Well, here we are. My favorite day of the year. No one expects us to be festive, and thank god for that. Do you enjoy my new sugar skull calendar? Remember when I had that vintage Better Homes & Gardens calendar that I was so obsessed with, and I made you look at the picture each month? Expect a lotta sugar skulls in 2017.
I had a lot of this action over the long weekend.
And also this. Which is worlds different from the photo above. Someone is 100% well from his de-sacking. Couldn't care less. Full of vim.
When I got out of work whatever the hell day we got out--does time seem weird right now?--I was definitely fighting a cold. In fact, I was miserable. I woke up on New Year's Eve and felt just rotten. I was sad, because my plan had been to go to The Other Copy Editor's open house. She and her husband just bought a huge place and have turned it into a Bed and Breakfast on the same damn street I lived on during my year abroad. They were having their first big party there, with a band and everything.
All day I shivered under blankets, and got up to gargle with warm salt water, and sucked zinc. As you do.
Finally, at around 5:00, I decided I was too ill to go anywhere but I'd better go get something to eat because I was down to salad dressing again (I'd also had plans to take The Poet out for a nondrink, as well. The 31st is her birthday. I called her and said, "Let's do this. It hurts to talk but I'll nod." She demurred).
So I showered, dressed, headed to the store and got chicken, came home, and realized...
I felt perfectly fine.
ALL DAY my throat had been killing me. It hurt to swallow. It hurt to drink water. I WAS DYING and then boom. I wasn't.
I also noticed my hair had dried particularly well, so I said FUCK IT and got into maniacal ware...
and went to The Other Copy Editor's open house. I drove AROUND THE WORLD to get to her house without passing my year abroad house. Seriously, I don't even know the cockamamie way I did it, but I did.
I got there and I was all, Oh HELL yes.
It was amazing. I met lots of cool people, including the guy I was sitting with at the top of the stairs when I took this photo. It was an excellent place to people watch.
I met a couple who have young twins and a 10-month-old, who were so excited to be out and dressed they almost couldn't stand it. They told me that recently, in the car, they were playing the song Farmer in the Dell, and one of the twins has become obsessed with the idea of the farmer taking a wife.
"The farmer takes a wife, Daddy?"
Yes, he'll tell her.
"The farmer takes a wife?" she'll say, 14 seconds later.
She can't get past it. It haunts her. We discussed cognitive skills, and differences among twins, and finally I summed it up with the brilliant, "I never have reason to play Farmer in the Dell in my car."
I really don't. I've canceled my Sirius radio, in an effort to be fiscally responsible, so maybe I'll pick up the Farmer in the Dell CD. The live version.
The Other CE and me. I guess now she's B&B owner, not TOCE.
I stayed till just before midnight, as I didn't want it to be all 12:00 and no one to kiss. I decided to not drive around the world with every drunk in America out, so I got all my courage up and drove past Ned's, shielding my eye like a horse blinder, so I wouldn't look at his house when I went past. I did it. Without incident.
I got into my cougar pajams just as the fireworks went off outside. I stood on my porch with a split of Prosecco and toasted the damn new year. Such as it is.
Oh. Well, that's good news.
Today Ima go to the store and get groceries for the week, and get all my damn laundry done. Since this infernal endless holiday period began, I've been trying to get all my laundry done and I never do. I have only hand-washables left at his point, so that's what my afternoon looks like. I'm like Indiana Jones, over here, with my adventures.
So, there it is. I got through the holidays and didn't kill myself, so score. Winning. On top of my game.
Pffffft,
June
