It's a Sprint with Mother Time

Today is New Years Day.  Fraught with so much meaning, so many implied demands.  Screw it. I am watching the Rose Bowl Parade on HGTV with the Property Brothers.  The have such soporific voices, which makes the Kitsch Parade almost bearable. Like George Clooney but more nasal.  The best sleep-to movie of all time is The Perfect Storm. Wind, rain, churning sea, and Clooney's unanimated voice - knocks me out cold every time.

So, as I was saying, too many roses, not enough thorns. Corporate America disguised as a chintz sofa. I bite every time.

Best winter sporting event takes place today: The Winter Classic. Hockey as it was intended to be played. Outdoors. Snow. Ice. Fans freezing in the stands. Except it's being played In Washington D.C. They should ditch the idea of playing on team turf, so to speak, although one team is Chicago and could  no doubt have offered up a suitable climate. Just say its going to be played in Detroit or Calgary every year and be done with it. We have two ice sport people in our family: one plays hockey and one curls. Before you laugh, curling is not for the faint of heart, although it is played predominantly by Canadians, and the opposing teams applaud one another. Curling just proves that Canadians have a sense of humor, previously unsuspected. For instance, they have a big curling get together where everyone plays in pajamas. I can relate to that.

So, how do I know that the holiday season is truly over? (Please God, let it be over.) Not because it the New Year, but because the peppermint bark is finally gone. I love that stuff. But I digress, as usual. I was going to talk about my nose. Do you ever look in your car's visor mirror and see things that completely shock you? There you are, sitting in the Kroger parking lot, and you pull the mirror down to make sure you don't have anything disgusting in your teeth before you go inside, and dear God, what is that ? The clear, unforgiving afternoon light illuminates every blemish and flaw. The driver's seat of your car is the best place to pluck your eyebrows, by the way, as long as the car is not moving. But this time it was not my Sean Connery-esqe eyebrows. It was the tip of my nose. A maze,  a florid street map of the greater Los Angeles area ! W.C. Fields, Rudolph. Call the Butcher of Church Street! Pronto!

The Butcher, as you may recall, is my dermatologist. I have him on speed dial. A chirpy female voice answers his office phone. He's not in, won't be for another month.  Business has apparently been good, and he is in the Caribbean tanning his bald pate. I have always wondered why the guy who preaches the "no suntan" mantra ways has that golden glow.

Anyway, I called my go-to font of information, Kay.
"Not to worry. It's broken blood vessels. You are just falling apart with age," Kay said reassuringly. "Slap some make-up on it."

Wait, this is a trend. A couple of weeks ago my trainer gazed into my eyes as I was sweating through a set of flies and said, "Your left eye is filling up with blood.

Bad news in anybody's book. By the time I got to my eye doctor a week later ( I was busy. It was the holidays) the flaming red of my eyeball was gone.

"Don't worry," he said.  "Broken blood vessels aren't uncommon at your age. Don't even have to exert yourself much. "

So there is a theme here. One day you are dandy and the next, ppffft! Body parts start falling off, you start leaking various things. This is not good. I hit the wall of 70 a couple of weeks ago, and let's just say, I suspect it's downhill from here. Of course I am still going to the gym several times a week, and I watch every morsel that passes my lips (watching is the operative word here. I watch it, but I still eat it) It's a sprint with Mother Time. I need new Adidas! Shoe shopping cures almost anything, even if its for gym shoes.