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Thursday, January 3, 2008

Damage Report: New Year's Eve

January 3rd. I resolve this year to blow off petty responsibilities in the name of getting something more significant accomplished.

Just kidding.

But, oh how that would please Mrs. Ditchman. I don't know why I didn't get around to posting yesterday or the day before. Could be the hangover. (And you just know it was a good party when you're still hung over on January 3rd.) Last night my wife made the suggestion that I just not have a beer. That's a suggestion you really can't turn down, lest you pull up the on-ramp on the highway to alcoholism. Then, with a smile on her face, she said, "Do you think you can?" where at once it became a challenge. We were out of beer anyway.

I don't know what I had more of in December, alcohol or cheese. If there is a cheese hangover, I have it. Seems like I ate enough cheese over the holidays to dam the Seine, and there's no way that can be healthy. I love cheese, though. I love the smell of it, the texture, the exotic nature of the stuff, but every now and then you get a piping hot pizza delivered and you pop open the box to see a pool of grease in the middle of the dough and you think, "Where does all that grease come from?" Answer: the cheese, of course. You eat it anyway.

And I like wine. And beer. It's the Day-Glo punch that sends me sleeping on the bathroom floor, so I try and stay away from the stuff. A Monticelli Brother brought a bunch of wine to the party and even he was impressed by how much we drank. Believe me, when the winemaker at your party has a hangover the next morning, it was a good party.


Anyway, 2007 was a lesser year and lesser years demand good New Year's Eve parties, I'm sure you'll agree. But hey, it was an odd year. And by odd year I mean literally an odd year. Somehow the odd years don't seem to resonate as the good ones throughout history. 1941. 2001. It's the even years that seem most memorable. (Then again, I got married in an odd year, to someone who was born in an odd year. I don't know, maybe I'm my wife's bad luck.) At least our house didn't burn down in 2007. In 2008, may God richly bless those whose did last year.

I count about 28 empty bottles of wine there in the recycling bin, but there were only 12 of us. Doing the math, I find it surprising that so much was consumed -unless the toddlers were sneaking it. I don't know, maybe that's why they went to bed so early.

It was a fun party. So fun, in fact, that at one point we were breaking off all the doorstops and writing on the ceiling. It was that kind of party. Hopefully 2008 will be the kind of excellent year where we are so extraordinarily prosperous and successful that the New Year's Party will be a dull uneventful segue between Christmas and work.



On second thought, it was a good party.