It’s 5:30 am and I am up. The baby will sleep for two more hours, at least.

It has been a wonderful, if a little busy, Christmas. We have had the chance to catch up with a lot of family and friends, stayed in a lovely home and are in the middle of three days of babysitting our granddaughter.

But as you all know I have become a fish out of water when I am off our property for any length of time and am looking forward to my routine at home. It is one thing to have unlimited water, heat and power but quite another to have unlimited quiet.

I had been wondering if I might be running out of time in this humble life. Maybe thirty four more summers if I live as long as my Mom. So using pretend science and imagined math I have calculated that if I get up at 530 every day instead of 8:30 I could possibly have three extra years of time. It was my New Years resolution last year. It has been the first resolution I have successfully incorporated into my life, probably because it had nothing to do with a resolve to quit drinking.

I have a friend who always has great conversation starters at her dinner parties. Questions like what was your first job or scariest moment always prompt fun and interesting evenings of conversation. Another friend asked me this week who would I invite to dinner if it could be anyone dead or alive, as many as I want.

At one point I suggested Christopher Columbus so I could ask him what the f#*k? She responded she would like to have her mysterious grandmother, so she could ask her the “real story”. So of course I would then need to invite my father again to ask WTF.

We concluded we would need to have a different WTF dinner party. Separate from the one where we invite the likes of Peter Gzowski and Emily Carr. Then there could be a dinner party for the “You were right crowd” George Orwell and Nostradamus as the guests of honour. We had great fun with the topic and I expect/warn future dinner guests of mine they might be asked the same question. I love stealing other people’s good ideas. Feel free to use this one at your New Years parties.

Well I am going to put the coffee on. It’s 6:30 and I can hear lazy bones getting up. The baby will sleep for another hour. It’s pretty easy being the boss of a human who sleeps fourteen hours a day. Why shouldn’t she? She has all of the time

in the world