Monday. December 31, 2001

leaving on a jet plane...with luggage

"Thus we play the fools with the time and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us."

William Shakespeare, King Henry the Fourth

I am unwilling to get out of bed again. The cool weather, I guess. Maybe when I'm in New York I'll get used to the hour earlier and be ready to go back to work at a reasonable hour when I come home.

Our new TV gets delivered. It seems we have picked a German one. (Seriously.) It wants to control the world and you have to go through nine gates of heck to make it let our surround sound amp control stuff. You have to get into a super secret menu and set a bit in byte 7 or something. I'm not kidding. The guys who deliver it set the thing and leave us with the super-secret instructions in case it decides to start invading Poland or something.

Mom calls. She's been calling the doctors herself. Which is, I guess, OK. She feels better in any case. Without anything from them except tests and continuation of her same drugs.

So...it is the last day of the year. A year for which I have posted here one entry for each day. I've been working on a summary of the year. It's a sad, pitiful, self-indulgent, unproductive narrative. I see lots of typos and grammar errors and other mistakes, too. Ouch. That much was not unexpected. I've also forgotten much of it until I reread it. That wasn't unexpected either. I also received a note today from a friend who says he's been reading. Ah, yes. Occasionally the silent readers announce themselves. It's sort of spooky, really, this one-sided conversation.

Mom is busy talking to her GP's nurse when I come in. Dad is off shopping. He returns with things for their evening's entertainment...cheese and chips. They are making black-eyed peas and cornbread for their guests, too. Mom is working on a jigsaw. I show her a couple of things on the computer, help her a little with the puzzle. Just to sit with her and make sure she's doing OK. Dad makes us a hot drink and a sandwich. He even toasts the bread.

A couple of friends stop by. One lives here (one of the Lindas) but I don't see her enough. The other lives in L.A. (well, San Dimas) but is in town visiting. We exchange some little gifts.

I put Toy Story 2 on and watch it on the new TV. I do this and that. I've decided that if I retired it would take a couple of years to work into doing things the way I'd like to do them.

The time arrives to celebrate. We stop by an open house in Northwest Hills. There is only one person we know there. The woman of the house is a client of Forrest's. We enjoy visiting with people and drinking hot cider while a little white dog named Mr. Knickers barks at everyone. Mr. Knickers sports a black bow tie. People are discussing movies they've seen over the holidays. One fellow thought Vanilla Sky was a waste of time until half way through and then liked it. Another fellow keeps repeating, "I just didn't get it."

We have a dinner party at Zoot with other friends and bid our goodbyes. On Mopac we are listening to Car Talk. These guys always manage to make me laugh out loud. But tonight, choke, cough, spit, eyes tearing up, can't stop laughing, they have Martha Stewart as a guest. Yes, Martha Stewart .

We have a wonderful meal with Stag's Leap Petite Syrah. A 1998, it is mellow but big, jammy, with big black fruit and vanilla. There is an amuse bouche of liver paté and armagnac-soaked prune. Then I have a rabbit and pork terrine with truffles and black-eyed pea relish and rare beef tenderloin with smoked red onion marmalade, French green beans, cumin-scented sweet potatoes and sherry reduction. One of our friends admired the lamb at another table. We've all ordered beef. So four perfect little chops from a rack and some chickpea polenta and baby spinach show up for us to share. Like we need it! We eat it all, of course. And finish up with a winter fruit beggar's purse.

Then it's home to camp in front of the TV. One of our friend makes some snacks of vegies with dipping oil and salts and peanut spread and some parmesan crisps. (The latter especially just found their way into my mouth. I mean, yeah, I was full. But they were delicious.) I'd opened some Rosé champagne, too, and I was sipping that although water was selling better with the gals. So. We watched a couple of episodes of Sex in the City. Flipped around New Year's celebrations, missed the ball drop. We started watching Chocolat, which is a great movie. One of our friends brought whistles. So, we were ready to count down when a glass got broken. We hustled Chalow out of the way, got our shoes, were mopping up water and ice, sweeping and vacuuming glass. But we didn't miss the countdown all together. And, it's 2002. So we finish up watching Chocolat and our friend who is only a block away goes home and our other friend takes the guest room.

So, yeah it's a New Year. I swallow two Aloe Vera tablets and two Advil on the off chance that I've had too much to drink and eat.

JUST TYPING
Another year.
Flees.
Escapes.
Gone.
What happened to it?
What difference did I make?