New Year's Eve

Happy New Year. Awake sometime before the afternoon in Dan and Ellie's house, where there's a plethora of cute photo opportunities featuring cats, plants, and especially the baby BB. (At present, the baby has eaten green beans for the second time ever, and seems pretty sanguine up in her hippo chair.) Sunshine arrived in town yesterday afternoon with a large bag of wrapped packages and baked architecture. There's just something great about starting a day I know will be good. Tonight we will exchange presents under the tree in Ellie and Dan's living room, and then we'll head over to the annual New Year's Eve thing at Café Europa. There will be champagne and traditional oyster shots and balloons and a whole lot of our friends. It will be crowded in the good way: a press of people who are all just as happy to be there as I am. There's even a large gingerbread gazebo to destroy (prettily) and eat. In the ten minutes before the ball drops on what was a pretty great year for me (what with a wedding, a fantasy vacation to El Dia de Muertos, and moving home after our first position abroad), pockets of pranksters will loudly shout ersatz ten-second countdowns for the benefit of those who cannot see the TV. Soon, it will be next year. There's just something great about starting a new year I know will be good. For weeks we can relax and spend time with friends and family; then we move to DC and enjoy that city of museums, restaurants, and, hopefully, snow for half-a-year. In the fall we will move to Vietnam. Next year's holiday will probably differ from our annual tradition of the last five or six years, but I'm not thinking about that yet. [Cavin]