NEW YEAR, new day, new hope

Dear Mouse, First thing, I did when I woke up is to go to the mirror and check my nose. Force of habit, mousey. When I was in the Philippines, the previous night's revelry usually made my nostrils black. The streets in the village were littered by scorched cartons that remained from once beautifully wrapped "fountain-light like" emitting cones. Our neighbor, a VIP in the Customs does not celebrate the NEW YEAR without a bang. So much money to burn (sinong nagsabi saiyo niyan, accusation yan ha..oopsie)..she (yes she is a she) surrounds her gate with the Judas belt (for those uninitiated and who have spent their New Year in the US all their lives, this is a belt made out from jumbo triangulo.(fire crackers in triangle brown papers). When one end is lighted, one by one the "triangulo" is lit and emits sound like a rattttatatat of a machine gun. She asks the "helps" to tie "bawangs" (oh nononono, this is not the sassy lawyer's favorite pungent bulb for cookery) to a post and light them for that BOOM sound..BANG. As if it is not enough, she treats us with the display of fireworks and mesmerizes us with the lights and colors of Roman holidays and fountains of different sizes and colors. The sights, sounds and colors of the pyrotechnics can not drown out the emptiness in her heart. Me, I hold only one Roman candle and utter a prayer for its short duration of light. The CA t