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Happy New Year!

Happy New Year’s Eve to all of our blog family. We will be spending New Year’s Eve at home this year — preparing for our annual New Year’s party on January 1st. I will be toasting to everyone on our extended blog family.

Tonight Leslie and I will share our traditional bottle of Schramsberg Sparkling wine. This is my wedding anniversary. Thirteen years ago, Leslie and I eloped on New Year’s Eve after eight years years of dating. (There is an ongoing dispute over calculating the event, I insist that this is our 22nd anniversary but Leslie insists on not counting the eight years of dating). We always celebrate with a bottle of Schramsberg. This was the bottle I bought after we got hitched at Alexandria City Hall. I used my house school ring to seal the deal.

The kids made it to midnight and watched the painful display of Anderson Cooper trying to restrain Kathy Griffin. It turns out the Mayan Apocalypse merely predicted Griffin’s appearance on New Year’s Eve. This included her attempt to throw cash into the crowd – a moronic idea that had to be physically stopped by Anderson to avert a disaster. If this was Griffin’s idea of a joke, it came across as an unhinged, unfunny person trying to fill time. The kids insisted that we turn to NBC instead.

We are expecting 200 friends to share in Wasabi Bloody Marys) and our traditional soup: The Bowl of the Wife of Kit Carson Soup. I have smoked two turkeys to put into the soup. I also have enough Wasabi to light up Tokyo.

Everyone drive carefully and have fun. I will be giving a toast to our entire blog family tonight (and, of course, my marriage).

308 thoughts on “Happy New Year!”

  1. Speaking of movies. I wonder if people are planning to see “Zero Dark Thirty”. I think I will boycott it.

  2. Gene, That’s nick’s assessment. I probably would rank them a little differently but I have to think about it.

  3. “I rate him just slightly behind the Cohen Bros. and slightly ahead of Aaron Sorkin.”

    A fair assessment, Smom. It’s hard to beat the Joel and Etan Cohen on dialog. “Miller’s Crossing” makes me smile every time I watch it and I find “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” one of the funniest movies ever made.

  4. Two paths lie ahead of us; one leads to utter despair and the other to extinction. May we have the wisdom to choose wisely.~Frankly
    ——-
    Absolutely no better reason to cut a new path and safe the road….
    Blessings, Peace, Wonder and Merry Joy in 2013 to All!

  5. SWM, My wife doesn’t like violence but she said there was only one scene that made her cringe. Saw several women applauding @ the end. However, you are a woman who knows herself. I’ll read up on Barbara. Saw a trailer for Promised Land w/ Matt Damon and Frances McDormand[my favorite female actor]. It looks good.

  6. Happy New Year!!!! Not seeing Django, nick. Saw the previews. Too bloody for me…… The next movie I see will probably be the German movie, “Barbara”.

  7. Last night was Django Unchained and Chinese. The flick is really Tarantino Unchained. Obviously Harvey Weinstein gave Tarantino carte blanche. The movie is 170 minutes. It should have been 140. And, it seems Tarantino feels a need to top himself w/ bood spatter every film. That said, the movie is quite good. I was surprised @ the number of women in the audience. I reckon it was the shrewd casting of Leo to draw them. But, Leo plays a superb evil plantation owner. The performances are all good to spectacular. What always draws me to a Tarantino film is his remarkable ear for dialogue. I rate him just slightly behind the Cohen Bros. and slightly ahead of Aaron Sorkin.

  9. I had planned on making Hopping John today. A wicked mix of black-eyed peas. onion, ham hock, a bit of rice and some secret Cajun spices. I have made it every New Years Day for the past many years. It is supposed to bring good luck to have black-eyed peas on New Years Day. I had a conversation with my youngest when she got off work last night and she pointed out that if that was supposed to bring good luck, she would hate to see bad luck. Every year since 2007 has seen some horrible disaster befall us.

    I am going to have cold pizza today.

  12. Kit Carson Wife Soup is intriquing, I’ll be researching that. I knew little about Kit Carson but have learned a bit from my stops in Taos, NM. Having a birthday anniversary on 12/31 I understand the conflict when it’s on a Holiday. It seems you have worked that out except for the number of years. I find it interesting you go w/ the number including unwed years. An attorney w/ romance more than rigid rules. I like that. I appreciate and thank you for this blog. May you and your bride enjoy many more New Years Eves. We share some common values and I have come to see you’re a generous person, not a common trait in your profession. However, I sense you may be shrewd in making the Bloody Mary’s w/ wasabi. NOBODY could chug those bad boys down!

  13. Buono anno a tutti.

    Thank you, Jonathan for this exceptional site. Thank you also for providing a forum for the weekend Guest Bloggers and to those who’ve contributed as those Guest Bloggers. Mike, Gene, Elaine M and the all the others bring us fresh and diverse topics and perspectives, excellent research and writing.

    Happy New Year to all!

  14. Happy Anniversity and Happy New Year Jonathan and Leslie.
    Sharing your travels and travails has given us an opportunity to know you. (Moon Pies as emergency rations when stranded in a blizzard!)

    For those missing dear ones, we can jointly offer condolence and comfort..

    And a culinary tip: Do a small test with wasabi exchanged with Sichuan pepper.
    The savor might be better, but nothing clears up the nasal passages like wasabi or horseradish.

    You can tell your guests (and provoke some) by saying you bought it
    at Walmart’s and that it is called “Chun Wang’s Wife’s Slave Shop Special”

    Some might feel attacked by the origin and name, so perhaps not a good idea. But the pepper alternative might be a pleasamt idea.

  16. Happy New Year to everyone that is part of one of the best places on the InterTubes.
    Two paths lie ahead of us; one leads to utter despair and the other to extinction. May we have the wisdom to choose wisely.

  18. Jonathan and Leslie,
    Eloping is the only way to go. Letha and I eloped and it worked out pretty well for 55 years. You guys are just beginners, and have a long way to go, so here is wishing you well and far more happiness than sadness in the coming decades.

    And best wishes for our blog family for the coming year, especially to those I have come to know personally and fondly. For better or worse, we are all joined at the hip, even across the miles.

    For New Year’s, how about Auld Lang Syne as Robert Burns originally intended it to be performed, and not the smarmy overproduced Guy Lombardo stuff. Heck, Lombardo was not even a Scot. This is Scottish folk singer, Kev Thompson with just his acoustic guitar. No doubt this is what Rabbie Burns had in mind. Imagine Hogmany in a crofter’s cottage in the Highlands, short on cash but long on love, sitting by the hearth as the new year is welcomed in.

  20. There are many things to be thankful for, 8 years or 21, if you’re with the one that sparks the good in you, then you have many things to be thankful for. Life is too short to be surrounded with the nasty s of the world in any form. Salute!

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