Where’s the money coming from?         If you haven’t asked that question this week, you’re in the 99 percent.     And here come Uncle Sam and Uncle Peter, reminding us that tax day is just around the corner.

Danita Boonchaisri, an aptly titled communications specialist with Calvert County, was once a student of mine. So our encounters, regardless of subject, are surrounded by a halo of memories. Insubstantial as ghosts, these memories are felt rather than seen. Would they reappear if we nudged them?     “Do you remember if Sue Lee was in your class?” I asked as we ended a call on a story for this week’s paper. The woman I named had just appeared, by the magic of email, out of time.

Card companies are into their third century of making Valentine’s Day big business, and they’ll help us exchange millions of Valentines this year. But commercial mobilization doesn’t make February 14 a Hallmark holiday. It’s neither by accident nor artifice that we celebrate Valentines’ Day.     The urge is way stronger than paper or binary codes creating pretty pictures on a computer screen.

Ah, we’ve already used up one of the irreplaceable months this no-longer-quite-so-new year gives us.     Which brings us to Groundhog Day, that frivolous-seeming cross-quarter day whose significance in the forward march of time hides behind a furry hibernating mammal.     We’re great fans of the frivolous. In the words of Jeff Thompson, “It is what it is; might as well have fun along the way!” (I’ll remind you who he is in a few paragraphs.)

This is a very hungry week.         Thinking about restaurants, talking to chefs and owners and reading menus makes me want to eat my way through Bay Weekly’s annual Dining Guide.     Not that I haven’t already had more than a few bites. With breakfast, lunch and dinner samples, I’ve been in training for Restaurant Week, which comes to Annapolis at the end of February.     But one good bite deserves another.

In our Mission Statement, Bay Weekly eschews doom-and-gloom news and commits to a world where people enjoy a high quality of life in a sustainable way that they’ll be able to hand down for generations to come.     So why are we writing about bedbugs?     Truth be told, we also savor a taste for the strange.

Read any good plans lately?         Maryland’s state plan has no suspense, sex, violence or drugs, not even any characters.     Yet PlanMaryland, which Gov. Martin O’Malley’s proclaimed by executive order last month, is becoming notorious.     The 11-page document has a web page, a Facebook page with nearly 500 likes and a game you can play.

When the clock struck 12, pushing Saturday, December 31 into Sunday, January 1, in that moment it was thinkable that a new you would rise from bed and into the world on New Year’s Day. Not too early that day.     A lot of energy rises from that possibility.

We’ve saved the best for last.         The Best of the Bay is our last word for 2011. It’s the news of the 11th hour of the 12th month.     It’s your judgment on who gives you the best value, service and satisfaction for your buck. On where you go for a good time. On what you like to do best in Chesapeake Country.

Editor’s note: I write out of my Christian tradition on December 21, which is the Winter Solstice as well as, this year, the first day of the eight-day Jewish celebration of Chanukah. Whatever tradition we come from — Jewish, pagan or Christian — this time of year we celebrate, and tell our stories about, the coming of light into our world.