Happy New Year

Ok, bk has shamed me into doing another post with his proliferation of holiday entries. So, to please my fans in this menage a bloggers, I will make a brief re-appearance. However, don't expect any coherent thoughts.

1. Down under on the change of year.
First, it's kind of fun to be a day ahead of everybody in North America (hell, the whole Northern Hemisphere). For example, when we were in the throes of the Year 2000, I was able to report that the toaster still worked on New Years Day, before anyone in the US was able to verify. (And we were the SECOND place to welcome the Millenium - the first being a small Pacific nation (Micronesia I think) that likes to complicate things by being fifteen minutes ahead of NZ. Try Hards.) That gave me a scoop on everybody else. Call me "Cub Reporter". However, that doesn't seem to help me stay up until Midnight. Last night we were asleep by 10:30 PM. It's hell being old.

2. New Years Resolutions.
I don't make them. No sense in setting myself up for failure, I say. I will say that I am pretty happy with my life right now, although I need to do some of the basics better (exercise more, eat and drink less, etc.), but I'm not going to resolve to do them. I did take the dog for an hour's walk this morning at 7:30 am so I guess that's as good a start as I can get.

3. What I'm happy about.
We're going home to NZ in 36 days. That makes me really happy. It will be a helluva lot of work, and we are going to live without a lot of creature comforts (like a bed and a couch) for a month or so while our stuff is in transit (well, we have to buy a lot of stuff when we get back to NZ), but we will be in our own home again. The Kiwi and I have been living in the same country(ies) for ten years now (well, we are in our tenth year), and that's something to be happy about. We had two of the three kids with us for Christmas (along with assorted partners) and that was good too. I'm getting random text messages from my friends wishing me a happy New Year. It's not unbearably hot today. The Christmas Tree hasn't completely become tinder yet (we bought a dead/live one this year - first tree in two years - and it still smells like a Christmas tree).

4. Summernats.
We live a couple of blocks from what can be compared to an American fairground - you know, where they hold the county fair. They have the usual exhibition halls where on any given weekend you can go to a computer sale, or buy Oriental rugs, or Oakley sunglasses - all a greatly reduced prices. They also normally hold a farmer's market on Saturday mornings. We watch the mass migration of many octegenarians pushing their little collapsable trolleys through our neighborhood to buy their weekly fruit and veg (although I think it's more of a social event for them really). We go on the odd weekend and have a good coffee and buy some stuff, and maybe have a bacon and egg roll or sausage roll for breakfast. Anyway, on the first weekend of the new year they have an event called "Summernats" (and no, I have no idea why they call it that). Summernats is a petrol head car show, where they have burnout competitions, car shows, a big car parade through town and other events such as the "Miss Jack Daniels Competition" or something like that. Most people camp at the show grounds and this is their New Year entertainment. What it means for our neighborhood is four days of revving engines and the smell of burning rubber when the wind is going the right direction, as well as a dearth of certain products at our local supermarket, most notably, bread, eggs, bacon, beer and RTDs (do you call them RTDs? I mean cans of Jack Daniels and cola or Vodka and lemon, etc.). People in the neighborhood complain about it a lot but I think it's a point of pride to complain about it, really. There are fireworks shows every night which we can watch from our front porch (and often we can hear the bands playing at night too). Anyway, people complain a lot about Summernats (some actually plan to be out of town during the event) but I think it's kind of cool.

Happy New Year, my two readers. I hope everyone is happy both collectively and separately.