altivo

Since I'm too lazy today to go back and read my last year's journal entries, I'll do this quiz version that's been making rounds.

1. What did you do in 2006 that you'd never done before? Work: "Misbehaved" so visibly at an organization's meetings that someone threatened to have me barred from future attendance? In a twisted way, this was good, because many people took my side, including my own boss, and now we are seeing that the emperor really has no clothes on. Home front: Judged several categories in the county fair.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I don't do the resolution thing.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Only a sheep and some aquarium fish.

4. Did anyone close to you die? A pet rabbit was the only one this year.

5. What countries did you visit? I haven't been outside the US since 1980.

6. What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006? Peace and quiet at home and at work.

7. What dates from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? November's election is a big one, since it represents a long overdue awakening on the part of US voters.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Work: Major conversion of systems from Windows to Linux, and with excellent results. Home front: Learned lace knitting techniques and used them, also started learning sectional warping methods.

9. What was your biggest failure? Very limited progress in losing weight.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Nothing important.

11. What was the best thing you bought? A 50 inch wide 8 shaft floor loom.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? My boss, who has seen several things in an entirely new light.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? Politicians and people who have bought their pile of BS.

14. Where did most of your money go? The animals, and replacing a vehicle.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Nothing was THAT good. ;p

16. What song will always remind you of 2006? I don't associate songs with much of anything.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Happier
ii. thinner or fatter? Slightly thinner
iii. richer or poorer? Slightly poorer

18. What do you wish you'd done more of? Gardening and riding.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of? Worrying about work.

20. How did you spend Christmas? Christmas eve with mate's family. Christmas day quietly at home.

21. Who did you meet for the first time? Several LJ folks at MFF.

22. Did you fall in love in 2006? Not with anyone new, but I was reminded how much I love many people.

23. How many one-night stands? Huh?

24. What was your favourite TV program? No television for me.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year? I don't think so.

26. What was the best book you read? Hard question, but I think I'll say Volle by Kyell Gold.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery? Grey Larsen's Irish flute playing. I'd only thought of him as a concertina and fiddle player before that.

28. What did you want and get? A new car.

29. What did you want and not get? Ummmm. Fifth Amendment.

30. What was your favorite film of this year? Over the Hedge.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 57 in December, and went shopping and had too big a lunch with my beloved mate.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? A more resounding defeat for Bush's devious and ugly policies.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2006? Denim and plaid. Not a concept to most people.

34. What kept you sane? My mate and our animals, and soothing activities like spinning, knitting, and weaving.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Not a one I can think of this year.

36. What political issue stirred you the most? The election as a referendum on Bush and the neocon Republicans.

37. Who did you miss? Family members and friends I won't see again in this life because they've already left it.

38. Who was the best new person you met? Not many absolutely new people this year, but I got to know several better than before and they were all wonderful. No need to name individuals.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006. Sometimes you HAVE to be a squeaky wheel.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. Can't. As I said above, songs don't make that kind of impression on me. How about just a poem? Here's a good one:

I leant upon a coppice gate
  When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
  The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
  Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
  Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
  The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
  The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
  Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
  Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
  The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
  Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
  In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
  Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
  Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
  Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
  His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
  And I was unaware.

("The Darkling Thrush," by Thomas Hardy, 31 December, 1900)