We all know that the Canadian penny is gone for good. I didn't give it that much thought. If anything, I was relieved because my son Matthew collected pennies, not intentionally, rather by default. He had jars and jars of them and I couldn't keep ahead of them with my efforts at wrapping. When pennies left the retail scene they solved people's arithmetic problems. We just go down to the nearest decimal if that's closest or up, if that is. I watched a guy in a little dollar store scam his customers on the up-down reckoning. He made a few pennies a day I guess. The store's gone now, replaced by a coffee shop. So much for the disappearing penny.

But I thought of pennies today because I wrapped some sharp objects as gifts: a couple of paper clippers and a couple of really neat, small, sharp shears. Does anyone remember the superstition about knives? You were supposed to give the receiver a penny for every blade so as not to cut the friendship. I was given two sets of steak knives (with stag handles) and 12 cents, one for each cutting edge.

Today I have no pennies to give my recipients. Do you have any thoughts about this ?

I'm drowning. I am drown-- ning in a sea of paper. So far I can't see the shore, but I guess I'm farther ahead than I was this morning. The choices are killing me, and the walking. Example: I save reviews of books I want to read and then after I've read them I put the reviews into the appropriate book. So I had a backlog of reviews to place (read: walk).

Then there are articles, information, highlights and sidebars to file - that's where it gets hard. I find ideas for blogs, pieces to save for people on my clippings list, insights about aging (that goes on and on and on), recipes that I think might work for me and movie and play reviews. Well, and then there's actual mail that does come in and, while mightily reduced, there is still mail, and more to come very soon, I'm happy to say, as people send their yearly Christmas report. Have to answer them.

I don't want to talk about it any more.

I have print-outs of my seasonal generic letter to mail to people, and I tuck in newsy items, maybe a little jolly (I'll explain), but no pictures. I don't take pictures. The term jolly comes from my father, who invented it, as far as I know. A jolly is not a gift, it's just a little tchotchke to jolly life along. I collect jollies through the year and store them in my gift (jolly) drawers. I don't have to label them; I know who they're for when I look at them again.

As I said, though, I'm not anywhere near finished, and I still have to make a clean hard copy of my book. Every day one has to choose what is uppermost. Right now, several things are vying for upper.