New Year's Eve was fine. I watched football all through the day (pro teams that had a bearing on the Cowboys). I'm sure I must have done something else, but it is kind of a blur. I know I did work a lot on the hard Saturday crossword puzzle.

Moon Pie went missing on Dec 30, Saturday evening and I'm still expecting her to come home. I worried last night with the fireworks all around, but I hope she was safe and curled up wherever she goes when she goes. I will be so glad to get the catio built so I don't have to let her outside.

Today will be another day of football--college bowl games. TEXAS tonight and that is the big one. Lots of friends have tickets to the championship game next week, hoping that Texas will be there.

My lunch with the friends on Saturday was so good for me! It is fun to be reminded of who I was 40 years ago and remember some old times. It was my two JazzFest sportswriter buddies and a friend of theirs from Tacoma, who was a nice guy. Plus, a woman that was also with us at JazzFest each time. Her husband is the sportswriter and he works for the Cowboys and had to be out at their game so she was there, but not him. She has a deep Southern accent because she is from Louisiana and it is so cute. I would like to be friends with her and she doesn't live all that far. I may have to see if we can get together one of these days.

The sports bar we went to was NOT crowded and that was great. We didn't feel rushed and it wasn't too loud. I had two wonderful beers (Sullivan's). I used to drink that at ____? I want to say Mother Egan's, but that doesn't even sound like a real place. It was a bar right next door to our radio station so we sometimes walked over there. I also had a big vegetarian burger that was really good. And fries.

My best friend of the bunch has a girlfriend that he lives with. I knew his wife had died. I didn't know that they were within three days of divorce when she died from drinking. It was not good at all the last 18 months or so of their marriage, sadly. But, as it turns out and the divorce wasn't finalized, he got her life insurance and her 401K and, I guess, he was able to retire with that. I think he deserved it after all he'd gone through. He was very sweet about my divorce, too, and said, "I'm sorry you had to go through that." That is a really nice thing to say to someone that goes through a divorce.

I'm always excited for a new year to begin and have a new start. But I'm full of trepidation this year with the election in November and the tiniest possibility that HE -- the name I will not speak -- might worm his way into the presidency again. Or even that we have to hear about him all year long. It worries me that this Israel/Gaza war is getting worse and worse and the terror is so high for people on both sides, but especially the Palestinians that had nothing to do with this.

Personally, I'm excited that I will pay off my car loan and have that extra income each month which should go a long way to making life more comfortable. With everything I pay having gone up considerably in the last two months, it may just fill in those gaps, but those gaps will have to be filled in. I will be able to sign up for Medicare now and be closer each day to retirement. And, soon, I will have my PORCH. We are still waiting for the building permit. Once we have it I hope he goes full bore and it is up in a week or ten days. I probably need to decide on a color to paint it. That is going to be my happy place for .... the rest of my life? My porch in Austin surely had been my happy place for many years and there's nothing I miss more. I hope I can get this one to be that comfortable and accessible.

Okay - closing in on noon now and the LSU football game. No real resolutions for the year except I'm going to try for a Vegjanuary.... I don't eat meat much anyway so it should be doable. Even if I ate a vegetable every day in January, along with anything else, I'd be way ahead. Today will be black-eyed peas and cabbage so that's a good start.