What is this "should"?

Happy new year to everyone! We're in the second or third week of dry, mild weather here (it's 64 degrees out now), which is lovely but I'm actually ready to trade it in with all of you getting hammered with one storm after another. All that wet weather coming off the Pacific just goes up and over New Mexico lately, and although I love being able to take the kids outside to play, I can't help but get nervous when I glance at my dry-to-the-bone garden beds and at the mountains and plains thick with dry brush. So send us your rain, and I'll send you our sunshine.

What I should be doing:
-editing (that would be work, which I can hardly face after a few weeks off, not that I'm ever terribly enthused to drop my projects and puttering for mundane work...)
-cleaning the loft
-cleaning the rest of the house, too
-finishing the post-xmas taking down of lights, etc., and hauling all the holiday stuff out to the shed
-dragging the denuded tree out to the garden to mulch the kale and chard
-cleaning up the yard and remulching the garden beds that the chickens keep digging up
-folding laundry
-washing and hanging the remaining three loads of laundry
-sorting through two weeks' mail and paying the bills
-gathering clutter to give away or toss (and actually following through for a change)
-organizing the kitchen shelves, which have slipped into chaos

Given such a daunting list, of course, I am avoiding all of it. I could say that I'm honoring my new year's resolution to stop chastising myself for not being neater, more organized, more efficient and productive... but no. I'm just slacking off and messing around, reading blogs and catching up on news...

The bad news: I just heard that all but one of the 13 miners in did die in the West Virginia mine explosion. What sorrow for their families and friends. I remember the Depression-era coal-mining ballads my dad used to sing us when we were kids, songs he no doubt learned from the miners in his extended family, and there are no happy lyrics there because it was and is and will always be a dirty, tough, perilous occupation. One theme in many of these songs was the exploitation of poor men by the wealthy mine owners who all too often sacrificed safety to increase their profits. Sadly, the story remains unchanged after all these decades: The mine where these men died had been cited 21 times last year for unsafe conditions, specifically the build-up of dangerous and combustible gasses -- the exact conditions that killed a dozen men in these first days of 2006.

The good news (depends on your perspective, of course -- I'm dancing on my dining room table over this): Republican super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff has not only been nabbed at last but is turning states' evidence and could bring down a LOT of other scumbags, too. Among his more egregious acts: bilking Native American tribes out of tens of millions of dollars. Typical Republican reverse-Robin-Hoodism at its very worst -- if you've ever set foot on a typical reservation, you have no trouble imagining the magnitude of this particular sin. "I hope I can merit forgiveness from the Almighty," Abramoff moaned during his court appearance yesterday. Yeah, good luck with that, Jack.