The Year of the Rabbit

...begins February 3rd. According to my book of Chinese lunar years, this should be:

"A placid year, very much welcomed and needed after the ferocious Year of the Tiger...  people will acknowledge that persuasion is better than force. A congenial time in which diplomacy, international relations and politics will be given a front seat again. We will act with discretion and make reasonable concessions without too much difficulty."*

Well, politics certainly has a front seat, or more accurately, punditry. The rest of it would be nice but seems unlikely.

As I wrote in a previous entry, Gary and I started sending out cards for New Year's in lieu of Christmas many years back, partly because it gave us some extra time, but also because I like drawing animals. This year I hoped to get artwork done early enough to print full-color cards, but despite getting an early start and making several attempts, I couldn't decide what to do. So I dumped a pile of sketches (see below) in front of Gary and asked him to do his Art Director Guy thing. He selected and tweaked and I drew the result, which in hindsight seemed obvious. Because nothing says 'Happy New Year' in tumultuous times like Viking bunnies paraphrasing Shakespeare.

(The hard-copy version we mailed out was b&w, but I added some color for its appearance here.)

*The Handbook of Chinese Horoscopes by Theodora Lau, Harper & Row Perennial, 1979.