My mother. Found her picture. Made my year.

In no particular order and with no particular intent. What I remember. Mainly.

I made a friend on the Internet. No kidding. An Italian married to a Jewish beauty, so now he sounds like Woody Allen at Catholic school.

Harvard won a share of the Ivy League football title. Meanwhile, the rest of the Ivy League was making a laughingstock of itself with political correctness, microaggressions, safe spaces, and other kinds of fear and trembling. Harvard doesn’t need safe spaces. They rule the world regardless.

Got Rush Limbaugh children’s books about American history for two of our grandchildren. My wife’s 45 year old son walked out of the room when he saw what we’d given his son.

Published two books of our own too. One print, one an ebook. (Okay, okay. “The Lounge Conversations” at Amazon. “Why Is There a Boomer Bible?” On Kindle. More to come.)

Commented to my wife about a longtime friendly commenter that “she’s a dirty old woman.” To which my wife responded, “Just like you.” How unfair I thought. Then, when I was searching for one specific pic in my files, I realized how many pictures of naked women I’d collected in just the last year. My wife was right. And wrong too. The year has been full of third wave feminism, rape culture, and other women’s nonsense. I was quietly building a dossier proving that women really, always, want to be naked in public. Starkers if they can get away with it. Performing, protesting, posturing, and ultimately preening with every little bit and nip exposed. But I rarely make lewd jokes.

TRUMP! TRUMP! TRUMP! The most fun I’ve had in seven years of the mummy king. Everybody in establishment Washington hates him, and everything he says and does bumps him up in the polls. Americans have a sense of humor. Reality TV has proven we are a coarse and vulgar people. Why are the stuffed shirts so suddenly astounded that a coarse vulgar candidate would resonate with a populace sick to death of being ruled by oppressive regulations and smarmy, patronizing liars in buttondown shirts?

The greyhound thing. We have a new old boy named Rikki Tikki Tavi. He looks like a deer. Right now he has a cut foot. How we measure time here. We plan on celebrating New Years with him.

We lost our last feral cat this year. Her name was Cassie. Like several of our cats, she bonded with me. (The one who was supposed to be mine, Izzie, bonded with my wife instead. No accounting for these things.) We’ve been looking for a black cat to rescue. No luck so far.

Got defriended a few times on Facebook. People don’t like it when you object to their pronouncements with logic and no use of profanities or obscenities. Which is their definition of ad hominem attack. Completely revolting. Like a wrestler who can’t figure out where to get a hold. The only possible response is to stomp off the mat and hurry to the locker room.

Raebert has spent the whole year being Raebert. Scottish deerhound afflicted with a human size brain. He knows that I know that he understands everything I say. We spend a lot of time staring at each other. He’s spent a lot of time this year developing his moaning and groaning vocabulary. By 2016 he’ll qualify as a humpback whale in good standing.