Auld acquaintance? Fahgeddaboudit!

We were holed up the past fortnight or so, emerging only for the necessities (that is to say food, church, and gazing at other people's light displays) and didn't get back Into the World until yesterday afternoon and return-to-work Wednesday. Yesterday was clear and cool, with the chilliness clearly visible in the western sky headin' our way -- but not yet arrived for our holiday walk. Ve vere planning to volksmarch, until we found out that the volksmarchers were a couple of hundred miles south of us -- seemed a silly idea to jump in the car, drive for three hours so that we could walk for an hour, then drive back. Counterproductive, counterintuitive, yet insufficiently countercultural. So instead to the woods went we, Mama and Nannie and Dogberry made three. Not including J and The Michael. And yr. correspondent. So that's six, and the memory Comedy Routine-o-Matic spins up Bob McKenzie asking how much six would be in metric <>.

Homes should abut woods. Ours doesn't, but there's a woods about four blocks away, so that's close enough for my particular butt. Dogberry's first woods trek; we made a good fifteen feet in fifteen minutes, what with all the plants that needed to be sniffed and cataloged in the Doggiewiki. There was like a whole forest of flora. And it was full of other woodswalkers, which never happens. My theory is that these were people for whom the prospect of endless college bowl games was about as appealing as <>, anything would be better -- even dare we say it communing with nature.

It seemed to me at the time that it being January 1 and all, the appropriate greeting for meeting other humans upon the trail would be "Happy new year!" I seem to remember that at one time people said that. Must have seen it on teevee as a child. So I greeted all and sundry with about as cheery a "Happy new year!" as I could manage, what with supervising Dogberry's ongoing research and such. You shoulda seen the looks we got. Maybe I should have eschewed the traditional and opted for a heartfelt "Fish slime!" or "Shoes for industry, comrade!" I thought for a second that the Birkenstock Trio would have doused me with thirty gallons of holy water, much like the aforementioned victorious college football teams practicing their jolly sporting ways on their beloved coach, the better to induce my spontaneously combusting given the look of horror evinced; but then again I should think the Birkenstock Trio would themselves have spontaneously combusted if they found themselves within a half-mile of the stuff. They contented themselves with warding off the Evil Eye and studiously studying the trail for possible signs of aliens or predators. Maybe it was the attempted eye contact. Or the presence of children.

Well all righty: aging boomers keep to their own clans, film at eleven. Except that we got the same reaction at BigBoxBooks, picking up a book that The Mama ordered from the endless interchangable supply of scornful Xers that BigBoxBooks keeps dehydrated in the back for just such occasions. "Ugh! Human contact! Must -- resist!" Ditto the various representatives of the various regional public transportation systems this morning, the Teeming Masses silently staring at train tracks hoping to conjure up a bullet train to elsewhere, not to mention my fellow cubedwellers as who likewise returned to the Land o Gainful Employment this morning (as opposed to the sensible ones remaining elsewhere still). The folks who actually responded, in fact beating me to my salutory punch, were my Muslim friends at work.

Hi ho, the paradoxical life suggests that when the countercultural becomes cultural, it stands to reason that culture becomes counterculture. That being the case, perhaps any marginal culture sufficiently organized would logically fill the vacuum vacated by the putative nt culture, which in our slice o geography at least seems to be so busy shirking its responsibilities to, you know, Set an Example and Lead. Maybe Arthur C. Clarke got it right: any sufficiently advanced culture appears as magic to a lesser culture. Wever. Personally, I rejoice to accept and return wishes for a Happy New Year, and if my fellow masters of the universe can't be bothered with such trivial poop the back of my hand to them.

So Happy New Year, I tell you! And may the blessings and peace be upon us yet, the ceiling not fall on us, and our hearts not attack us.