Happy New Year!

My New Year's Eve was filled with a bit more drama than I normally prefer. I like celebrating New Year's Eve even in a low-key way, but since I've met Andrew our celebrations for this holiday have been hit or miss. The weekend trip to Chicago to visit my cousin? Terrific. The night in Wales when we forgot to buy sparkling wine and Andrew spent the evening trying to find a a single spot in the room to place the TV aerial (antenna) so that we could see some sort of celebration on the TV? Not so great. (Wales is a lovely country. But it's pretty dead on New Year's Eve.)

This year I planned our evening well in advance, determined to have a proper celebration. I bought tickets to a musical and made reservations afterward at our favorite Indian restaurant. The drama crept in, though, because of the car. Our car needed a new half-axle and Andrew thought it would take about a day to do it. Just to be sure, we blocked off three full days, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, when we wouldn't need the car. I worked from home, and he promised that the car would be done by Friday evening so we could drive to the theater. Unfortunately, the car repair didn't go as smoothly as hoped, and on Friday afternoon my living room was filled with tools and car parts. I was ready to cancel everything, since it seemed like it would be difficult to get taxis on New Year's Eve and the we had not chosen our destinations for ease of bus access.

In the end, the car was finished thirty minutes before we needed to leave. (Well done, Andrew!) We saw Beauty and the Beast, the musical (which earns an less-than-enthusiastic endorsement from me), had a great dinner, and managed to be home before midnight. That last part was important, because the Miami population celebrates with both fireworks (European-style) and gunfire (Afghan-style). I had heard of occasional deaths from all the celebratory gunfire, and wanted no part of that.