Happy New Year

(Real original title, eh?)

Greetings and salutations to 2009 - I'm waiting for the first date I have to write on a check or bill where I forget the '09 part. Heck, last year I actually wrote "19" before I realized I wasn't in just the wrong decade but the wrong century.

We had a fun time last night celebrating with Molly and Jeff. They invited a few other folks for a small New Year's bash - Chef Cookaloni made an appearance, bringing with him steaming pots of fondue, both cheese and a beef broth concoction that cooked beef, chicken, scallops and shrimp to perfection. We worked off our dinner playing Wii bowling and tennis and baseball and enjoying old friends and new.

Molly’s mom and dad were there, too, up for a visit from Florida. Molly’s mom, Janet, is a great encourager to me – she enjoys my blog and was urging me to write a book of my posts. She was quite adamant about it and I figure if I ever do I’m hiring her to be my PR person.

Janet asked several times how I come up with blog post ideas. My answer (“I just watch what’s going on around me”) seemed to spur her on to observe the events of the night. She became interested in the remote control cube Jeff has next to his recliner; it holds, oh, about 72 remotes for his various pieces of electronics. But he also has a universal remote that does the work of all the other remotes. I think Janet was amused that he has the universal remote sitting right next to all the now obsolete remotes. She thought that would make a great blog post; I would have agreed with her if we didn’t have the exact same situation in our family room. I didn’t have the heart to tell her last night. (Sorry, Janet!)

It was a fun evening but Sean and I bailed about 11 pm. We were still beat from our drive back in the snow and ice (which is still out there, by the way) and we wanted to be on our way before the crazy revelers hit the road. We watched the big ball drop, kissed, and went to bed. (We did something else, too, but Sean said I couldn’t put that.)

Welcome, 2009!