Oh, I feel the same as Amos. I want everyone everywhere to have a wonderful, peaceful, and prosperous New Year and for every New Year to be the same.

But now, I must trudge my road alone, bereft of understanding and comfort. For on January 4 I will have something stuck in my right eye, and on the 19th that eye will undergo the knife. It will be an attempt, which will probably fail, to correct a vision problem. But I am resigned to failure and a life of half-blindness. But there is a ray of hope, for I could then wear an eyepatch and go a-pirating on the Portneuf and Snake Rivers, save that I have neither boat nor ship.

Ah, well, there is always begging.