We had a New Year's party last night, and as soon as I get the pictures posted, I'll let you know. It went pretty darn well, I think. As Richard said over breakfast this morning, it was a great party: everyone who wanted to got drunk, no one got hurt, no one got sick, and no one's relationship ended.
We'd planned for the party to start around 8, but one person showed up as early as 5, and another couple rang the doorbell around 6, so it was a long party. Matt and I had put lots of snacks out, and cookies and such from several other people, and much more food got eaten than at the Hallowe'en party, thanks in part to the fact that we actually put the food where the people were hanging out, rather than hoping the food would draw people into the dining room.
I must confess that I got a little nervous about the CD racks. Matt and I have a set of six boxes that we keep CDs in. They're designed to stack on top of each other - they have depressions on their bottoms that match small bumps on their tops - and we have them stacked on top of our entertainment center in the living room. (When we reach the point where we need a bigger storage system, we'll have to move them to the floor, I think, because I can barely reach the top one as it is.) Anyway, when we were sitting around playing Scruples last night, K.T. leaned against the entertainment center and I saw the whole tower of them wobble. It was only a slight wobble, but in my overactive imagination I could just see six fairly heavy wooden boxes filled with CDs toppling over and causing a big mess and any number of injuries ranging from bruises to severe concussions. So I warned several people from actually dancing in the living room. I wound up in an misunderstanding with Colleen, because when I warned her away, I was talking loudly so I could hear myself over the music, forgetting that other people are actually capable of filtering different sounds, and she thought I was yelling at her. (Luckily, I got a chance to explain a bit later after I realized what had happened.)
Almost everyone we'd invited turned up - the only people who didn't make it were Shbee, for whom New Year's is a family event; Karen, who we knew when we sent the invitation wouldn't come, because she lives so far away; and the Brandts, because Kris had to work until seven. Everyone else turned up for at least a little while - even Becky, who came after midnight from another party.
We watched the ball drop at midnight, drank our champagne (or sparkling grape juice), kissed our loved ones, hooted on our noisemakers, and ran out into the street to watch the world end. Some people (I think they were high school kids, but it was too dark to be sure) having a party across the street were running up and down the street yelling and honking their car horns. There were two separate fireworks displays we could see from out in the street (both were obviously the result of private parties, as the fireworks were spaced far apart and not very well timed, but nice nonetheless). We clinked our plastic champagne glasses and drank about five bottles of champagne (boy, am I glad several other people brought bottles, because Matt and I had only bought two!) and got into a brief shouting match with the group across the street. (I cheerfully yelled, "There's more of us, and we're drunker!")
There was a wave around 1 of people leaving, and after that we were mostly playing music and singing along drunkenly. We stayed up until well after three, until Greg fell asleep in his chair and I started wondering if maybe we'd just stay up all night. But around 3:30, everyone left who wasn't staying the night. Surprisingly few stayed - just Jeff (who's spending the weekend with us anyway), Greg, and Richard. Jen and Brian had said they were staying, but they were among the first to leave - I think Brian was having more allergy trouble than anticipated. Anyway, Jeff was so beat that he disappeared as soon as the party was officially over. Richard and Greg helped Matt and I collect the garbage from the party and clean up the worst of the mess, and then we gratefully tumbled into sleep.
This morning, we all got up around ten - which was surprising, since we'd gone to bed at four. By the time I was up, Greg had already left, since he was late for work. The remaining four of us had orange juice and cinnamon rolls and bacon for breakfast, and then Richard decided he had to have coffee and Matt drove him up to the store for some while I took a shower and got dressed. While we were drinking our coffee, Carl arrived to pick up Richard, and so we sat around talking for a good while before the Terrible Two left.
And then I came up to work on my journal - and that's been my New Year so far.
Today's plans are to relax around the house for the next couple of hours, and then head to K.T.'s to game. Not that I actually expect we'll get much gaming done, but it's worth a try, and if not, well, then we're all friends who like hanging out together anyway. Though I'll be trying to remember to let others do the talking - I'm still hoarse from singing at the top of my lungs for almost two and a half hours last night.
So far, I haven't noticed any spectacular glitches due to the date rollover. In fact, I've only noticed one small glitch, and that turned out to be with HomeSite, the shareware program I use to maintain my webpage. I confess I haven't registered it yet, because it costs too much. I'm slowly getting around to registering the shareware I actually use, but the more expensive programs are last on the list. Anyway, when I fired it up this morning, the nag screen popped up and cheerfully informed me that I had 36190 days left in my evaulation period. Just so you don't have to do the math, I'll give it to you - that's just shy of 100 years. Heh.
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