I looked in the handbook for local columnists to see what you are supposed to write about for the first week of the New Year.

It suggested you call a friend and ask what they are looking for in the coming year.

So I did.

A lovely lady stands beside the road across from Joan Rittall’s house on Route 27. We used to talk regularly but then she got busy and quit calling me. So, I thought I might call Ms. Pigette. And Heavens to Murgatroyd, she picked up the call. And read me the riot act.

“Well, Buster, it is about time you called. I thought you had moved away, back to Indiana or some other place west of Boston where the native peoples still roam amidst the tractors and cornfields.”

And a Happy New Year to you, I answered.

Then I asked her what she was looking for in the coming year.

“First of all, I am waiting for Gov. Janet Mills to send me a check for $850 as she sent to the rest of the state. I need that to pay off my bill at the House of Logan where I bought some very slinky undergarments that were ever so soft and ever so expensive,” she said.

“I hate to bring bad news," I said. "But those checks went to Mainers who filed income taxes in 2021. Did you forget to file taxes in 2021?"

“That, Buster, is none of your business,” she said. "Most of my income is not taxable because it comes from gentlemen friends who just love to give me presents because they love to be seen in public with a stunning and stylish companion,” she said.

Because she stands by the road, at least most of the time, when she is not acting as eye candy to adoring escorts, she is privy to the inside details of a lot of stuff. So I asked her what was on the local horizon for 2023.

“First of all,” she said. "Our lobstermen got a reprieve from Washington bureaucrats. Our shipyards are busy, although, like the rest of the nation, I fear they could use some more workers. The shipyard, that is what Bristol Marine calls the yard we all know as Sample’s, finished the schooner Ernestina and sent her back home to Massachusetts. Next up for them is a rebuild of the Katahdin, a tour boat that has ferried passengers on Moosehead Lake. She was built at Bath Iron Works in 1914 and needs work. Do you think? That is a five-year project.

Tim Hodgdon is smiling again after Comanche, the super yacht he launched in 2014, just won the famed Sydney-Hobart open ocean race again. That race is a big deal.”

“What else?” I asked.

“Last year was pretty good for business, and I think this year might be a tad better. Gas prices are coming down. Mr. COVID seems to be sort of under control,” she said.

“And don’t plan on the Boothbay Harbor footbridge repair project or the school renovations to start construction soon. Both are big number projects, and money could be a bit of a problem,” she said with a snort.

Then she lit into the state's power grid.

"My favorite 2023 topic is the electrical system. We are about to witness dueling referendums, or is it referenda? A citizens group called Our Power filed petitions to let the politicians buy out Central Maine Power and Versant. Then CMP and allies, under the moniker No Blank Checks, submitted another petition requiring voter approval if the state incurs $1 billion in debt. I can almost hear the dueling banjos twang.”

So, I asked, one group wants to get the state to buy out the power companies. The other wants to block them from raising money to do that. Right?

“Exact-a-Mundo, grasshopper,” she said.

But didn’t CMP do a great job restoring our service after the Dec. 23 storm? They even sent a half dozen crews out in the middle of the night, in the middle of the storm, to replace the broken utility pole in front of Scrimpy Lewis’ house in East Boothbay. They restored power to lots of folks before they knew it was off,” I said. Didn’t they do a bang-up job?

“Well, Scribbler,” she said. "Some folks want someone to blame when something goes wrong.”

Then she gave me the brush.

“I gotta go," she said. “I got another call. Someone said a dead whale washed up a creek on Farnham Point. You know, I remember the time when a humpback whale washed up on Ham Meserve’s Cape Island off Southport. He called state marine resources officials and asked for help. They laughed and said: Your island, your whale. You deal with it.”

Click.