2013, I'm Ready For You

What can I say?
An inauspicious beginning to 2013, but I'm sure things will begin to look up from here.
My Uncle Clarence died on Jan. 1, 2013. He's my mother's second oldest brother. In his 80s, he was slim, his hair still dark, and he had a high, southern, tenor voice. Yesterday, he watched the ball drop at midnight, went to bed about 12:30 then his wife couldn't wake him up the next morning. He hadn't been sick.
Uncle Clarence told me stories about fighting in World War II when I asked him. He showed me a huge certificate he got in the Navy when they crossed the International Date Line. His younger brother, who fought in the Korean War, got a tiny billfold sized certificate. It's funny that they both carried those with them. The big certificate was in an envelope in the car.
But some less dire things happened on the first day of the new year too.
For New Year's, we let Tucker, 16, have a gathering. He refused to call it a party. But there were a lot of kids here. Earl and I camped out at the neighbors, coming over every hour or so to check on the party.

Sometimes a cat is the only comfort.

Tucker promised to control things and he had a miserable time, which is to be expected. He explained that at one point, giving up, he took the cat and lay on his bed. He couldn't wait for everyone to go home.
At 12:15, he shot over to the neighbor's house to get the car keys and drive home a friend.
"Don't you want to wait til everyone leaves?" I asked him.
"Nope," he said.
Grace and her friends had returned and were shuffling teenagers out of the house.
"Does everyone have rides home? Anyone need a ride?" Earl and I asked. We aren't stupid about teenagers and alcohol.
After everyone left, Grace said the toilet in the downstairs bathroom was broken. I figured it was either clogged or the handle had come unhooked from the mechanism in the toilet tank.
Nope.
The toilet tank was empty of any water and had a big hole in the bottom of it. How does someone put a hole in a porcelain toilet tank?
Luckily, whoever did it, knew to turn off the water to the toilet so it didn't flood the whole house. Also, the towels in the bathroom were lying in a wet heap where someone had cleaned up the water overflow.
So whoever broke the toilet was very responsible. Someone also left money on top of the toilet tank and more cash in the mailbox.
Earl spent January 1 driving to Home Depot and buying a new toilet tank. He installed it and had moved on to shoveling the neighbor's driveway by mid-morning.
And those were just some of the activities that started my New Year.
How bout you?