Happy New Year!

(composed yesterday)

And welcome to 2010!

New Year's Eve was mostly a non-event for me. The Federal Gummint allowed us to leave 59 minutes early (hey, it's a government thing; I can't explain it), which was nice, especially since I wanted to avoid the pre-revelry traffic, but since I live very close to a liquor store I still managed to get caught up in the insanity. See, all I wanted was some fancy food from Ellwood Thompson's (translation: too lazy to cook and desiring something... festive), just around the corner, while the rest of humanity, it seemed, wanted to get its drunk on (or already had, judging from the way people were driving)-- a square block of near-gridlock. Okay, yeah, maybe some of those people were headed to the two other grocery stores in the area... maybe... but I sure saw some long-ass lines inside when I drove past the liquor store (I have it on good authority that the one at Southside Plaza, near where I work, was a madhouse--apparently, the City of Richmond even took the precaution of stationing a couple of police cars nearby).

I had a last-minute dinner invite from Big Gay Cliff (Mandarin Palace, where lots of Super-Secret Support Group people eat before heading off to The! Big! SSSG! Dance! at U of R, but (1) I really didn't feel like fighting traffic and going back across the Bridge to Southside and/because (2) my lower back was still hurting from shoveling the snow and ice from around my car the other week. A quiet evening reclining with the cat in front of the Glass Teat seemed about all I could handle.

Sid-the-Cat chowed down on his Kibbles & Snouts ("Now With More Horse Tonsil!"*), I chowed down on beef brisket braised in coffee**, horseradish on the side, and we both were sound asleep (Sid atop my chest) before, oh, I'm guessing 9:00 p. m.

But we didn't miss the arrival of the New Year, oh sweet Crom, no; the Richmond Ad Hoc Volunteer Militia made sure of that. The celebratory gunfire began just before midnight by my clock, much of it seeming to originate from the alley behind my apartment (it wasn't; it was merely LOUD), because, let's face it, what else says "Happy New Year" better than several thousand rounds of high-powered ammunition? So there was that and the now-traditional New Year's Eve Clawing-of-the-Food-Bringer/Litter-Box-Scooper as... certain... members of the household scrambled for cover.

Yeah, welcome to 2010.


*Ok, so it was Fancy Feast Turkey & Giblets.

**Seriously!