see me, but this time to see -?- what, exactly?

It was frightening. And loud, lots of loud talking, shouting-I had to walk away after a few minutes, and went to have my coffee. After about forty five minutes, it all started to die down. I went to look through the peephole and counted six officers in riot gear going down the stairs. I just had to open the door, and a big, burly policeman turned around and said that it's all okay, we're all safe. I asked what was going on, and he said that they were executing a warrant. So many of them? And so loud? Is that it? He couldn't tell me anything, because it was an ongoing investigation-but he did say that someone had been taken away...

At 7:30 it was all over, and the police were gone. I kept thinking: all the crime that's happening in the borough, and all the police are here, in my building, scaring the shit out of all of us who live here. It turned out that my neighbor next door didn't hear anything. She's profoundly deaf, and slept through it all (she is 90-so it's a good thing that she was oblivious). Before the copper who was stationed outside my door, he asked if I was okay. Sure, I said. I'm fine. I'm now also deaf. He then laughed, told me to have a nice day-and I really wanted to kick him down the stairs, but I thought better of it.

I've made many calls-and I've emailed-the landlord, but nobody has had the courtesy to reply. No surprises there-and we still don't know what caused the cops to raid the building. We think that it must have been drugs. Who knows?

To add insult to injury, I then had to go to the dentist after the whole palaver was finished. A back molar that has been trouble for years finally had to come out. Didn't need it, so out it came. I couldn't help wishing that the police would come and arrest me, just so I wouldn't have to go through it. Bad enough to loose a back tooth, but then you're numb on one side for the next four or five hours. Ever tried to drink water, coffee, tea-with a numb jaw? You dribble everywhere. I should have been prepared enough to buy some straws. But no-I drooled and dribbled. Very sexy, no? Ummm-no.

And I'm early enough to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas! Eat lots, drink lots, don't get arrested. And a very happy and healthy New Year. We've had two crap years, so let's hope that 2022 will be so great that it will make up for the last two.

Happy Christmas. Happy and healthy New Year. Don't get arrested (watching the police action unfold made me never want to leave the house. It was that disturbing). If you see the police coming-run! 

/

Nope - Still not dead

 This is going to be a running joke. Every time I'm really, really late in posting, I have to say that I'm not dead. Yet. But with the new variant and people being idiots, who knows how long that's going to last?

I'm reminded of an old saying-old, and trite, but true, that says that procrastination is the thief of time. It's nearly Christmas-again, another one, and we've still got Covid hanging around-and I'm still negligent in doing all the things that I have wanted to do in the last two years since the abomination began. Like I said about a hundred posts ago, I seem to be the procrastination queen of North London (and, perhaps, the rest of the world). I'm working on it. Very slowly.

There's another saying that I like a lot: the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. My intention has always been to say "happy whatever the holiday is" before it actually happens. You see what I mean: Thanksgiving was last week. But I hope that you had a great one. I ate more than usual, walked a few miles to walk off all the calories, and had chocolate mousse for dessert. Home made-by Marks and Spencer. I don't do that too often, or I would have to have all the doors widened.

My intentions have usually been good ones: usually. But, in many years (hopefully I'll outlive just about everyone-especially the four cripplers), when I finally croak, it'll be a matter of opinion whether I go north or south. I hope to go north. Better weather. I don't like heat.

I've been saying that 99.9% of the population are bottom-feeding, useless scumbags with the brains of a cowpat and the manners of a cockroach. I stand by that. For me, that has been proven in the last two years (actually, many years before the virus caught us). Truly, I've never seen such abominable behavior from anyone, certainly not a "civilized" society. Britain claims to  be just that, but the evidence against their attempts to tell the world how wonderful and brilliant they are is overwhelming. Would I be home, now that Trump is finally gone (hopefully forever)? I would-but I would have a very hard time surviving. I've been fighting the effects of vestibular loss for too long, and there are problems that are permanent; it's been very difficult for me to accept that, but after twelve years it's time to acknowledge that there are some things that I'll never be able to do (at least, not  the way I did before).

A very good friend of mine back home reminded me that I need to stop hating the cripplers, the people who did this to me out of stupidity, negligence and incompetence-and never even had the courage to face me and apologize. Personally, I would tell them to take their apology and shove it up their asses-but I'm like that. I hold grudges. Do I ever!

I spent a lot of last Thursday - when I wasn't eating, which was most of the time - looking for reasons to be thankful. I even made a list. I can tell you that writing things down really does help. And I thought a lot about the things that I can't change, because there isn't any way to go back in time to correct things that went terribly wrong. So I'm working on accepting the things that I can't change, and avoiding wishing that someone would push the cripplers under a moving bus. Old habits, you know? But if anyone wants to find Grigoriadou (at the Royal London), Matt (fucky Bucky, the spawn of Satan) Buckland, also at the Royal London, Phil (not so) Bright, hiding out in Bristol, and Hilary Longhurst, making fortunes killing patients while in private practice, I wouldn't grieve. I would take you to lunch...

Christmas Day is only three weeks away-so let me wish you a Merry Christmas now-plus a happy Hanukkah, and a very happy and healthy 2022. Just in case-the intention is to get there early, but the history...hmmm...

I'm talking about old, worn sayings, and I now have to tell you two of my favorite old ones (I don't have to, but I will anyway). The first comes from my grandfather: 

Never talk to the monkey. Always avoid the monkey and go straight to the organ grinder. For years I went to the monkey and up the chain of  command. It doesn't work. Go straight to the top and dig your heels in and harass everyone until you get what you want. Someone will do something, even just to get rid of you.

Then there's the one from my mother-and probably your mother, too-and everyone's mother:

Always wear clean underwear. You never know when you're going to be hit by a car.

That's the advice for the day. And on that note, I'm going out into the bright sunshine (we do get bright sunshine, just not often), take a good long walk, and try to avoid the bottom feeding scumbags. I really need to find a crutch that's filled with lead. Then I can hit back...