Yeah, it’s the first work Monday of the New Year. And first school Monday (I’m not complaining about that, let the state worry about my son for a few hours).

Let’s face it, January and February suck. All you have to look forward to is the Super Bowl and Valentine’s Day. Or in my case, the Super Bowl. I live in New Jersey, so we’re guaranteed to get some snow, but nothing like the Midwest and Plains states. I just count down the days until baseball season.

One of the grimmer parts of early January that doesn’t get much press is how awful it looks when people dump their dead Christmas trees by the roadside, the way mobsters wack rats and leave the corpses to send a message. You drive up and down your street, and it’s like a Christmas tree serial killer hit town. Body after body dragged to the roadside, with trails of pine needles in their wakes.

It’s like a Martin Scorsese movie, but all that’s missing is some Rolling Stones music or the piano from Derek and the Dominos’ Layla played over the massacre.

I’m on a Goodfellas kick lately, sorry.