Sucks To Be You, 2011

I keep running across blog posts and tweets and articles summarizing last year, all of which can be condensed into three words: 2011 Blew Goats That's pretty much my assessment, too. Having lived through far more difficult times, I can't say that 2011 was my Worst. Year. Ever. but it definitely ranks in the top five, possibly the top three, at least in terms of stress and annoyances and situations going sideways. Seeing how we experienced three hundred and sixty-five days of illness (both of human and pet variety), professional catastrophes (oh, hi, one third of all bookstores closing), and overall worst case scenarios, I planned to ignore the holidays and start fresh in January. I decided we'd skip decorating/baking/shopping/entertaining and all the other assorted bits of holiday frippery because I just couldn't get behind putting a bow on the shit sandwich that was 2011. I was resolved. Fletch was not. He insisted we give this awful year a Viking funeral, setting it all on fire and sending it out to sea. I'm not sure how, exactly, but the nihilist/cynic I married somehow morphed into the unholy love child of Martha Stewart and Clark W. Griswold, playing the Bing Crosby Christmas channel 24/7 while slapping lights, pine boughs, and glitter on every item in this house that didn't move. And he even managed to decorate those items that did move. (It's hard to look noble while wearing jingle bells, but Loki pulls it off.) (Shame. Now in convenient hat form.)...