Happy New Year!

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blow your horns, blow kisses into the air......once upon a long long time ago my old pal elizabeth insisted that we go to a nightclub for New Year's Eve......so we got all dressed up and went to T-Birds.  there was an actual vintage T-Bird in the lobby......it was very crowded, so smoky......lots of people doing shots and acting like crazy dolled up fools!  i was living dangerously - drinking rum & coke.  it was my first new year as an unmarried person and the closer it got to midnight the more restless i got.......no one to kiss seemed to play in my head like a theme song......."no one to kiss.......poor beautiful girl.......has no one to kiss."

i told elizabeth i didn't want to welcome in the new year unkissed.  she was like, whaaaat??? ---- i took off walking round the club surveying all the bachelors.......she said something like SLOW DOWN>>>>>>>>>>>dang girl!  i was laughing and feeling absolutely reckless......rum courage didn't hurt. 

then i saw this handsome tall dark haired man........very very tall.......and i approached him.  i said would it be alright if we kissed at midnight?  and he said ummmmmmm....yes.  but he looked pretty amazed by the whole idea...  so at the stroke of midnight we kissed.  i really don't remember the actual kiss, it was a long long long time ago......but his name was Richard, he was 6' 7" tall.......from New Zealand.  he invited me to go on a date with him the very next day........to have dinner with his friends who were now living in America and formerly New Zealander's like himself.  Seemed only fair to go on a date since he was kind enough to kiss me.......shake off that newly divorced confused nobody to hold feeling.......

so he picked me up on new year's day and off we went.  one would think i would feel awfully embarrassed by my behavior from the night before, but i didn't.....a tad foolish, but we laughed it off and savored the memory.  he said i had given him the kind of story he could tell for the rest of his life!  ahhhhhh.......i thought me too! 

the home we went to wasn't a traditional home at all.......it was a geodesic dome, i had never been in a home designed like that.....all those unusual walls and spaces.  i remember thick sheepskin rugs......lots of smiling strangers, the long dining table, very heavy furniture.......the primary entre was mutton.  i'd never had mutton and i found that i didn't like it......i was trying to be very discreet and rid my plate of it via my white dinner napkin.  felt so guilty about it all......my first and last time eating mutton.  now i wonder would i like it prepared a different way?  was it the cook perhaps......could i actually like mutton and just didn't give it a real chance?  dunno.

elizabeth thought i was mad.....funny but crazy.......outrageous and in need of a best friend's protection......and yet she is the one who insisted that i get mini skirts that first year for going out.......all my clothes we businessy and buttoned up, i didn't have many play clothes beyond the kind that mommies wear to the playground with their kids. 

i don't really miss the club scene at all.....it was fun for a bit......i hope richard found a lovely girl to marry.  a girl he could call his bride --- a bride he could kiss whenever he wanted to......he was so good looking!  elizabeth said it was so unfair that i picked the guy of her dreams for my random new year's eve kiss......best friends are a funny lot! 

i put my 2018 calendar up on the wall, yes still old school and like the paper version best for the day to day.  it's sunrises and sunsets, some spectacular shots!

planning to watch blockbuster movies all day.......first one watched was Ocean's Eleven.....then plan to tackle Rocky and the Terminator.....and maybe some three men and a baby for a break from all the macho macho machine gunning rock 'em sock 'em robots of it all...........i have some lovely chinese soup for tonight.  & some old school neopolitan ice cream for a late night snack. 

not a stranger in sight!!!  have a lovely new year's eve........someone told me once that whatever you do the most of on the first day of the year is what you'll do the most of all year through, so don't clean or do laundry if you can avoid it!  how about instead of resolutions we make wishes......three each?  sound good?  make your wishes and dream wonderful deliciously ooooh la la dreams......foreign cities, elephants, pyramids, casinos, banyon trees, surfing off the coast.......blowing giant bubbles with happy children......entertaining a massive crowd at Madison Square Garden, you pick the talent you wish to share.......stand up?  singing?  dancing?  acrobatics....lions, tigers and bears oh my!  wish big and soak those wishes into your night journeys......take to the sky.......swing upon a star.......love and a very happy new year!