Imagine the conversation: “You’re getting breast augmentation Charlotte?”

“Yes, I’m going in for it.”

“Who’s doing it, Charlotte?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

You should know! Ah, breast augmentation. Tummy tucks. Liposuction. The quick slice and snip of flaccid, fatty flesh under the belly, pressing everything back into more youthful place. Celebrities seem to get them all the time, although they do not always go well: see Tara Reid for evidence there. Serious mistakes can be made even when celebrities are involved.

I suppose it is unfair to attack the surgeon. Things do happen, and it is surgery. Minor surgery, perhaps, but surgery nonetheless. Someone contemplating it had best find the best doctor they can, and then examine their motives for wanting to get surgery. I understand that people have a compelling need to find themselves attractive, and be found attractive. But too many of the celebrities I see on E! who went in for “work” were already beautiful people who needed nothing. What were they seeking? What did they need inside that they tried to fill with the outside, gilding the lily?

People do need, sometimes, plastic surgery. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Sometimes t is indeed for psychological reasons, and valid ones. But to look like a celebrity–or for a celebrity to look even lovelier–this must give one pause. Consider, and then turn to a responsible provider: particularly one with a local, top rated facility. Because you should know.

In Houston dental bridges span the gums of elderly cowboys like leaping antelope crossing the narrow creek, graceful, white, seamless, as if teeth had always been there. No, not knocked out, not us. The old men hang their hates, sit down, and lean back in their firm dental chairs and the assistants lean over them, peering into their mouths.

Always knocked out.

“You lost this one . . . ?”

“In a fight.”

“You lost this one . . . ?”

“A horse kicked it out.”

The dentist enters and gently measures the gap, eyes the x-rays, nods. Midtown Dentistry feels like another place, in an old Victorian home, less a clinical territory and more of a magical one. The dentist could be standing in your grandmother’s parlor, for all the architecture knows. It’s a pleasant place. “You’ll have to not let the horses or other brawlers take out your bridge, you know.”

“I won’t.”

Your grandmother’s parlor, but state of the art. Space age. Every anesthetic convenience. The old cowboy rubs his stubbly jaw, wonders what it will feel like to have tooth in that space where the teeth are missing, again. Every odd problem he could have with his mouth, from bad breath to bruxism, can be handled here. He relaxes, soothed, and lies back again, closing his eyes, secure, listening to the gentle peaceful hum of business in the office. The professionals move softly to and fro.

“Maybe I’ll have them whitened, too,” he laughs, thinking of the old tobacco stains.

“Maybe so,” agrees the dentist. “Maybe so.”

Right now at Union Station there is an exhibit of darkness. It’s called Dialog in the Dark, and apparently (I haven’t been) what happens is that you go in, and then you are plunged into a world without light, where, with the help of assistants, who are blind, you fumble through a sightless world through all sorts of obstacles. It sounds terribly claustrophobic, but then, many people face that world every day.

I’ve often wondered, when reading about the physically challenged dealing with the digital world, how it’s done. For instance, how does a blind person use a computer? The thing of it is, it turns out that there are many ways that the digital gap can be bridged. I have seen people on the bus with elaborate pieces of space age technology in hand, and I have no idea what they are using. I am guessing that I have seen some of this technology online at a company that I found online, called EnableMart, the world leaders in assistive technology distribution. Supplying over three thousand different devices and conveniences to the challenged, they offer amongst other things an entire line of sophisticated braille notetakers. Braille notetakers are small devices, hand held, which are effectively PDAs for the blind. They have a synthesized voice and a pad of keys that you enter Braille into. Some are as simple, and inexpensive, as a recording device or small mp3 player. Others are as powerful and elaborate as laptop computers, with 120 gigabyte hard drives. Modern technology has made radical improvements in how the sightless can manipulate and control their world.

I hope that I do not lose my sight; but it is a good thing to know that such things are available, if I do.

Top three resolutions according to local news at five a.m.–

1. Spend More Time with Family
2. Get Fit
3. Lose Weight

No surprise, I suppose; and smoking is down at number four, too: a vice I thankfully do not have. I may have mentioned that I am not a gigantic resolutions fan. (Indeed, I did mention it.) And I never, ever made a resolution to get fit, or to lose weight. And why New Year’s? I guess packing on the pounds from the week of Halloween candy to the night of New Year’s booze finally catches up with people, and in the cold hard light of day, staring into the mirror at the sallow, pudgy cheeks and the sunken, bloodshot eyes and the hair askew and matted and the faint stink of cigarettes and liquor all over . . . people decide that the time has (again) come. They gear themselves up, but on “Eye of the Tiger,” and get to work.

More power to them. They can work out to the P90X program until the sweat pours, building stamina and increasing muscle mass until they are toned and tan and leap from their beds every morning like a giant refreshed, determined to sell more life, health and casualty insurance than any other guy in the district, changing their diets to be more healthful, and working their way through the entire convenient DVD set . . . and I shall watch from the sidelines. It will work for them if they carry out the plan. I believe everything is efficacious if done properly, but this includes my inaction: I resolve to do nothing. Everything in moderation, from diet to exercise.

Long ago a friend of mine and I had quite an argument at the high school lunchroom table, where not-so-healthful Reagan-era food was mounded high under a faint cloud of steam. He asserted that you could achieve a state where no choices were made. I said that the choice to make no choice was a choice. The argument grew boisterous and we didn’t come to a conclusion. So I accept my guilt: my New Year’s resolution is to make no resolutions. That resolution is a meta resolution . . . but I will make no more resolutions that that . . . oh, wait . . .

The handguns were going off lightly from before nine on. A few here, a few there. Then past ten they were emptying out whole clips, eight, ten chattering rounds at a time, or the slower, more patient six-word vocabulary of a revolver. One chap had something heavier, about twelve rounds long, probably a and auto- or semiautomatic rifle. I could have walked to where these happier partiers were shooting up the sky quicker than I could have walked to Muddy’s. At least, as I observed to Bonnie, we didn’t have to listen to people being murdered in the parking lot on 39th Street anymore.

A favorite old Garfield from many years past. January 1, 1982 or so. He’s lying in his bed, and sticks a paw out. “New Year,” he thinks. “Feels about the same.”

And so it does.

Instead of taking the Segway or the Hummer in, I think I’ll bike. Sparrow is still asleep, which is quite a feat for her. She also endured her nine month appointment very well yesterday, finally getting bored and crying right at the end. She’s doing very well as always, and very advanced for her age, as always.

You should have seen the line for returns at Barnes and Noble yesterday. I was in on business, and the place was a madhouse. The same was true at Target. I’m sure it is the same every year, but with the news of the economy the way it is, one has to wonder.

Quite a long time ago–college, likely–I read an article discussing whether or not the Medievals valued their children. The evidence is mixed, and inconclusive, sincee literature from the period of mostly scholastic and written from the viewpoint of churchmen who had no children (mostly) and who had a more otherworldly (or worldly, if you understand) tae on affairs.

One piece of evidence in the pro was an account of a women who found her lost child. “She kissed him and clipped him,” it was written. For years I assumed that clipped was for embraced, but duh, I now realize that it is from yclept, from OE geclipod, past participle of clipian to cry out, name; that is, called or named. “She kissed him and called him by name” would be a more modern phrasing.

Sometimes I can be so dumb.

One of the best presents I got for Christmas this year was a pair of work shoes. I had been stretching the life of two different pairs of shoes out longer and longer: the soles were coming off of one, and the other had gaps opening around the big toe and the heel. Any kind of damp weather let in a steady flow of squishy goodness, and the weather has been damp for several weeks now. I had every intention of making them collectively last until spring.

Bonnie surprised me with a new pair: it was truly something that I did not expect at all, and something that I was very grateful for, even though they cost money, and something that I would enver, or at least not for a few more months, would have bought for myself. Next year, perhaps, I can get some boots, like some well-made Wellco boots, which are some of the best available on the market. (The site I found them on has excellent customer service available to answer questions over the phone Monday - Friday 8:30 - 5:00 CST.) I need something sturdy for long walks that will help me from twisting my fragile ankles as they love to do.

Then I’ll be well shod, for work and walking.

–is good for the car.

When we moved into our house, we took on a home warranty, which was the best thing the previous owners could have ever done for us. For a set amount each service call we can have a serviceman come over and work on what ails the place. Fifty dollars is better than a four hundred dollar call, I should think.

I wish we had the same thing for our car. Mostly when the car runs, it runs. When it does not, it does not, in a big way, and is a huge leech on the pocket. If we had a US Fidelis-style warranty on it, I would feel significantly better about it. Every time we go to the shop, I feel like I’m about to have a heart attack as they come back out to us with the clipboards and the long faces. Your car needs a——

The end of that sentence is always a fun one. My favorite is oxygen sensor, because they come in pairs,cost a fortune to replace, and, best of all, when one goes out, they replace both, because they don’t know which one is the bad one. A nice, low deductible would be a lot better than the hundreds I’ve blown on oxygen sensors. A nice high one would still beat the hundreds I’ve blown on oxygen sensors.

Seriously, I have to look into this. It could save me a bundle of cash, and put years back on my life.

Call me a lout, but every time I go to the grocery store, I always take a quick, longing sneak at the scooters. They’re always parked by the door, no one’s riding them, tassels are hanging off of their handlebars–I could just hop on and cruise. No one would know any better!

Oh, yes they would. They’d call me on it, you know they would. I’d be racing down the tiles, flinging jars of sweet pickles, hot peppers, and manzanilla olives into my basket, and like that old Jewish lady who zoomed by my father in the grocery store so many years ago, I’d yell, “Honey, I’m coming through, get out of my way!”  Then to end the fun some officious person would yell over the speaker, “Hey you! Over in Aisle Five! Get off of that scooter! That’s for people who need them!”

I’d be so embarrassed.

Some day, god willing I get old enough, I can have a scooter of my own and no one will say me nay. I’ll potter around Brookside waving my cane at people. A bright cherry red one, with racing stripes and a klaxon horn. That’ll show those whippersnappers to block the road! The day will come!