New Year's Day

New Year's Eve Peleg and I had a couple of friends over. We shared our reviews of the past year and intentions for the coming year with each other. Then we had a nice dinner. Peleg cooked. And then settled down to watch the Sound of Music which we're establishing as a New Year's Eve tradition. Nobody noticed when midnight arrived. At the movie intermission it was 12:30 and we decided to go to bed instead of watching the rest of it. Our friend doesn't like the parts with the nazi's anyway. Our friends were going to spend the night so we could all get up in our jammies in the morning and watch the parade on TV.

As we went to bed Peleg said he had a surprise for me in the morning. I asked what it was and he said i would have to wait until the morning. At about 5:30 he got up, which I didn't think too much of as he gets up early most days anyway. But then at 6 he got me up and said the surprise was that we weren't just going to watch the parade on TV, we were going to go to the parade. One of the friends who had spent the night works at a company that sponsors a float in the parade and he had grandstand seats for four and a reserved parking place for us.

So we went. I had been to the parade once before in high school where we went the night before and camped on the side walk all night. By the morning I was so tired I wanted nothing more than to skip the parade and go home. Plus it was impossible to see anything at street level, and we were at the end of the route so the floats were looking bedraggled, the marching bands weren't playing and I swore never to do it again.

The experience from a grandstand seat, having had a good night's sleep, and breakfast from a cooler was something completely different. I probably wouldn't do it again but I had a great time. And a start to the year.