Are we there yet?

Five days left in 2005. Is it just me, or did this year last forever? I mean, for some reason one year ago feels like about eight years ago. Could be it's because the year was just packed with stuff — on 1/1/05, my grandfather was still alive, W was still in his first term, Six Feet Under was still on the air, and New Orleans still existed...

I went through four different bosses and three job titles at work (and saw about three dozen longtime coworkers jump ship); I stuck by the Mariners through another root canal of a season; I started four new blogs (Maus started two) and saw another one laid to rest; we watched all 15 combined seasons of Buffy, Twin Peaks, Six Feet Under, and Lost on DVD; and we made huge leaps up the evolutionary scale of technogadgetry — new digital cameras, media center laptop, long-overdue wireless DSL, his-and-hers iPods, talking dog toys, and one of those mechanical aardvark schnozzes that sucks up bugs for you.

I only managed to read about a dozen books (triple that number if you count graphic novels), but the number of movies I ingested is inestimable. Probably emptied 30 or so bottles of bourbon. And Maus made over a thousand cookies in December alone, and cranked out numerous gallons of liquors and infused vodkas down in the garage. Which reminds me: we also cleaned out the whole damn garage — there's a year's worth of headache right there.

The basement flooded three times. Raccoons invaded the house twice.

Still, all that doesn't seem like too much for a whole year. Maybe it was the tsunamis and earthquakes and hurricanes that dragged the year out. Or maybe it was Bush and Rove and Cheney and Rummy. And DeLay and Frist and Santorum. And Brownie and O'Reilly and Robertson. And Babs — let us not forget Babs! Could it be time has slowed to a standstill because this administration has reached a permanent vegetative state and needs to have its feeding tube yanked?

All that said, '05 wasn't a bad year — just long and serious, heavy and full. Like a Bergman movie, or my dog.

Here's to a 2006 with livelier pacing, a brighter storyline, and maybe a few Busby Berkeley dance numbers thrown in.