My house doesn't even spin.

Let me be among the top five hundred to welcome you into 2011, three days in.

I am deeply consumed with confusion over my absent flying car, meal tablet, robotic housekeeper...or any housekeeper at all, for that matter. (Do you hear that, P.J.? Do not feel limited by any type of maid. I would take Amelia Bedelia at this point.)

Our New Year's Eve was pretty normal and quiet, by rest home standards. The three of us stayed in our jammies- actually, I changed into daytime jammies and Nora wore a fancy dress for part of the afternoon, but only 'cause she wanted to. There were copious amounts of television, naptime, and Super Mario Brothers 3 for the Wii. (I excelled at two of those activities and got skunked at the third.)

You'd never know that dinner was to be for three individuals- one of them smallish, at that- by the amount of Trader Joe's appetizers procured and prepared. Let's just say that bacon-wrapped things played a huge part. Also, regular bacon.

The most exciting part of the evening by far came around 11pm (or midnight in The Future where my East coast family resides) when I decided to cook up the last round of baconesque foods...and forgot how temperamental our Doesn't Mess Around oven gets when faced with such an opponent as wooden toothpicks.

Long story short, wood became charred wood. Smoke detector went crazy. P.J., previously downstairs and now very much so concerned about Nora's continued sleep, raced up the stairs to swat at the alarm with a towel. Crisis averted.

He went back downstairs.

A moment later, the other smoke detector went off. (Question to self: We have two kitchen smoke detectors?) Highlight of the year: P.J. flying back up the stairs and LEAPING into the air to rip the alarm off of the ceiling (after a second or two of confused glancing around) and then to smash it to the ground.

Problem solved.

P.J. offered to finish with the bacon. Also to repair the smoke detector[s].

Happy New Year.

And now, the beginning of what I'd like to call Suggested Resolutions For All:

1. Can we all agree to stop leaving lengthy outgoing voicemail recordings? Personally, I've had some semblance of an answering machine since 1991 and am pretty confident in my ability not to be confused senseless by the beep. Telling them to leave their name is a bit of a gimme. No phone number? Google it. "Brief message" also kills me- there are certain nameless family members who have been known to leave a Homeric epic on my voicemail, pausing once or twice to start and complete conversations with passersby. As for "time you called"...well, my futuristic phone has been informing me of that tidbit since car phones actually had to be plugged into the glove compartment via curly wire.

Sure, it's nice to know into whose phone you're about to gossip, but it doesn't have to be opulent. You could leave the 'Uncle Jesse'. You know- "Talk to me." (I've never felt cool enough to pull off that one.) You could take advantage of the name function, allowing a metallic voice to announce, "You have reached," followed by an overenthusiastic "KEELY!" Anything short and sweet works, because here's the kicker- the majority of voicemails include the automatic "To leave a message after the beep, please press 1." Or something like that. Meaning, the same exact thing is being demanded twice! Do not make me wait that long to inform you that bacon is on sale.

Besides, if the folks you're phoning are confused by the lack of directions, they're probably also the ones who will be confused by the sound of your voice on the outgoing message.

"Hello? HELLO? Keely, it sounded like you were there- HELLO?"

This series shall continue, and it shall also take helpful ideas. Because, let's face it- there's a lot of inanity out there (some of it is RIGHT HERE!) and we have to stick together.

Like bacon speared with a toothpick.