Happy New Year from the couch

I am just finishing up the best christmas present of all (she says oozing sarcasm, and, well, snot) a lovely cold. and to top it off, i have somehow given it to my mother, who is of course a day or so behind me, so i know just how she feels, but am still too sick to help her out much.

yesterday was the best though. i had plans for new years. not big plans, just my friends coming over to veg out, maybe going down to the city fireworks at 8 o'clock, but generally just alot of catching up and gabbing before they fly back to victoria and edmonton.

this is as elaborate as i usually get. i am not a big crowd person, especially if there might be erratic drunk people in that crowd. i have been down to the big CityTV countdown in Nathan Philip's Square in Toronto twice, once last year, and you can't see anything except maybe one big screen if you put your head a certain way to see over or around the crowd, you lose your friends, end up in a cloud of pot smoke (the bad ontario kind), you can't hear anything, and then you guess at the count down, which is of course a good second off everyone at the front of the crowd. to top it off, you can't hear anything from the speakers themselves, you just hear the music reverberating off the other buildings in the square (and really, who are the people they get to sing? i have never heard of half of them!)

the best part was that last year, the family in front of me, that i was mashed into by the crowd, had all obviously had beans for supper. a giant vat of beans. well, i guess i was a bit warmer that some other people.

anyway, this years plans were scuppered by the contagion. my friends came over for about 45 minutes for a last minute exchange of christmas prezzies and gossip, before going off to the fireworks without me. i spent the evening watching movies and Air Farce Final Flight with my mom and a few boxes of kleenex. we actually stayed up until midnight and toasted in the new year with a tiny bottle of bubbly (and were suitably creeped out by Dick Clark. omg put the guy out of his misery already! i just wanted to see the ball drop, but i had to look away because Dick Clark was so scary!)

it was wonderful. best New Year ever. so nice to have the responsibility for an awesome new years taken off your shoulders and just let go. I couldn't do anything else, and it was great to do just exactly what i really wanted to, and not feel like a loser for watching videos on new years.

gee, i hope my brother had fun at his big party.