Welcome to the year of the Red Fire Dog… And you know since this is my first piece in January let me enlighten you that this will NOT be a serious topic, quite the contrary in fact. I get reports all the time of people who don't understand my rants, or they cry whenever they read them. Well let me lighten your heart a bit today...

January 29th marked the Chinese New Year. But just when you thought I was late and not paying attention the blasted time zone’s mean I’m actually a few days early. We in the land of the U.S.A. actually will observe the entrance of the Red Fire Dog year on February 3rd. One can only celebrate so much when you seek out so many things to read about, and this wonderful holiday nearly escaped me. I know very little of the Chinese calendar other than I was born in the year of the Snake and the only reason I know that is because one of my favorite Chinese restaurants has a placemat that tells me so. So while I eat my noodles I can read about how snakes are “Vain, high tempered and often are very beautiful”. Well I can attest to the second one for sure and I’m sure my boyfriend can as well. At least my snake symbol makes me out to be a bit more exciting than a planning, plotting, serious Capricorn nerd!

At any rate, there’s the New Year we all celebrate then this Chinese New Year, then solstice etc. I’m over celebrated and over tired. It’s the darkness of this time of year that drives me half crazy, in fact just when I was at my craziest point in my day I rode up on the elevator with someone who was so twitchy and un-grounded she made me want to laugh out loud, but in a nervous I want to get off the elevator right NOW sort of way. So thank you universe for putting my life into better prospective, at least I wear my hat straight on my head and don’t tell total strangers about my cat’s hemorrhoid problem, who knew cat’s could suffer from that!? Sadly I now know this thanks to the crazy lady on the elevator!

Okay there was a point to this other than wondering what sort of place I work in… This time of year tends to drive us all insane. We’ve done a fair amount of internal work on ourselves, we’ve suffered through the holidays of eating, drinking and being merry and just when you can’t possibly handle another cold dark night the weather outside dips down to somewhere between hell frozen over and good god the dogs crotch has frozen to the deck.

Being an earth sign and the belief that the earth was born by fire this sounds as if I could give this year a very positive spin, hey at least it sounds less crazy than 2004 which was the year of the Green Monkey. All jokes aside the arrangement of the Chinese Zodiac is a complex and beautiful system that is much older than most of the systems I study and takes from my standpoint quite a while to master. The year of the Red Dog promises much more wide open spaces for individual thought but also much more of the same political problems with hopes of it scaling down just a little. Today we also depart from January and enter February, today is a much more magical day according to the planets and stars, and according to the stars a magical day for tying knots whether asking for someone’s hand in marriage or buying a house. January was a fun filled month for me, celebrating aside, and going crazy aside, it was a good month; all in all I can say I’m looking forward to the fire dog business!

At any rate, this rant isn’t a deep thought, soul searching rant at all. It’s a crazy one, but regardless of a whether it’s a red dog or a green monkey, at least I’m not that woman on the elevator who has a cat with a butt problem. Until next time, stay sane, dream big and may the stars lead you to a path that you have always wished for.