A New Year's Eve

The next time the sun rises, it will be the Year of the Tiger, 4708, according to far eastern calendars. I tend to dig on/celebrate/acknowledge this new year more than the western one, sometimes blaming it on my Buddhist leanings and the digging of far eastern philosophy. And given that at the beginning of this most recent western year I received less than pleasing news about my mother, I'm more than happy to welcome a new year. Perhaps something along the lines of what my sister would refer to as a cosmic reset.

It was a little disappointing that we missed the ice racing. Whether it was already done and over or just never happened, I'll never know. My daughter and I got down to the loch and all there were was some groups of ice-fishers. We hung out along the shore for a few minutes to decide our next course of action. A gray winter mountain day of snow and wind surrounded us. Going for a walkabout was not overly appealing.

So, I took her through the bayou district along the lagoon side of the loch, and she made fun of what she called mountain cookie-cutters. Sabina was helping out down at the winery, so we popped in there. Altogether, I tasted the equivalent of a glass of wine, maybe, and traded some pleasantries. Nothing I'd not had before, but a nice way to murder an hour. Sabina was, of course, being annoyed by the tourists coming in, and wanting to leave. It was not one of her usual days to be there.

Then, it was back west. We drove up to the trailheads for Gray's and Torrey's, as well as the BLT, to take the back way home. Along that road, just a little east of the Bridge to Nowhere, are the ruins of a cabin, which Sabina wants to check out one of these days in the near future. Part of me is tepid about this. Sometimes, when Sabina spies ruins, deciding we absolutely must investigate, we end up scrabbling to get to them, and she sometimes ends up with a minor injury of some sort. Such circumstance gets me to think of a quote from Neil Peart;

"Adventures suck when you're having them."

Sometimes, those are true words...

I dropped my daughter off over at the cantina, so she could hang out with her one buddy, back in the flops. I inquired about the possibility of anything going on for Carnival in the next few days. Sabina and I had decided we were actually going to make an effort to go to the cantina and be social then. Any festivities, outside of the usual burger and beer night, have yet to be decided.

And that's been my new year's eve, thus far...

Here and now, the scent of red beans and rice wafts through the house. The radio plays at a pleasant level and occasionally turn my gaze outside to watch the light snow fall. Both Sabina and my daughter will be home within the next hour or so. I contemplate a cup of Nepali black tea.

Most likely, for new year's eve, it'll be a quiet night at home. Much like it was for the western one. Except, well, there's no pall of relative's impending death looming. That was so last month. Another year, by another way of time-keeping.

Maybe we'll play a game or watch a film. Read or talk. Perhaps not the most exciting way to mark a calendar's sloughing of chronological skin from one year to the next, but I have never claimed to be overly exciting.