What do these jelly beans have to be joyous about? Have they been misled? Did someone at the factory tell them of the vacation home to which they would be sent?

Oh yes, there’s a beach. Lovely place. Clear, blue water. And some green. And it alternates with all the other colors. Kind of like you guys!

If you were a jelly bean this would be great news. “Home! Maybe there would be more like you, and fewer of these guys, the bums you’re having to share the box with. Tell me more about that ocean. I’d like to know the exact moment it goes from blue to aquamarine. It just sets my coloring a-glow.”

These were a Christmas gift, these jelly beans. A stocking stuffer. I’m sitting in the library trying to study and the beans are calling to me. “We’re joyous! If only you’d open this box you could hear the sound! And, also, where’s that ocean?”

They are of a Christmas theme. Sorry. Holiday theme.

I don’t take offense at the difference between Christmas and holiday as far as the marketing word choice goes. It is your product, you want to appeal to a great many customers without alienating them. That’s a sound strategy. Lately, though, there’s a bit of intellectual laziness — and a wink to the perceived intelligence of the customer base. Have a great … holiday, and enjoy the Christmas imagery.

Christmas and the celebrants thereof don’t hold the adjective jolly to themselves, but I bet you can guess who they’re hinting at here. Red and green are more of a Christmas theme. Hanukkah Harry, you’ll recall, wore blue. And the jelly beans aren’t alone. This ad campaign is still running:

The really nice thing about the jelly beans though, aside from that little bit of joy escaping in the opened box of the second picture, is that they are both delicious and kosher. The certifying rabbi’s name is on the label. It is this gentleman. I am eating kosher Irish jelly beans, approved of by a man in Liverpool, England, distributed from a company in California, purchased for me by my mother-in-law in Connecticut, hauled back to Alabama on a Delta flight. The fumaric acid — the most ominous sounding thing listed in the ingredients, and intended to add a hint of sourness, according to Wikipedia — is exhausted just thinking about it.

Sadly, they’ve yet to find the beach.

I ordered a hotel room today. This will be for a future trip, of course. Ordering a room has never been easier, except when there are ways to save money. Scope out the place I want, do one last check to make sure no one else is sneaking in with a better price under the gun. Nope, this place is still $15 a night better than the rest. It has Internet and the pictures look clean. Also there is a mini-fridge. Done and done.

So I book the room. But I find that the Best Available Rate option in the drop down box is the Fisher-Price button. It looks nice, and makes sense in that particular spot, but doesn’t do anything. The AAA rate is, in fact, six bucks cheaper a night, still. My AAA membership has lapsed.

A search ensues for the paperwork. The price looks manageable. And, since they just saved my bacon a few days ago in a cold, lonely parking deck it seems a reasonable investment. For the two of us that’s $71. The calculus kicks in for everyone here. You start subtracting from that total and vow to use AAA discounts where you can. I’ve already saved $14 bucks from that membership fee. And just wait until I actually use the AAA app on my phone!

Now I have a room. But there is no pool. This is doubly sad because it is January and suddenly I want to swim. The neighborhood association website says our pools reopen April 15th. Today is January 3rd. That’s a long way off to nurture the need to float.

All of the above is done electronically, of course. The paperless society has just led to stacks of paper categorized in more arbitrary ways, but at least the random check stub isn’t falling out of the collection. That’s one aspect of the modern economy that has perks and disadvantages. I only write approximately six checks a year now. I will still be writing 2010 in the upper right corner next October.

Seen another way, the changing of months and years hampers me on the website. I have a very complicated system for archiving the pictures like you see above. The directories are uploaded and organized on a monthly basis and each individual file is numbered sequentially. This. I believe, will mystify anyone that would like to grab an authorized jelly bean snapshot. If that technical difficulty doesn’t dissuade the unscrupulous, I can always call into action Plan B: sending in the local toughs who want to make sure no one gets wise with my pictures. They’re pricey — why do you think I’m saving AAA cash on a hotel room? — but worth it.

Anyway. I was just wondering, with the jelly bean pictures, what number they would be for December when I realized … oh yes. The flipping of the calendar.

Earlier today The Yankee said she didn’t even know what day it was. I’m not even convinced of the month. All I know is it isn’t April 15th. The pool is closed.

Lots of studying today. A lot more to come. My boss called to check on my progress. Swell guy, really.

“How is it coming? Anything I can do?”

Overwhelmed. Feeling behind. Help me shake this head cold?

I’d only recently woken up and sounded and felt miserable and didn’t mind if anyone knew it. The last several days I’ve been battling sinus troubles. There’s nothing to speak of here, this is as routine as it gets. It is frustrating and then it passes.

The last two days I’ve been feeling better. I can breathe and everything, and that puts you right back at 95 percent efficiency. That’s under the influence of Sudafed, however. You can’t take them during the overnight hours, though, so the first few steps from the bed to the pills to the steamy shower are rough.

I’m now tired of coughing, so I’m mentally prepared to feel better. And I’m tired of taking pills, so my improvement is all but assured. The Sudafed, I believe, are getting larger. They are now the size of jelly beans. They aren’t very joyous.