Opinions

Not being a tidy person (meaning I don’t put the groceries, the laundry or my creative projects away promptly and clean up as I go along in the kitchen), I nevertheless believe a few changes I’d like to suggest would make the world tidier and more efficient. Things that serve no seriously useful purpose and generally tend to cause more chaos than they prevent. Some of these, I’ve no doubt mentioned here before, but it doesn’t hurt to repeat them in the hope somebody may see the value of these suggested changes and start a movement to spread the word.

I remember the days when everybody engaged in what they called “spring cleaning. This activity could begin any time the housewife felt overwhelmed by winter blahs and felt the need to clean out closets or make new kitchen curtains. Timing depended largely on the personal ambitions of the housewife in charge and the availability of reliable help. The weather might also be a factor, though it didn’t figure in any long-range goals because of its unpredictability.

New Year’s Resolutions are hard enough to keep when you are by yourself and nobody is going to see if you cheat or not, but this one can be even more difficult when you are in the company of others. Others who have the same bad habit you are trying to conquer. I’m talking about smoking and the things we all go through trying to rationalize our bad habit while, at the same time, trying to escape it.

If you’re like most of us, you’ve already fudged a little on one or more of the resolutions you so bravely made just a few days ago. We all like the feeling of being able to wipe the slate clean and start the new year fresh and guilt-free. But too often those well-meant promises we make to ourselves turn out to be a lot harder to honor than they were to make. I’d like to pass on some thoughts about New Year Resolutions, things that I’ve learned from experience and things that persons much wiser than I have shared with me over the years.

Believed to have been invented by the 17th-century English poet Sir John Suckling, Cribbage remains one of the most popular of all card games. A virtual playground for mental math, the game offers numerous ways to pile up impressive point totals from just five cards. A perfect hand totals 29 points, and that’s just the point count from the cards in one hand of play; there are several opportunities to score additional points during play by taking advantage of the cards played by your opponent, as well as the order in which cards are played.