Hope is a thing with feathers...the bird that keeps us warm

Belated new year's greetings to all, and may I say, I'm with Emily Dickinson and Mark Kelly on hope and predictions. (Why bother with despair in predictions?) My predictions were nothing but hope, (except one--a gold star if you can figure out which one) and since they were caught up in cyberspace between here and Orlando where I hurriedly penned them, I thought I'd catch up with the 2012 crowd, and record mine for posterity since my first prediction/hope has already come to fruition.

To wit: Be not faint of heart, oh, my young and foolish readers, for you have come to the source:  heed these wise (or wizened? ) predictions for 2012.

• The University of Alabama will win the national championship football game in January. My source, my son, is infallible.
• The whole world will adopt the advice of Mickey Mouse and imagine a world in which they will believe in their dreams.
• My essays in WELD will be nominated and win a Pulitzer Prize.
• Disney World will develop a turkey which has four legs before the next Christmas season.
• My novel will be accepted for publication by a NY publisher and the contract for movie rights will include a stipulation that Meryl Streep star as the protagonist.
• Disney World will develop a Line Breaker Detector which will eject any such dastardly person the moment his right forefinger prints register as he enters a given theme park.
• My linked stories will have one story selected for Best Stories of 2012.
• Disney already has magical (and cost prohibitive) umbrellas and ponchos that *poof* appear on every corner at the first drop of rain, but  in 2012 will introduce the giant instantly inflatable bubble which will shield each theme park from inclement weather. You’ll only be charged on the days it is used. Consult your almanac (or James Spann) prior to planning those vacation days.
• A small press publisher will offer me an unheard-of (outside of the Canadian queen of stories, Alice Munro) advance to publish my thesis collection of stories.
• The verities of “it’s a a small world” will be realized by all world leaders, and this year will be the happiest cruise that ever sailed as the orchestra for world peace fills our ears with harmony. 

Hakuna matata.