Mom buys me a new calendar every year at Christmas. For a long time, she chose Far Side, until Gary Larson called it quits and she switched to Quote of the Day. This past Christmas, however, she chose for me a calendar featuring a year’s worth of daily Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!

I expect she chose Ripley’s because, as a kid, I was regularly buying paperback and comic book versions of the long-lived, bizarre-fact franchise. Although it had been many years since I’d last read a Ripley’s, as I skimmed through the pages of their familiar art style, I was so charmed and caught up in nostalgia that the calendar’s excessive use of exclamation points only caused a smaller than usual bleed in my brain. 

Karin Fuller of Charleston, West Virginia, is the only known person in history whose death can be attributed to a lethally fanatical aversion to enthusiastic punctuation!

Now that I’ve learned to avert my eyes just before hitting the end of a sentence, I’ve really been enjoying my new calendar. I think it’s good for my self-esteem. How better to make a strange person feel normal than to give her 365 days of proof that there are vast numbers of others far stranger than her?

For example, on January 8, I learned that “Jearl Walker of Cleveland State University can dip his hands into boiling lead and pull them out unharmed!

Instead of being stunned and amazed that Mr. Walker’s hands come out unscathed, what I really want to know is how he came to learn he was gifted with this particular skill. For all I know, I might also be able to dip my hands in boiling lead without harm, but I’m not insane enough to take the necessary steps to find out.

Even more puzzling to me was the January page about Bob Dotzauer from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, who “balanced a 24-foot ladder, which had a cat in a basket atop of it, on his chin-despite having one crippled leg!

Again, how does a person come to know they’re capable of balancing a ladder (with a cat in a basket) on their chin? And shouldn’t the simple act of getting a cat to remain in a basket atop a 24-foot ladder be enough of an achievement to warrant a page in Ripley’s? Did he really have to balance the cat, basket and ladder on his chin <I>and<P> have a bum leg?

Sometimes, the daily Ripley’s offering isn’t strange so much as it is disgusting, like the tidbit about how the “Dani Women of New Guinea cut off a finger for every male relative who dies!”

Below the cartoonish sketch of a mostly finger-less woman was the caption, “Some tribes in New Guinea wear fingers of their ancestors as good luck charms!”

Could anyone begrudge their desire for a good luck charm? They’re probably hoping they’ll be lucky enough to have healthy male relatives.

My favorite so far is the one from January 20 under the heading, “Well preserved memento!”

According to Ripley’s, “On his 50th wedding anniversary, Les Lailey of Denton, England, ate a canned chicken he had been saving for 50 years! No ill effects were reported!”

What might motivate a man to save a can of chicken for 50 years? And what exactly does it say about his marriage that he chose to eat antique chicken on his 50th wedding anniversary?

Since my own quirky husband has a can of potted meat that’s at least a dozen years old, some day I might know!  

I doubt any parent likes to think about the ways they might have failed their child. Lately, though, I’ve thought about it a lot.

 It started because of a few old pictures my parents scanned and emailed to me, including a shot of my brother and me in our tree house. Kurt and I look as though we were both still in grade school when the picture was taken, and the tree house was new enough that its corrugated fiberglass roof was still intact. (It later had a kid-sized hole for a while before disappearing completely.)

That tree house was such a major part of my childhood that even before my daughter was born, I was scouting the trees in our yard for just the right one.

For a few years, she was lucky enough to have use of a tree house our neighbor had built, until it burned down. Not long after, we started talking about moving closer to work, so building a replacement tree house didn’t make sense. Then after we moved-to a place with plenty of sizeable trees-our new home needed attention in higher priority ways, so building a tree house slid further down the list.

Until Celeste was too big to want one at all.

When I asked her about it not long ago, she said it was fine-that tree houses attract spiders and hornets (apparently the only two life forms she doesn’t view as having potential as pets).

So if she doesn’t mind not having grown up with a tree house, why do I still feel like I’ve cheated my kid?

Maybe because it’s not just the tree house where I’ve fallen short. When I was growing up, our family took long camping trips where we’d stay in a tent, build dams in the creek, and cook hotdogs on the end of a stick. I’ve failed to provide Celeste with enough memories like that. (There have been a few trips, but not as many as I’d like.)

There were the music lessons I was going to get her from the time she was small (since, barring a genetic mutation, she wouldn’t inherit any musical talent from either parent).

Because of my job, I was never able to be a homeroom mother, never “had” to volunteer in the school library or cafeteria, never did Read Aloud for her class. I haven’t given her as solid of a religious structure as I believe my girl needs, but I’m working on that. Thankfully, she’s only 11, so there’s still time.

When Celeste was just a few years old, I noticed how closely she watched me and began to realize how so much of what I did had an impact on her. I began viewing the choices I made by the way they could influence her. If I didn’t want her to accept rudeness or disrespect, then she couldn’t see me tolerate it. If I didn’t want her to be reckless with money, she needed to see me be frugal. If I didn’t want her to see me eating junk food, I had to hide it much better.

Celeste has forced me to be a better person than I would’ve been without her, and I hope more parents will pause to consider what their actions are teaching their kids. If they don’t want their child to someday put up with a spouse who is abusive, gambles, or cheats, then they shouldn’t put up with such things themselves. If they don’t want their child to someday take their own life, then no matter how desperate that parent might be, they should understand that suicide can’t ever be their way out.

I’m not the perfect parent, but I like that she’s my moral compass, the reason behind anything good that I do. And she knows that.

I know she knows because after I typed that last line, she sat at my computer and read what I’d written.

“You made a mistake,” she said.

“What’s that?” I asked, anticipating she was about to reassure me that I’ve never once failed her.

“I used to have a pet hornet,” she said. “His name was Jerry.”

Since I wouldn’t want her to turn in an assignment knowing there was a mistake, I’m amending my earlier statement.

Spiders are the only living creatures that have no potential as pets. 

If you haven’t already heard about the “Best Job In The World,” click here to read about the opening for “Caretaker of Hamilton Island” so you can join the rest of us dreamers as we lust after this job. 

Basically, the person they hire will get paid a salary of approximately $103,000  ($150,000 Australian) to spend six months living in a multimillion-dollar beachfront villa while enjoying the plentiful perks this paradise has to offer.

The caretaker “will be expected to stroll the white sands, snorkel the reef, and take care of a ‘few minor tasks.’” Is it just me or are those words kind of erotic? By the time I finished reading the job description, I had a strange craving for a cigarette. (And I don’t even smoke.)

I’m an imaginative person, but if there’s a more attractive job out there, I don’t know what it would be.

The more I read about Tourism Queensland’s search to find the best person to represent the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef, the more I thought, This has to be the most clever campaign ever. (I honestly believe that. It’s not just me sucking up, hoping to impress someone on the selection committee.)

As soon as news about the job search went public, hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world began flooding the website. So even before choosing who their island caretaker will be, these resourceful tourism folks have reportedly generated an estimated $70 million worth of publicity worldwide.

I expect my reaction to the story about the job wasn’t much different than most everyone else. As I scanned the list of skills the position required, I quickly came up with a variety of reasons I was a perfect fit for the post.

For instance, their ideal candidate must be an excellent communicator, able to speak and write English. Well, I’m all about communicating. Just ask my husband. Sometimes I communicate so much he claims it makes him tired simply listening to me. I must naturally put a lot of energy into it since people have been telling me that all my life.

The job description says the person they hire must be a good swimmer. They can ask anyone in my family–when I’m at the ocean or pool, you won’t find me sunbathing. No sir-ee. I’m in the water every chance that I get. Granted that’s mostly because it’s hard for anyone to see my thighs when they’re underwater, but swimming’s good, too.

The person they hire is expected to take entertaining videos and photos of life above and below water for the online gallery. By hiring me, they could get more bang for the buck since I have this long history of getting into bizarre situations–situations that would likely draw hits not just at their site, but on YouTube and blooper-type shows.

And the writing part of the job–where they want weekly blog posts about the island–that’s the part I like best. (Actually, it’s what I like best just a wee bit after that whole the island/beach/house/salary part.) In my 11 years as a columnist, I’ve found there’s little I won’t do to get material to write about, including self-infliction of bodily harm. Granted it’s usually unintentional self-infliction, but I’m generally game for most anything.

In order to gather blog material for the Great Barrier Reef Islands tourism site, the island caretaker must endure and report on such hardships as spa treatments, bushwalking, and snorkeling. These are sacrifices I’m willing to make.

And I have until Feb. 22 to convince them their perfect person is right here.

I’m a big fan of the new year, have much fondness for the idea of starting off fresh.

But someone wrote on my clean slate.

And I’m pretty sure they used permanent marker.

“Taking you down to one arm could be God’s way of making you rest,” my husband said while ferrying me to work. My driving rights have been relinquished until my dislocated elbow has mended. (Or Geoff stops hiding my keys.)

“You’ve been going full throttle for months,” he continued. “If you try that now, your arm’s never going to heal right.”

“But it’s hard to relax when everywhere I look, there’s stuff that needs done,” I said. “Stuff that’s not going away just because I’m down to one wing.”

“So what? Let it build,” said my man. “Instead of sweeping this week and next week and next, let it accumulate and then just sweep it once. If you ask me, that actually seems more efficient.” 

I suspect most men (and ALL 11-year-olds) are blessed with dirt filters that prevent them from being repulsed by nasty floors.

“It’s gotten so bad the dogs have started wearing shoes in the house,” I argued. “I thought Murry was being especially lazy. He was just stuck to the linoleum.”

“You’re making it sound worse than it is, and harder than it needs to be,” said Geoff. “We still have your dad’s power washer in the garage.”

I saw a gleam in his eye.

“Don’t even think about it.”

“Aw, c’mon,” said Geoff. “Think how fun it would be.”

I gave him my “no” look.  He was quiet for a minute.

“What about the leaf blower?” he asked.

“Hmmm,” I said. “That could actually work. Our leaf blower came with a bag attachment, so I bet it’ll work in reverse.”

“Cool,” said Geoff, clearly pleased with his idea for a more manly way to vacuum.

During the time I’ve been mostly out of commission (I was just over strep when I fell), the jobs on my To Do list have been having a party. The dirty laundry started a playful competition with the dirty litter box, and the overflowing trashcans with the overflowing hampers.  The partially painted hallway hooked up with a manuscript I promised to edit and they’ve formed an Alliance of Unfinished Projects. Tufts of shed cat hair are recruiting gobs of shed dog hair, and they meet along the baseboards and stairs, gradually increasing their membership until nearing tumbleweed stature. (Thus explaining my enthusiasm for Geoff’s leaf blower suggestion.)

I’d been so looking forward to using the extra time off around the holidays to pack decorations away and set the house in order, to go through closets and the basement and purge. Now it’s looking more and more like instead of setting the house in order, we’re just going to have to set it on fire.

Oh, sure, I can still do those things once my elbow is healed, but the symbolic allure of new year/clean slate will be lost, its momentum diminished.

Still, I hope I’ll be able to turn the slate over and write on the back.