New Year, New Thoughts

Happy New Year to all. I don't think you are allowed to wish happy new year after today, so here you go. May 2026 be your best year yet!

1.    Like everyone else, I watched the ball drop in Times Square to mark the beginning of 2026. However, as the lights came up, my heart skipped a beat because the font used on the ball made 2026 look like 2024. Did someone make a huge mistake, I wondered? That 6 did not look like a 6 at all; it looked like a 4! Does that mean we get a do-over for 2024? I’d take that any day!
2.    It finally happened, as I knew it would: I grabbed the cinnamon jar instead of the paprika jar and added some to my shredded potatoes. Interesting taste. At least I haven’t yet grabbed the tube of lidocaine and started brushing my teeth. That’s next.
3.    There’s always that awkward response when you cough and someone says, “God bless you,” and you don’t know whether to tell them it was not a sneeze but a cough or whether you just accept the blessing. And why do we make a blessing only on a sneeze? Maybe coughs should be included in the blessing process. 
4.    It is not a good idea to sneeze when you are brushing your teeth. Trust me on this one.
5.    When I wake up in the morning, one of the first things I do is turn on my phone and start playing Wordle and Spelling Bee. “They” say it is a good idea to play games to keep your brain sharp. That’s fine in theory, but when I play Spelling Bee, I don’t exactly feel sharp or confident. I get the most obvious words and then find myself stumped. Any benefit to my brain is surpassed by my crushed ego. On Wordle, sometimes I stumble into the right word when I didn’t think it was a word at all. So much for keeping the old brain sharp!
6.    After 20+ years of attending Rutgers Women’s Basketball games, I have come to the realization that what I wear to the game has no impact on the outcome. I usually wear red Rutgers shirts and sweatshirts and even try to wear red socks, but there does not seem to be any correlation between my attire and the results. That doesn’t mean I will be switching to neutral colors, however, just in case…
7.    My hair looked so bad the other day that if the house had been on fire, I’m not sure I would have left! I got it cut the next day.
8.    Between asking Alexa questions or using the voice feature on the TV remote or telling my Mercedes’ GPS to “take me home,” I find I am communicating verbally with devices more and more. If nothing else, it has made me enunciate more clearly. The navigation system in my car sometimes doesn’t understand the address I am asking for so it is necessary to S A Y  I T  M O R E  C L E A R L Y!  And I never have better verbal skills than when I am barking “REPRESENTATIVE” into the phone to please get one of the last humans on earth to deliver live customer service.
9.    I was out of ideas for dinner, so, on a whim, I asked Alexa for a suggestion. She immediately offered the idea of roasted rainbow vegetables with baked salmon, a sheet-pan special. Then she downloaded the recipe to my phone and more information to the Alexa app on my phone, all within seconds. I was truly amazed. I’m just waiting for her to show up and start cooking!
10.    You know, it’s not the temperature, it’s the wind. The same temperature on two days will feel completely different if it is windy. Best to stay inside!
11.    Buttons, Button, who’s got the buttons? I DO! They are in a big jar that used to hold instant coffee. I’m not sure whether all clothes today come with that extra button, but I have decades worth of tiny bags with single buttons to match the buttons on suits and dresses I long ago gave away. Have I gotten rid of the buttons? No. What should I do with them? I’m so inept with a needle and thread (and can’t thread a needle anymore anyway) that I’ll never sew one on! One time a button popped off my winter coat in the parking lot of Macy’s. I went into the store and bought a new coat! Anyway, who can use these individual buttons? I can imagine someone might appreciate this bunch of buttons for crafting, but who? Ideas, please!
12.    I bought new pants online that fit me very well but have no front pockets. What am I supposed to do with my hands? I wore the pants once and my hands kept trying to find pockets. It was like when you forget to wear your watch and you keep glancing at your wrist all day as if it will suddenly appear. 
13.    I have reached the point where I can no longer remember your grandchildren’s names and ages. I knew your kids, and your first grandkids were such a delight, but now there are so many of them that I can’t recall their names or ages. It happens. Forgive me.
14.    The other day I had to call an online pharmacy company regarding a problem with my order. Like many other companies, this one pushes customers to go to its website to transact their business, thereby bypassing humans in customer service, but I have never been able to access the site successfully. I got a live, human rep on the phone and we reviewed the problem and the status of my order – for 30 minutes. Once I was convinced that they would be sending my prescription, I asked to speak with a supervisor since this same scenario transpired a month ago over an order for the same product. I explained my situation, got a lot of sympathy and understanding and a request from the supervisor to speak directly with the IT team about not being able to access the company’s website. I told him that if he wanted me to review the problem with the IT team then I would need to be paid as a consultant. I cannot be the only person who cannot get access, and I’m not going to waste another 30 minutes trying to help them solve a technical issue they should be able to identify and fix on their own. 
15.    I keep seeing that commercial for Rocket Money where they ask people if they know how many subscriptions they have. Inevitably, everyone underestimates what they are spending each month for digital access to newspapers, for streaming services, for memberships and websites, etc. I decided to drop my subscription to the online version of a national newspaper when the price increased. I was all canceled and feeling proud of myself when they emailed me and enticed me back with a much better price. OK, Rocket, add another subscription to my list!
16.    Here in New Jersey we seem to have come up short on names for some of our towns. Maybe that’s why we have New Brunswick, North Brunswick, South Brunswick and East Brunswick, which are miles from each other. There is no Brunswick or West Brunswick, however. And we have Orange, West Orange, East Orange and South Orange but no North Orange. Who decides these things? And why do I notice them or care?