A WineTime..

The glass of wine pictured here is what it is, but it is also like a lifetime.

When you pick it up to take the first sip, the hope is that it will wash across your palate, leaving you with a perfectly pleasant experience, perhaps a warm glow. Take a few more sips just to savour the feeling.

So the glass is back on the table, and maybe only half of it still remains. Your heart and soul will know only the feeling, but your eyes will tell you that not all is well. The sudden awareness of the state 'only half left' is so finite.

Now is not the time to think about that because, when next you pick up the glass, the very last thing that you will want to do is to cry into it.

The Year of the Boar (Pig)..

People born in the Year of the Boar (Pig) tend to be honest, straightforward and patient.

Chinese New Year, the most important festival of the Chinese calendar, begins Feb. 18, 2007. The two-week celebration is a time for family unity and shared tradition. A great deal of preparation takes place to ensure the new year begins auspiciously.

• According to the Chinese calendar, we are in year 4705, the Year of the Boar (or Pig). Based on a 12-year cycle, 12 animals make up the Chinese zodiac. The boar is the last animal in the cycle.
• Famous people born in the Year of the Boar include Hillary Rodham Clinton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, David Letterman, Thomas Jefferson and Woody Allen.
• Red is the color of this holiday. It symbolizes fire, which the Chinese believe can drive away bad luck. People wear red clothes at New Year celebrations and give children "lucky money" in red envelopes, called “lai see.”
• The annual Lantern Festival is celebrated on the 15th day of the first lunar month. The festival is the culmination of the holiday season, and it coincides with the first full moon of the year. Dragons, symbols of luck, are popular parade costumes. Legend says the lanterns were once life savers.
• Preparation for the New Year includes cleaning and sweeping, but if dirt is swept out the door, you could be sweeping your luck away. Traditionally, dirt gets swept toward the middle of the floor and then is carried outside.
• Oranges and tangerines are symbols for abundant happiness. During the New Year's celebration, people bring bags of oranges and tangerines when visiting family or friends. Tangerines with leaves intact assure that relationships remain secure. Many families will get tangerine plants during the holiday and decorate them with small red envelopes and other good luck charms.
• A dish of candy called a "Tray of Togetherness" is displayed and shared with guests. Each type of candy represents something positive for the new year:
  candied melon - growth and good health red melon seed - dyed red to symbolize joy, happiness, truth and sincerity lychee nut - strong family relationships cumquat - prosperity (gold) coconut – togetherness peanuts - long life longnan - many good sons lotus seed - many children
• Although called "Chinese" New Year, other Asian countries celebrate the holiday as well. In Vietnam, the lunar new year is called Tet.

Here is a table of the order for the next 12 years..

Tell me your sign..

You don't believe in all of that stuff, do you. Mystic Mabel's daily predictions are inevitably vague in their wording, and could not possibly apply to so many people at one time. Yet if you read yours, and it has good stuff in it, tell me that part of you doesn't secretly hope that it comes true. It is only phooey if it doesn't promise much, right?

How many times have you told somebody you see reading a horoscope that you don't believe in it, and then felt left out because they didn't read yours to you?

Astrological character descriptions bear closer scrutiny as they are way more 'up close and personal'. Again, you have to ask yourself how accurate they can be for what must be a huge amount of people born between two dates on the calendar.

Being close to or on the 'cusp' is a useful 'get out clause' as it enables many more characteristics to be factored into your overall profile, essentially covering more exits. All very convenient, isn't it. There are some who say that the 'believer' tries to emulate his/her astrological profile, but would anybody go out of their way to act the negative aspects? I don't think so.

Do I live my life by daily predictions? Is there any truth in them?

Absolutely not!

I can tell you this much. I am practical, prudent, ambitious, disciplined, patient, careful, humorous, and reserved. My positive elements are tempered by slightly more negative aspects, those being that I can be pessimistic, fatalistic, miserly and grudging. People who know me well would tell you that I have always embodied all of the above since I was knee high to a grasshopper. I don't try, and have never tried, to emulate any star sign.

I am what I am, and make no apologies for being so. Draw a line exactly centre through my star sign, and that is where you will find me, and not a 'cusp get out' in sight.

I am Capricorn