A number of bloggers have chosen words that represent what they want the year to bring.

Here’s my word: Permission.

Here’s why.

It’s 6:20 p.m. and I’m sitting in a wheelchair at the Bob Hope Airport, foot in one of those big boots and crutches nearby. It’s just a bad sprain, nothing broken.

Because I couldn’t walk through the scanner, I got one of those “special” pat-downs. The TSA woman was very pleasant and professional, but after that encounter I think she should buy me dinner.

And the plane is delayed. Sigh. They’re hoping it will leave at 7 p.m. (Original departure time was 4:30 p.m.)

I’ve been in Los Angeles for four days and no one has offered me an avocado. Isn’t this place supposed to be lousy with alligator pears? And yet the only avocado I’ve seen was the guacamole in a Mexican restaurant.

(I politely declined the guac, having changed too many diapers in my time ever to want squishy green stuff on my plate. In fact, my private name for the stuff is caca-mole.)

But it’s definitely southern California: Oranges growing in the back yard of the place I’m house-sitting, lemons and grapefruit growing in the front yards of homes past which I walk my friend’s dog. Pastels everywhere, too.

George Wendt is reported to live a stone’s throw away, and one of George Clooney’s homes (one of them?) is apparently close as well.

The other day I walked the dog past a distinguished-looking older man. “Good afternoon,” I said.  The man flinched a little and said, “Hello” in a guarded way that makes me think he’s accustomed to being recognized, and tormented, by fans.

I have no idea who he was. Maybe he wasn’t famous. Maybe he was simply trying to duck a process server.

At this time of year everyone wakes up to the fact that need exists in the United States. Everywhere you look are food drives, gift drives, coat drives.

Here’s a news flash: Need exists all year long, not just in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Don’t get me wrong: I love it when people do nice things. I just wish it weren’t so holiday-specific. Pardon my grinchiness, but I think some of these once-a-year volunteers aren’t doing it for the homeless, the seniors or the kids. They’re doing it to make themselves feel good.

An old friend of mine – call him “Frugalbert Humperdinck” – once riffed on the song “Lonely is a man without love.” Unfamiliar with that late 1960s hit? Sit patiently through this video of Engelbert Humperdinck singing the first verse, in order to get to the chorus that’s about to be parodied:

Christmas bills are scare-ful,

But one can be careful.

Lovely is a man without loans.

Celebrate the season,

Keeping things in reason.

Lovely is a man without loans.

Go in debt, you peasants,

Buying toddlers presents.

Lovely is a man without loans.

Why impugn your credit

When they’ll soon forget it?

Lovely is a man without loans.

(Half-step up for the big finale)

Ere to shops I dart off,

First I pay the card off.

Lovely is a man without loans.

I’ll assuage my cravings

With January savings.

Lovely is a maaaan without loans.