MAYAN MYTHS, PAPER SACKS & THREE MONKEYS

Mayan Round

“Possibly the oldest doomsday prediction is found on an Assyrian clay tablet dated to 2800 B.C. While it’s nearly 5,000 years old, it sounds amazingly current: “Our Earth is degenerate in these latter days. There are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end. Bribery and corruption are common. Children no longer obey their parents. Every man wants to write a book, and the end of the world is evidently approaching.” Read more:

“Earlier this month, NASA posted a list of frequently asked questions about why the world won’t end in 2012, like some believe the Mayans calendar indicates. The post explained that Earth has been getting along fine for the last 4 billion years and there is no threat to our planet this year.”
Read more:

I have to tell you, readers, people a lot smarter than most of us are telling us not to worry about the end of the world. So guess what? I’m not gonna worry. Besides, I figured out the other day that what I really need to worry about is how many more wrinkles will I develop on my upper arms?; why do women grow more hair and men less as they age?; what happens to stuff that just plain disappears from my house, like socks, last year’s Christmas card list, my husband’s favorite magazine that he knows came in the mail yesterday?; what I’m going to write for next week’s blog while surrounded by piles of wrapping paper, unwrapped gifts and a name on the list who has everything or doesn’t want anything? Stuff like that just plain drives me nuts. Gives me the 3 a.m. groans, tosses and turns. Messes up my brain till I can’t write a decent sentence in spite of my title “writer.”

Christmas will come again this year, folks. I can almost guarantee it. I love Christmas. I love my family. I love to bake. But I hate to wrap gifts and that’s probably why they look like they were wrapped by three monkeys locked in a room with the lights off. So when gift bags came out I was ecstatic. There was a time when I would try using paper sacks. You know those things we rarely see that were replaced by plastic bags that in no way can be decorated and used to wrap gifts in? Oops, bad sentence, but I think you got the message. Remember what I said about my messed up brain? I could draw colored pictures on paper sacks and at least look like I’d tried to be creative. It’s not cool to give someone a Christmas gift in a plastic bag with Walmart smeared all over it.

I have to confess I do it a lot for birthdays for adults. Our family is crazy about celebrating all sorts of things. Birthdays, anniversaries,  purchase of a new car, mattress or dishwasher, the loss of a tooth (the baby’s not us oldster’s) except for the day grandpa lost his teeth and found them in the dryer cause he’s fond of carrying them around in his pocket. Gifts then are okay in a Walmart bag, but we draw the line for Christmas. Today our family actually discussed if it was okay to wrap a large, bunglesome gift in an old sheet, and decided that it would be fine as long as we draped a big bow on it.

You can see why I’m writing this roaming, ranting, raving blog instead of trying to do some research and write something informative, inspirational and entertaining. I’m worried to death about all this stuff. BUT I’m not too worried about whether I’ll wake up on Dec. 22 or not. Not in particular, anyway. At my age, that’s sort of a consideration every morning.

But hey, I’ve wrapped a bunch of presents, and it just ain’t gonna happen that Christmas doesn’t roll around as usual. At least, I don’t think so.