As if you haven’t had enough leftovers this week, here are a few items I wasn’t able to squeeze into recent columns.

Holiday wishes apparently do come true — if you wait long enough.

A worldwide recession now appears inevitable.

A couple of years ago, Nancy, my wife, and I read a book by Gary Chapman that identified what he called the five love languages: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service and physical touch. While those may be the major categories through which love may be demonstrated, it is by no means an all-encompassing list, as I recently realized.

I’ve been watching with great interest President-elect Barack Obama’s nomination of Cabinet members. And although it’s early in the process, I’ve come to an important realization: I need a Cabinet.

As we celebrate Thanksgiving, a holiday that traces its roots to that first Thanksgiving, a feast that owed homage to the old English custom of Harvest Home, we often forget what Pilgrims truly are.

Diane passes the turkey to her uncle and steals glances as her sweet potato casserole makes its way around. Her sister, Debbie, is several years older and still talks to her like a child sometimes. Debbie puts a small spoonful of casserole on her plate.

Each year, as our family gathers to celebrate Thanksgiving, Mom always asks each of us to declare what we are thankful for before we begin eating.

U.S. Rep Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, chairman of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is calling for the Defense Finance and Accounting Service to keep its promise to recalculate payments to thousands of disabled retirees eligible for Combat Related Special Compensation (CRSC) or Concurrent Retired and Disability Pay (CRDP).

I forgot to tell you about it, but Nov. 18 was National Memory Screening Day. This was supposed to be last week’s column, but I didn’t remember to write it. Actually, it was supposed to be the column for the week before that, but it slipped my mind.

This may sound crazy, but the current economic meltdown actually might do us some good in the long run. There’s nothing like complete collapse to slap you awake and help you to redefine your priorities.

What “Today” is doing is disturbing on two levels. First, it’s manipulating its audience, and second, it’s getting me in more trouble with my wife than Sarah Palin ever did.

Just before the dot.com bubble burst, “experts” were peddling books with titles like “Dow 36,000,” “Dow 40,000” and even “Dow 100,000.” According to a 1999 book review, “it’s not a question of if the Dow Jones Industrial Average will blast into the financial stratosphere, but how high it will go.”

Kohls is doing it again and so am I. The retailer plans to open at 4 a.m. on Black Friday for a second year in a row, prompting me to recycle and reuse this column on the crazy kick off to the holiday shopping season. After all, recycling is good for the environment and you might have missed it last year while buying cashmere sweaters at 4:30 in the morning.

With all the talk in recent weeks about the surprising choices that President-elect Barack Obama has made in terms of people who will probably work for him, one question has come to my mind: If Hillary, why not me? Or you? Why shouldn't we be part of the Obama Administration if we want to be?