I declare February 29th as the day I shall set myself free. Wherever I have caged myself in I will look for a way out. Even if the bottom drops out it still is out. Not that I can conceive that the bottomless pit of my life has a bottom, but I am nothing, if not a positive thinker.

I will take Feb. 29th off as a day to ponder what little things I can do to help the world in general. I can recycle. I can re-purpose stuff headed for the landfill as artifacts usable in creative “found art” an endeavor I started ever since watching www.thestoryofstuff.com. I can buy things that I intend to use for many years, not just toss into the abyss when bored.

I can refuse to buy anything made in China or any other country that exploits women. Ratts that means I will never buy anything made anywhere again. Okay, I’ll just try to not buy things made in China for starts. But very much like going off my diet with a scrumptious double chocolate brownie…I will not beat myself up for infractions, but repent and move on.

I will listen to 5 times more music than watch internet TV. Ur, um, except for Downton Abbey which I watch if I need a good cry. How well written is a show if I am crying for Lady Mary, who would have run her car over me had I been walking down her street, ur um, mile long driveway? A girl needs some escapism from bills and ills.

I will laugh more, tell people I love them and not be so concerned about each new (well earned) wrinkle. I will pass along good news as readily as bad. I will pray for those who persecute me and those who just mildly piss me off.  I will in fact pray for ways for God to use me for good (as I already know how to use my time for lesser pursuits).

On Ground Hog Day I will watch the movie of the same name. It really was one of Murray’s finer moments.

Presidents’ Day will be filled with being honest as Abe and eating cherry pie, I think that should cover it.

Then once I get past the depression pit that Valentine’s Day is, I should be okay. It’s not a bad day, I can honor any dead Catholic saint you want…it’s the Hallmark version to which I have an aversion. For one thing I start rhyming like a candy heart gone bad. But here’s the problem: if you are with someone it is worse that Christmas for false expectations and if you are alone it is a day of demons wondering which Prince (Princess) got away and which ones were a bullet gladly dodged. On Valentine’s Day I vow to eat a great deal of chocolate and watch a funny movie or two or three.

Then it’s clear sailing to my Day of Jubilee. Ooo, and I just remembered Februray 29th is Saddie Hawkins Day as well (of Lil’ Abner fame). So if you are a single man within ear shot I may just ask you out, you have been forewarned. And if you are previously owned like a good Mercedes, I will be recycling as well. It just doesn’t get better than this.

February is just teaming with those Valentine vibes. The stores have been making shelf space for hard candy hearts with messages, boxes of chocolates and of course I’m-so-cute-I-could-puke stuffed animals. Yes, I’m jaded. Yes, I’m a cynic. But on the bright side, I don’t have to share any of the chocolates I just bought myself.

The problem I have with St. Valentine’s Day is the same issue I have with Christmas and Easter, the celebrations have been ‘Hallmark-isized’ to death. The original intent of honoring this Saint was to note how selfless he was. There are many legends surrounding Valentine. One says that he married couples in love when the British forbade it, another that he wrote letters to the downtrodden of encouragement on heart shaped ivy leaves from his prison cell. These notes were then spirited away by doves. Whoever he was he was NOT a pudgy cupid. He was NOT hocking diamonds. And he was NOT a supporter of romantic love.

Romantic love hangs out while the getting’s good. And when the getting is not so good, “Bye-bye love, bye-bye sweet caress, hello loneliness, I think that I could die, bye-bye my love good-by” (Everly Brothers…if you have to ask).

Real Valentine’s love, now that is a new subject and one that does not sell cards, candy or crap. Real love takes action. Real love is kind when others are rude and hurtful. Real love looks beyond today and seeks peaceful solutions for a long way down the road. Love is NOT a business manager flipping tricks so each quarter looks good to the stock holders.

Real love is a new economy based on some very old principles. What if getting ahead meant you were selling your soul? What if insisting life owed you a higher standard of living meant you would never be happy? The truth is stuff, status and standing doesn’t tell me much about your character, other than you have sold out. You will never find lasting peace by looking for love in all the wrong places (Waylon Jennings).

Love is helping up someone who cannot return the favor. Love is giving to someone who doesn’t deserve it. It is all about investing in people and being willing to lose that bet more than win it. Love is an action, not a reaction. It is intensely passionate, but seeks no gain.

February can be a month of joy and miracles if you will let go of what’s in it for you and give away your heart, money and soul to someone who is lonely, abandoned and forsaken. And just for fun do the giving anonymously. Give to someone who cannot possibly return the favor. Just add a note to “Pay it forward” (Catherine Ryan Hyde).

One of the best things I did this year was move to a city I had always loved but never lived in. I am now living in Portlandia, as the train loud-speakers call it in Spanish (so that’s where they got the name for the TV show- duh). Portland, Oregon is like going to the World’s Fair. It is so well planned, kept and infused with the arts I keep expecting someone to ask me to buy EE tickets. Portland just won an award for best city parks in the country…and they are. Rose gardens, azalea gardens, and rhododendron gardens grace hillsides. Intricate Japanese gardens, Chinese gardens and small pocket parks burst forth within the confines of the city blocks. In the suburbs people everywhere are ripping up their lawns and putting in vegetable gardens so if they have extra food they can donate it to food banks. Wish this had been popular when I was growing up. I hated mowing the lawn and dumping the grass clippings in the compost pile we never used was an ongoing debate. “Composting is good.” “But we have no gardens.”

There are tons of cool thing about Portland. People, all shapes and sizes and backgrounds live together in neighborhoods and are happy about it. They know their neighbors. The saying “Keep Portland Weird” is not just about being counter culture, but it’s about letting everyone be their own weird wonderful self. It is easy to get around. Downtown the trains and trolley line is FREE. Yup, free, just hop on and hop off. Did I mention that there is no sales tax? And the social services are marvelous. Oh, and when the police were trying to get the Occupy Portland people out of a park, they first assessed how many people there were homeless and ramped up their shelter bed count so that they were not forcing people to sleep on concrete or in alleys that next night. They talked with participants, did not use force, did not gas anyone. The police respected the right for civil disobedience. The people in return did not taunt the police. People for and against ‘Occupy’ understood that Freedom of Speech for everyone was being tested.

Oh, and that part about it always rains in Portland. Did you know that Atlanta, Georgia gets more rainfall than Portland? That even when it rain there are things called sunbursts? If you sit by a window at work you can look up and see the sun bouncing off the newly watered world all year long. I thought it was going to be like northern Iceland where you’d start chewing your paws by November–in the dark. Not the case. And here’s something for my New England friends to ponder…you don’t have to shovel over-cast.

Another great thing about this year is I was able to travel a great deal. And the year has another month in it and, yes-sire, I’m hitting another continent for New Year’s Eve. The best part of my travel was it is to all new places. Think of all the places I had never been lost in.  This was my chance to see if those Berlitz CDs worked. The answer is, I guess playing them while I was sleeping was not as effective as I had hoped. This year alone I have been lost in Barcelona, Rome, Capri, and Pompeii (it was that Lemoncello shot I tried before going in to the ruins). I got turned around in the ancient brothel and ended up with a Scandinavian group. Nice people but they all sounded like the Swedish chef on the Muppets, “chicky chicky, mork, mork, mork”.

I was lost in Santorini. (Telling me to take a left by the stairs at the blue dome was not funny.) I was lost in Sorrento. (Okay just at the winery sample room. Again, not my fault). I got lost in Kusadasi, Turkey in a 4 block area at the bazaar…if you’ve seen one rug store you’ve seen them all. Well maybe I only saw one. I don’t know. I never did see where they make the taffy or the towels. Ephesus, while built by the Romans in fact did not have a single road leading to Rome or anywhere else that looked familiar. They had a nice library, but no books. They had a large public bathroom with places for 20 or more to sit at a time, but no books there either…and no maps. Mykonos is not built on a grid and FYI if you’ve seen one jewelry store–you have not seen them all. And I got to see them all at least twice inside and out. You’ll be happy to know new inventory is arriving next week.

Athens doesn’t count, people who live there get lost. I did not get lost in the Corinth Canal it has massive high walls and the waterway is a straight line and I was in a small boat.  I did lose my tour group in Malta at the Co-Cathedral, now that was not absolutely not my fault. They need a sign in that place, not for people with ADD. Every inch of the walls and floors and ceiling was covered in intricate decor. The good news is I knew the ship was at the bottom of the cliff, I could even see it. Finding a way back to the ship, was an adventure. But hey, life is an adventure.

But the best thing, bar none, about this year was a very small new member of the family. Matthew Christopher arrived in the Fall. He is now cooing, laughing and gurgling. He sleeps most anywhere, but his favorite place, I think, is sleeping in Gramma’s arms. As someone who blogs, writes, paints, Skypes, tweets, texts (poorly), FBs, Links-In and usually all at once I learned something this year. If you stop long enough to let a baby fall asleep on you and don’t move you can hear the sweetest sound on earth. If you close the laptop, click off the remote and watch the sun filter through the trees onto the floor and wait…you can hear the wee sigh of contentment and joy. It is worth the wait.

And there’s good news. The year’s not finished. Step over the unpleasantness, the red ink, the fears and go find some joy. It is reasonably priced, but NOT in a store near you. It is the pine scent in the air, a bird calling, a squirrel scolding a chipmunk. It is a sunset, a rainstorm, a piece of candy found in a pocket (mostly lint free) just when you need it. It is a familiar song, a child’s giggle and a smile from someone much older than you are. It is in a cheek to cheek dance, a chocolate dessert and it’s finding an old book of poems and rereading them until it feels like hugging an old friend. Hurry you only have 31 shopping days left for your 2011 JOY. But the 2012 JOY goes on sale Jan. 1st just in case you get too busy between now and then with Holiday parties. Your allotment of JOY is waiting for you.

Here’s a little gift item, blue chocolate covered blueberries, Bluez Hydriate (because even if we hate France politically, French sounding names can garner higher prices: Avion, Yoplait case in point). The ad copy reads, “These moist dried berries are covered in milk chocolate.” Whoa. Back up. These moist dried berries? Which is it? Guess the guys down in marketing did a Focus Group and found out people who buy $10 boxes of candies don’t like the idea of eating shriveled up blueberries. And not only are these “rare exotic delicacies” (which you can find growing wild in fields anywhere from Canada to the Mason-Dixon line) covered in chocolate, they come in (drum roll please) “a savory tin”. What the what? Okay, if you are a billy goat I can see why a Currier and Ives 6″ tin might appeal to the eye. But for me and my household, we’ll stick to the chocolates inside.

And if you are someone who changes their $300 perfume as often as you change your $500 designer underwear, or if you delight in dousing yourself in noxious fragrance and stepping into a crowded elevator with 25 floors to go, just to be noticed…you are in luck. This year all the big perfume players announced they are offering florals from a garden. (So that’s where flowers grow?). In fact, one high end ‘parfum’ vendor notes that while their bottle art does feature a poppy, poppies have no fragrance at all. So the scientists in the back room with the “NOSE” (the person who decides if we will swoon or puke) created a vanilla, lilac and violet scent. This, I assume, is exactly what a poppy would smell like, if alas, a poppy could exude even the faintest odor. A moment of silence to lament the poor poppy and the dip-wad who designed a bottle using a flower with no fragrance. Oops, sounds like a highly paid yuppie designer just joined the 99%,,,good luck getting another job.

Meanwhile back in the Northwest everyone is talking about buying locally from small shops this Holiday season. Buy hand knit caps, hand carved candlesticks and eat home made ice cream. Why just the other day I heard a radio ad touting the value of buying locally from small businesses. It was by American Express.

And I would be remiss this season if I didn’t mention the TV ads. A new all time low features small girls talking about what they will be when the grow up. “I want to be an astronaut, a baker, a ballerina…because she said I can.” She? Angelou, Meir, Ride, Bhutto? Nope, Barbie.

Seriously do these advertisers think we are all morons? Apparently so.

“No,” my buddy Jim screamed, “you don’t slow down. You go faster so that your are riding only on top of the bumps. You don’t want to sink into the valleys.”

I screamed back into the wind, “What are you crazy? Like taking the moguls on a ski slope? That’s suicide.”

“Stomping on the brakes will actually cause you to go into a spin. Try it my way, trust me.”

I did and he was right.

But staying with the momentum of ‘full out or stop’ took more internal ‘umph’ than Formula 1 driving skills. My worldview of scarcity (and let’s face it, a through acculturation in a stern German household) still drums in my ears, ‘hold back you never know what’s around the corner.’ Well, duh, going slow doesn’t help that does it? I am having to face facts in the face of October. I cannot control one stupid thing in my life so why not live full out? Why not choose to be fearless and frolic with laughter, color and hope?

Behold October. She heralds the inevitable winter. And frankly it’s as if the month is clueless as to what is about to happen. The blue sky pops out against the raucous colors of the trees. Even in temperate zones the Iceplant, Firebush and Liquid Ambers splash red, yellow and orange with abandon. Each leaf hand-painted; glazed stained-glass on a stem. Alas, from whence comes all this joy? I want to blow a whistle and slap Autumn in it’s cool wet face and scream, “Hold on to your color, release it slowly. Don’t be so shortsighted. Watch your back, Jack Frost wants to move in and claim your turf. Why don’t you hold back? Have you no fear?” Apparently not.

The month of October is generous to our senses and kind to our souls. The song of angels echos in the wild wind, swirls about my feet and there is nothing for it but to allow the dance to commence. October just hasn’t got it within her to be stingy. It is almost painful to watch what the lack of propriety provides. Hilarity gushes forth at every turn along with the overflowing gutters.

Perhaps the melancholy that sits in the pit of my stomach is that I know about winter…that she-devil spewing silent barren landscapes of blue-tinted dunes.  I know that life can offer up a very cold shoulder after a time of rapid creativity. Ah, how I bask and flourish in the illusion of control. And doesn’t every writer know the gut wrenching nausea after three straight days of writing pure gold you wake up and the muse has left the building. Forget the Ides of March, spring is in the air then. It’s the Ides of October that should put the fear of God into you. And I ask you, is this Autumnal grande finale saying, ‘toss your cares to the wind, ride the top of the bumps and trust’? Or am I hearing Peggy Lee singing, “is that all there is, my friend?” Bets the heck out of me.

So, I will collect the shiny leaves for tonight’s centerpiece. And even though I know full well I will wake up the next morning to find shriveled useless brown remains I will have my moment of art from nature. And thanks to October I have decided to celebrate the life I have today, right now, in the moment.

Last night I went to a dance (think Prom for old farts). I boisterously sang all the words I knew to the songs, which was about a 50-50 ratio. I let my partners swing me around until I was giddy and girlish. And yes I woke up with a stiff neck. But for now, for October, I have promised myself to live full out. It’s the least I can do given the array of wonderment outside my door.

Now even though I am my own boss and can play hooky whenever I want, it’s not the same. First of all no one else is around to play. Second of all, there is something about the chilly air that speaks of producing something. Maybe it goes back to my ancestors, but cold air means moving around and keeping warm. So while I am not going to chop a cord of wood anytime too soon…I will dust off the notes for the next book. I will take out the brushes and paint and canvas. I will schedule more opportunites to speak to groups about their hopes and dreams.

Fall is a good reminder for my friends who are thinking about retirement to plan for a life of excitement. We all know what we want to retire ‘from’…traffic jams, long meetings and micro-managers. But what is it we all want to retire to? As I say, it’s all well and good to say ‘golf’, but what are you going to do the rest of your waking hours?

So go buy your plaid shirt, skirt or tie and think about what all that schooling was for. Maybe, you still have an awful lot left to give others. This doesn’t have to be difficult, expensive or time consuming. Just listen to the next time you say, “somebody ought to do something about that” and consider that might be you!

Or simply put we run out  of stamina in a dry spell.  How many people, the day after a great promotion or significant salary increase, say, “I just can’t go on with all this recognition?” Not too many. What bogs us down is the feeling (or actual proof) that we are not valued and are not seen for the contributions that we could and do make.

So it’s time for a little self-management. If you have noticed that your attitude has dropped altitude maybe you need to find out what’s missing. If you hear other people being praised for work you did it can feel like a body hit. You have a few choices. You can try to be a bit more assertive and let people know when something was your idea. But if it’s your boss who is hogging all the glory, stop and look around. What is the dynamic? If the boss is the owner’s daughter (or favorite recruit), it’s probably not going to do you any good to try to get noticed. It will look like grandstanding at best and petty jealousy or lying at worst. So think out of the inbox. Where can you contribute to your workplace (or community) that your gifts will be noticed? Write an insightful article for the company newsletter. Head up the next charity drive, or form a workplace team Walking For the Cure. In other words, don’t fester if the horse you are on isn’t moving, switch horses.

You may have to start that night class you promised yourself and increase your skills for a lateral move, or a move to another branch office. The point is if you come home every night with the same sob story of how the other person is stealing your thunder, or the boss doesn’t appreciate you you are going to start sounding like Al in the Happy Days TV sitcom, “Did I ever tell you the story about Rosa Coletti?” And at that point all the cast can mouth the words to Al’s story because he told it all the time, but never did anything about it.

To get up steam you need to see light at the end of the tunnel. Take time to write up your career goals. Write up a plan on how to get those goals. If you don’t know what it really takes to reach your vision, start informally interviewing people (or read their bios) of how they got to be where you plan to be someday. Was it more school, internships, or even a week-end job learning a new skill base? Meanwhile, take advantage of any and all education, workshops and seminars at work. Let your current employer train you to be the best you can be. If when you are at work you see it as a place to gather skills and try new creative problem solving methods on the  way to your dream, the steam will return.

Watermelons are plentiful, corn is knee high by the Fourth of July give or take a flood or drought or both. The Symphony is playing in the park after dark even though it is still 90 degrees out. Mommas chase kids, Grandmas fan themselves, and the men mop up their sweaty brows and whistle while muttering something, that if audible, would get them smacked on the head with Grandma’s fan.

This is my last summer in the south, that I know of. I must have a dozen pairs of shorts and sleeveless shirts…all will soon be relegated to the duffel bag for Caribbean cruises. As will the five bathing suits I own. I’m moving to Portland, I am pretty sure I won’t need more than one bathing suit to swim at the ‘Y’. Humans don’t actually swim in the ocean up there. I think it’s designated as Sea Lion territory and for other animals that have just a tad more blubber than I do, granted just a tad.

Here’s what I will miss about the south.

Sweet tea. And by sweet I mean it tastes as if it was stirred with rock candy and sugar cane. I am actually surprised scientifically that water can hold that much dissolved sugar. The tea part I believe is for coloring effect. Do not drink after 5pm. I did last night and was up until 5am.

Eye contact. This may be a no-brainer if you live outside a city or crowded suburb. When I lived in New York City it was an unspoken rule. Never make eye contact, that’s a good way to get mugged. In the south folks like to make eye contact. They like to shake your hand. They smile a lot. They wink and it means howdy. They ask you how you are and listen to the answer. Go figure.

Courtesy. The first month I was here I went to the local Ace Hardware store to buy some top soil in bag. The clerk was busy with a line out the door, so it was up to me to pick up the bags and get them into the trunk of my car. A man jumped out of his pick-up, wife still in the cab and started hauling soil into my trunk. Up north if someone did that they would expect a tip. Not down here, a tip would be insulting. Wow!

Parties. I’ve been to parties in the Hamptons, Hard Rock Cafe NYC, The Waldorf, Beverly Hills, and the south of France. I know a good party. This is what I saw in the south. Homemade food. The folks who were serving the food were friends of the host and their high school kids. It was usually a fundraiser for a good cause and it was always a dressy affair. Most parties were outdoors and crammed packed with people. People liked each other, or at least acted like it. Not sure if I can wear crushed velvet off-the-shoulder in Portland. May have to get another duffel bag relegated to formal cruise wear.

Food. Fried chicken, pulled pork (as in ‘A Pork Pulling’: the entire hog is roasted and torn apart…I know you vegetarians just puked.) But the rest of us? We are piling it onto hot dog rolls and adding cole slaw, BBQ sauce and/or vinegar. There are wickedly sweet salads of red grapes and candied pecans. Things called cheeses straws show up at every party. Best I can tell these are cheesy dough sticks that have been fried. Then there are the cakes. No southern hostess would serve a cake unless it was at least 8″ high. Fruit pies, meringues to die for…lemon and chocolate. Did I mention the fudge? I am hoping that I will have another duffel bag soon of all my size 12s and higher.  So I say adieu to the foods of the south.

Ah, alas and a ‘Farewell to Yams’.

I think it was Willie Nelson who was once on a road tour and got a call that his house was on fire and said something like, “for goodness sake pull the old pick-up into the garage.” It’s not that I am promoting insurance fraud…it’s just that I was wondering how you start a hail storm.

In case you are steeped in humiliation, silently wondering  if you are the only one whose butt is getting chewed up in this recession, the answer is, “NO!” I have to confess I am one of the many folks who are near homeless while owning hundreds of thousands of dollars in real estate. House rich, cash poor that’s me. (The good news is I can drive past my assets and wave a tootle-loo. In fact, I can moon my assets, vacant houses rarely call the cops.)

But I have a solution to my woos. I am going to write a book and make millions of dollars. And anyone can do this, it’s as easy as playing the Lottery (and losing). I took a course which I paid $2,500 for (on credit, duh!). I learned that I have to offer a solution for a problem that is plaguing our country.  And I have a dozy!

Here’s the problem, some of you are solvent, living within your means and have no credit card debt. You just aren’t trying hard enough. I am ashamed at some of you, paying cash on the barrel head and walking in the park instead of the mall. There is even a cult of people who call themselves minimalist. The nerve, do they want the wealthy only-child population in China to go starving again?

So I am going to write a book, “101  Ways how to lose money, stay in debt and fry that nest egg!” It will include my secrets on selling homes at a loss, buying condos for residual income that only allow renters who would not be caught dead living in my neighborhood and that old standby–putting my money into a savings account that actually charges me to save. This is going to be BIG, ur um, well, maybe or maybe not. (I think someone has been leaking my tips to the press).

As a metaphor ’showers’ are not so exciting. Really? I have to endure cold wet drizzle in order to have flowers in my life. Yuck. Haven’t I had years of tedious showers?

Yikes! I should have been born a duck. Watch them the next time you go to a duck pond. They are oblivious to the rain. That would be nice. But the more showers I endure the worse my attitude toward them. I know I can choose to think like a duck, but I am not a duck. I don’t have webbed feet and I really hate worms and grubs. Oh, wait I like Thai garlic duck, so if I am what  I eat…?

And how did we get to April already? I am still forgetting and writing 2010 on my checks. That can mean only one thing…I’ve become my grandmother. Okay, that clue and the age spots on my hands which have slowly crept from my wrists down to the first knuckle on my fingers apparently making a dash for my finger tips. Soon I will in fact be a leopard who can change her spots, well at least I can become more ’spotty’. (Another metaphor?)

Seriously, I am getting too old for life’s showers. I finally understand the hermits in caves and the little old ladies who peek out from their dingy lace curtains living the same routine day after day.  Maybe ‘Elenore Rigby’ decided to swap chaos for loneliness. At least you know what the day is going to bring.

I am reminded of the Oklahoma saying, “Don’t pee down my leg and tell me it’s raining.” I am not totally sure what that means but the imagine makes me laugh. It’s like my life.

 I am getting weary of life’s. But at age 60 there is good news. I not a senior citizen yet. This is  according to the movie theater who won’t give me a discount until age 62. (AARP not withstanding who wanted me to join up with their gi-normous lobby at age 45.  I declined. )

Here’s the bargain I want to strike with God: Less showers and I will live with a few less flowers. Can I get an amen???