Happy Chinese New Year! It's the Year of the Sheep . . .
Chinese were seeing in the Year of the Sheep on Thursday, but with fortune-tellers predicting accidents and an unstable economy and some parents-to-be fretting over the year's reputation for docile kids, it wasn't exactly warming everyone's heart.
This animal sign, which comes once every dozen years, can be said to have an identity crisis. Known variably as the Year of the Goat, Sheep or Ram, the sign's confusion stems from its Chinese character, "yang," which broadly describes any of the ruminating mammals, with or without horns.
. . . so it's time to stop writing Year of the Horse on your checks.
Heh. I was about to say that joke never gets old, but I suppose it will now that we've practically stopped writing checks. I write just about a half-dozen a year for those rare bills you still can't pay electronically. Ah, well, another tradition gone.
