Whenever I walk around the yard and the back lots, the cats follow me. I think they’re hoping I’ll kill a gazelle and there will be something to eat.

I remember two things about 1954. The New York Giants beat the Cleveland Indians in the world series; I was crushed. And I participated in the trials for the new Salk polio vaccine; we were living in Corpus Christi at the time.

I had a good day yesterday. Made the bed. Took down the Christmas decorations. Talked to my children. Talked to old friends. Watched a bit of TV. Bought some shoe polish. Checked the mail. Got a package. And my college team won a basketball game. Pretty ordinary stuff.

I could really do with a hard freeze. Something in the teens. Winter is passing here in the Hill Country and we’ve yet to see one. There’s a bit of rain this morning and a front is on the way. But it’s only going down into the high 20s this weekend, and no one has ever called that hard.

I have a small piece of brass plate, about 3.5 X 5 inches. There are several windows cut in it, holes drilled, and other pieces of brass attached to it.

I fixed my broken garden angels. Two had heads returned to their shoulders, and the other was mounted and made ready for cemetery duty. As for the third, there’s a story.

I can really sense the tempo of the earth at morning. Get a feel for the slow spin of the planet on its axis in its heavenly circle around the sun. It’s a measured pace of big things in a big place…

This is a little story about a friend who helped me in a pinch yesterday, and it was an odd pinch, and probably not much of a pinch at all, small actually.

Now starts the eighth year of these little missives. Last year was the most productive by far. I managed to sit down and write 330 times. I think most of it was in self-defense.

Here we are at the end of the year. Wow. For the first time in recent memory, I’ve heard no discussion from my friends as to evening plans, even though for the last eight years, at least, our evening plans consisted of going to bed, and discussions were basically a formality.

I bought a little statue of a sitting angel that I’m going to glue to a rock and put at my wife’s grave. While I have the landscape cement out, I’m going to fix some of the other garden statues. One of those was a sitting angel that she liked, which is why I bought the new one.

I have a major couch, a minor couch, and two easy chairs in my front room, seating for seven if everyone likes one another or is at least willing to tolerate them. It’s been a long while since all the seats were taken and it will be a long while again before it happens once more.

Timing. One day I can walk out the back door and there’s a brilliant sunset for the viewing. On another I can walk out and the clouds are a steel gray and the sun is gone and whatever light painted them colors is someone else’s memory.

There’s a new world of light bulbs and it involves kelvins and lumens; one will tell you the color of the light and the other it’s brightness. Having been raised in an incandescent world, I can tell you I’ve had a hard time wrapping my head around it.

Christmas came, as I knew it would. I put up the little tree on Christmas eve. It stands about two feet tall. Then I installed the ceramic nativity set on the hearth. Two essential decorations, one a nod to the commercial, the other a nod to the religious.

I like it when things work out, and they worked out yesterday. My daughter and her family came in from Houston. They bunked in at a friend’s ranch just down the road and came over to see me. Literally. We saw each other.

Winter is having trouble making up its mind. I had a spring-like day on the golf course yesterday with my brother. Today promises more of the same, warm weather not golf. Winter must have forgotten it has a job to do and let spring back in the house.

I’m starting to get a Christmas tingle. Normally, by this time of the season I’m worn out and ready for it to end. Now, I feel like it’s just getting started. I’m glad I held off on the decorations, both inside and out. Christmas day this year may actually be more like a religious holiday than a commercial festival.

I watched a movie last night about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary. Actually, it was about two men key to the creation of the dictionary, but without the dictionary there would have been no story. So, for me the OED got the title role.

A measurable rain fell yesterday morning. Except the device with which said measurements are conducted, failed. Broke. Developed a crack. I was looking forward to the post rain trip to the fence but was sorely disappointed to discover upon arrival no solid evidence of the rain I had just witnessed.