Who's counting anyway? The Mayans?

By the time you read this, we may all be flying through space wondering why we didn’t go ahead and invest in that “survival pod” touted by doomsday preppers.  It would have been $48K well spent, given the circumstances of unprotected space travel. 

Of course, if we were hurtling toward oblivion you wouldn’t be reading this - so, thanks for your loyalty.   

You have to hand it to the Mayans, don’t you, even though they can be a downer.  I mean, way to go with the foreshadowing and suspense.  They’ve had the whole country leaning forward, tense, anticipating nothing.  Kind of like those “fiscal cliff” negotiators in Washington D.C.   

Thanks for keeping things in perspective too.  It’s never been clearer to me why it’s unimportant to run that dust mop down the hall again. 

But what better time than now (my deadline precedes the catastrophic demise of the planet), two days before the Grand Finale, to have one’s life glide past her field of vision?  

Let’s start with recent history and have a look at those 2012 resolutions.  Play along with a review of your own New Year’s promises, if you dare.  

First, I resolved to make a pie.  How did that go?  

Here we need a flourish - Ta dah!   

I made two pies!  That’s right, TWO pies!  I exceeded my resolution to make a pie by 100%!  (We’re going to gloss right over the fact that it took two years to complete this resolution.) 

The first pie was pretty darn good if I do say so myself.  Crust flakiness.  Fresh fruit.  Nummy num num num.  

And it wasn’t that hard to do…Hmmm!  I immediately told myself this could be my signature piece!  What I become known for!  Everyone will talk about my flaky-crusted fresh fruit pies!  When I’m invited to a potluck brunch they’ll say, “Oh Carolyn!  Please bring one of your beautiful and delicious pies!” 

So I made another one.  But the second pie exposed an internal flaw - my already waning commitment to the pie-making proposition (begging the question of why I set the goal to begin with).  It felt like doing a remake of “Casablanca.”  You cannot top the original.  

So, instead of measuring, sifting, blending and kneading, I bought a Pillsbury ready-made piecrust.  So ashamed. 

But the bigger mistake was telling my husband about the store-bought crust.  He said it wasn’t as good as my made-from-scratch crust.  That’s supposed to be a compliment, but it just adds pressure leading to a mathematically proportional decrease in the likelihood that I’ll make another pie.   

Oh all right!  I’ll make another beautiful and delicious flaky-crusted fresh fruit pie!  Sheesh!  But I will not reveal the origin of the crust. 

Second, I resolved to have an Elvis party. 

And oh yes, we partied with the King!  That party lives on.  Even now, weeks after he left the building, our guests continue to reminisce about the jumpsuits and capes, the wigs and sunglasses, the peanut butter and bananas and the Kentucky Fried Chicken.  We partied like it was the end of the 13^th cycle of the 400 year revolution of the Mayan calendar.   

(You may refer to your “Think Dream Play” archives to relive the details – October 19, 2012.  What?!  You don’t save my columns?!  Well trust me, it was a lot of fun to dress up and sing.  You should come next time – if there’s a world, that is.)
 
So, two for two on the resolutionizing.  Extremely effective I must say.  How about you?  Are you keeping score? 

Now might be a good time to jump in since I have to fess up to a resolution that has eluded me through various permutations, compromises, rewrites and gnashing of teeth.  It’s in the category of hair shirts and self-flagellation – you know, “personal fitness.”  

My incremental progress in this arena led me to the wimpiest of all my 2012 resolutions – to keep better records of my radius and circumference in the faint hope that the other part of the resolution, to stick with my trainer, would produce measurable muscles and reduction in flab.  Oh well!  

I guess I’ll just have to adopt the Mayan attitude, “It’s not the end of the world.”