Actually, the same day, and I still haven’t finished my homework in the course I’m taking.

Some friends on Facebook may have noticed that I wished them a happy new year in Icelandic.

I have an Icelandic keyboard in my computer and I have been taking Icelandic classes for several years now but I am still far far from fluent. It’s a difficult language: the verbs conjugate and the nouns and articles decline grammatically and differently according to the gender (different forms for the arcticles (attached), too.)) There are a few different letters on the keyboard that we don’t have in English (ð æ þ ö); the accents change the pronunciation of several vowels and there are lots of irregular verbs. If I did my homework I would be more fluent but I am not the student I was in my Latin and Greek days. I was younger then and I had more time. I read that a different part of an older brain is involved in learning a new language, as compared to the sponge-like, instant-learning section of the brain in a chiid, something to do, I think, with the hippocampus, but I don’t know any more than that. I’m sure someone will tell me. Anyway, it’s good for an older person to learn a new language - word-a-day?

The nicest thing about being old, as long as one has a long-term memory (short-term isn’t bad, either), is that one has knowledge and associations that younger people don’t have. Mind you, they have techie knowledge that is mind-boggling and they actually know the words to rap songs. I digress…my point right now emerges from a memory I dredged up earlier this afternoon. I visited some people in my building who are even older than I am. I told them about my struggles with Icelandic and recalled another, older person who was studying Hebrew. I was going across Canada interviewing two individuals per province for a book commissioned by the United Church of Canada, about the spiritual journey of different people from different walks of life. One of my interviews was with a retired minister in his nineties, recently moved with his wife into a facility (the current euphemism for old folks’ home). He showed me his condensed living arrangements: living room, dining room, kitchen, bedroom, all within the space of his former study where he was still studying - Hebrew.

He said his dedication to learning was proof of an after-life. “Why else would I be studying Hebrew at my age if I didn’t think I’d be able to use it after I leave?"

MY elderly friends laughed. Me too.

Do you find that comforting?

Christmas dinner with my Boston (Quincy, actually) family was interesting and my daughter Kate was incredible. She served a fabulous repast to one vegetarian, two allergic to gluten, and one Paleo man (yes- gluten-free but heavy on the protein), out of a total of nine diners, plus herself.

She served enormous, gorgeous bowls and platters of roasted potatoes, roasted brussels sprouts, roasted carrots, cornmeal stuffing baked outside the crown roast of pork as well as in. The salad included beets from her own garden - so sweet! - and I can’t remember what else, other than the crumbled feta cheese. The vegetarian brought her own protein thing, don’t know what, to sub for the pork,and a gluten-free chocolate cake that looked like fudge. Most of us enjoyed the traditional plum pudding and hard sauce, but of course there were plates of sweet things: home-made turtles and peanut brittle, shortbread, and so on. No one avoided the sugar, as far as I could tell.

I actually began to write this several days ago while I was still in Quincy but my resolve weakened and I became a vegetable, roasting by the fire. I’ve been remiss since returning to Channel 204 (the Fireplace Channel - not the same) because I signed up for a new course in screenwriting and I’ve had homework to do every day that took precedent over my blog. Today, however, the last day of the year, I’m giving precedent to my blog, for what it’s worth, looking back at the year that was. A tough one, by all accounts, not to dwell heavily upon it.

You know I’ve maintained for the years you have known me that September is a better time for new resolutions and projects because everything is starting up again after the summer more or less off. This year it’s not true for me. I have a whole list of good intentions in so many different areas that I am daunted by the prospect. So far, I am looking at a blank journal, gloriously blank, not yet filled in.

It will be a good year. Make it so.