Get yourself a giant panda!

In pondering a New Year Resolution for 2009, Troutgirl quoted Anne Lamott‘s Hard Laughter to me…

I said that I thought the secret of life was obvious: be here now, love as if your whole life depended on it, find your life’s work, and try to get hold of a giant panda. If you had a giant panda in your back yard, anything could go wrong — someone could die, or stop loving you, or you could get sick — and if you could look outside and see this adorable, ridiculous, boffo panda, you’d start to laugh; you’d be so filled with thankfulness and amusement that everything would be O.K. again.

I repeat: Get. Yourself. A giant. Panda!!!