Next Stop - New Year!

It's Monday, New Year's Eve. I guess I'm pretty much ready to be done with this year, so bring it on. After being gone for a week, I'm simply glad to have gotten home safely, driven over McKenzie Pass early this evening...unloaded, unpacked, tidy-up the pad...just enough time before Mark dropped off Chloe for a sleepover.

I suspect the movies of the 1920s and '30s, seen on television to this day, are still the standard for New Year's Eve celebrations — a ballroom, big band, handsome dancing couples dressed to the nines, and at the stroke of midnight, champagne, kisses and gaiety all around.

I enjoyed similar soirees at the ballyhooed highest point in San Francisco--CARNELIAN ROOM--in the '90s. A roomful of lovely women in formals and party dresses and men in handsome tuxes has a lot to be said for it, regrettably, such parties are narrowing down to a precious few--at least here in small town Bend, OR.

New Year's Eve is all about the glitz and glam...it's astonishing dh and I are home apart from the maddening crowd for the first time in years--without friends--on this very eve. There is no party hat, noisemaker, firework, dancing, or a champagne toast--not even the American tradition count down of Dick Clark from Times Square or Tila Tequila's NYE Masquerade. To the world, NYE's ball symbolizes something that is amazing, wonderful and entertaining at the same time. Even for those that aren’t physically present when the ball drops, it is just as visible on TV and via the internet. This year, the ball has been reconstructed and relighted. Equipped with new energy efficient light bulbs, the ball with be bigger and brighter than ever; all the while still using half of the energy it used to. Workers were seen very busy on Thursday installing 672 Waterford crystal triangles on the New Year’s ball. It could be time consuming, said one worker, but he just loves doing it. That is why he keeps on coming back every year.

If we have cable service, I would have loved to watch great Astaire-Rogers films TCM running all evening--truly entertaining by some of the great American contributions to culture: the movies, dance, popular song, light comedy.

Weird things have been happening lately. For one thing, I am pretty much out of energy. I no longer feel inspired, creative, resourceful, or anything else that you would list on your resume. Maybe it's the winter thing. I still love the children--in fact I love them more than ever--but I no longer desire to do activities with them. Maybe we could all just sit around and stare at the wall together. If they don't want to explore new discovery, that's fine. Activities are over-rated. Learning is over-rated. Usually I feel bad slacking off, but past few days I have pretty much just been shamelessly slacking off...I am longing to be in Italy for the celebration of La Festa di San Silvestro.

New Year is a new start and end of something that we have left behind. Let's celebrate the moment. May 2007 bring you all some of the bounty that is this great Country. May you also achieve some of your dreams. May some of our forefathers dreams be answered too. May we come to a place where all sides come together and put their interests aside enough to put some effort towards the greater good. May more on the right see that global warming is not sun spots or whatever else they can dream up. May the far left see that some capitalism can be a good thing. May the right see that some regulations are a very necesary thing, not just a subtraction from their profit margin. May all of us have the ability to look beyond our preconceived notions of people, races, politics, borders and lifestyle and create a world where every individual is given basic respect, dignity, and freedom. And May you all have a happy New Year. Be well.

P.S. I went to bed shortly after midnight while the girls played cup game and chatted well into 3 am per dh...Now, I'm officially OLD! (Added January 1, 2008)