Sixty.

Sixty. Six Oh. 6-0. Sixty is a speed limit. As of yesterday, it's also my age. Ouch. Oh well.... it is what it is.

My cousins called me yesterday to tell me how old I was... (as if I didn't remember?) My cousin R wanted to know what it felt like, because she will also be 60 in a few months. My cousin T in Arizona told me that I'm catching up to him. I told him that he will always be older than me. He told me that I will always be older than his younger brother D. Details... details....

The Day has come and gone.... and it was a good one, regardless of the numbers. On Saturday, my husband and I drove to College Station and spent the day walking around stores (I bought a bright red tea kettle to match my bright red KitchenAid mixer) and we had lunch up there. My husband also surprised me with a three-layer carrot cake, home made from a local bakery that supplies cakes to some of Houston's best restaurants. The carrot cake was delicious... better than what I can make, and certainly better than anything we can buy locally.

Yesterday, we had lunch with J&J at our favorite Mexican restaurant.... shrimp enchiladas for all.... and they surprised me with a chocolate cake in the shape of an "L," my initial. Covered in chocolate frosting and sliced strawberries, with one happy little red candle on top of it. (How thoughtful not to have 60 candles on that cake.... not a good thing.... our hundred-year-old house is not built of brick and who knows how long it could take to blow out 60 candles.) Later on yesterday afternoon, J stopped by with yet another birthday surprise... chocolate cake with chocolate fudge frosting.... singing Happy Birthday when I opened the door. (Isn't it a rule that calories don't count on your birthday?)

It was a Happy Birthday weekend... surprises around every little corner-- literally, because my husband got me at least two dozen birthday cards and had them hidden all over the house. One of them was on top of the door to my sitting room, and it dropped down with a hissing snake-sort of sound that scared me to pieces.... I told him he can hide all the cards he wants, but please not on top of doors.

When my cousin T called, we got to talking about the chickens and their little vacation from egg-laying. T suggested I contact a 'chicken whisperer' to see what's bothering the chickens. I laughed at his joke, but tonight when I went out to lock up the coop, there was Scarlett at the back steps, waiting for me. I walked down the steps of the porch, she walked over to me and plopped herself by my feet. I picked her up and all the way from the porch to the coop, I was talking to her and telling her how much we have missed her pretty brown eggs.... and couldn't she surprise us with some eggs in the nesting boxes sometime soon? Before I put her Royal Henness on the roosting bar, I brought her over to the nesting boxes so she could have a little look-see inside.... and I said to her "Remember that favorite nesting box of yours? It's still there, and waiting just for your cute little red-feathered butt to lay an egg in it."

Oh well... chickens that no longer lay eggs... and me, no longer 59. I am now officially a speed limit. I can hear my husband's mother whispering to me.... "Honey, I will trade numbers with you any time....." -- which is what she said to me when I turned 50 and I told her that I had been very comfortable with the number 49.

Sixty. Ouch. Still an ouch. But I'm here... and happy and healthy... and still busy painting the upstairs rooms, one wall at a time (two rooms are already finished)... and I hope to be like my Aunt Dolly who is still going and going and going and going at the over-the-speed-limit age of 98.

The chickens....

We haven't had a freshly-laid egg since New Year's Eve...... and the eggs that were laid that week are long gone. I've been buying 'cage-free' eggs since the first week of the new year. I don't know whether to believe that cage-free stuff or not. Our own chickens gave us eggs with orange-yellow yolks, not pale yellow yolks. You can see -- and taste -- the difference between store-bought eggs and "yard eggs" as they call them here.

The two hens that were laying those delicious eggs were Scarlett and PittyPat. Not one egg from either of them since December 31st. Cleaning out that coop every morning becomes a chore when you know there will be no fresh eggs before the day is over.

This morning when I went into the coop, one of the chickens was sprawled flat-out on the floor of the coop. Prissy, the last of our black-feathered hens, was just spread out there, lifeless. She must have died in her sleep and just fell off of the roosting bar, poor thing. I did notice her slow walk yesterday, and the bright red comb on top of her head was limp against one side of her head, rather than sticking straight up in the air, Mohawk-style, the way it usually did. I thought something was wrong, but you don't exactly carry a chicken to the vet's office, unless you've got a prize-winning hen or you've developed a close bond with your feathered bird. Neither one was true in Prissy's case.

True to her namesake, Prissy tried to be the Queen of The Coop out there, but Scarlett and Audrey never let her get away with that. And PittyPat was the last hen we put into the coop, so she really had no say in who would be Queen-- the hens really do have a pecking order.

When the hens in our first group went missing (hawks and/or coyotes) or they just up and died, I would call for my husband because I wasn't able to pick them up and dispose of them (such a civilized phrase). This morning, however, all I did was take one look at Prissy and I knew she was gone... so back into the house I went for a plastic bag.... my husband was right there in the kitchen and I told him what happened...... then I went back to the coop, picked up Prissy by the legs, and put her head-first into the bag, then disposed of her.... right into the trash can.

So now there are three... Scarlett, PittyPat, and Audrey (the last hen standing from the very first group of chickens we got after my husband built the coop a few years ago). Yesterday, I put fresh grass into the nesting boxes, and Scarlett was right there beside me, watching me cut the grass and then supervising as I scattered it into each of the four nesting boxes. For the past couple of weeks, I have been reminding the hens that they have eggs to lay... they're not old birds.... they should still be giving us eggs with blindingly-bright yolks.

My husband has already asked me if I want to get some 'replacement' chickens. My answer was no. Three chickens we have, and three chickens is all I will have, at least for the moment. If these hens continue to not lay eggs, then I will just keep on buying the cage-free eggs in the store.... and Scarlett, Audrey and PittyPat can feather out their days right here in the coop...... eggs or no eggs.

But when they're all gone.... then I myself will be cage-free....... free of opening up the coop first thing in the morning, free of cleaning up and sweeping out the coop, and free of having to be home at dusk to lock up the coop so the hens are safe from night-time wildlife.

Have sofa, will travel.

My husband and I went to a few antique shops yesterday afternoon... a nice drive into Navasota and College Station. We stopped at one shop and found a wonderful old bookcase with glass doors.... beautiful old piece that looked about 100 years old... priced a bit too high, but the owner suggested he would give us a better price. We're still thinking about that one..... I would have bought it on the spot.... but my husband is doing the thinking. Most of the shops in Navasota were closed, but in the largest and nicest shop there, not only were they open but they were chock-full of everything under the sun. This particular shop is in a huge 100-year-old house very similar to our own home.

We had talked about getting a larger sofa for the living room... and my husband surprised me by suggesting we start looking for one. Never let it be said that I would disagree with a man who wants to go shopping. The sofa we had in the living room here was from the old house..... the living room we used to have was just as big, but we had more furniture in it so the sofa had to be a love seat size. It looked great in the old house, but too small in this house. (In this larger house, our furniture is spread out into more rooms.)

Wonder of wonders.... in this beautiful antique shop, there was the perfect sofa..... ivory brocade fabric on a 1940s sofa. Not only a sofa, but a matching love seat as well. The prices were more than perfect.... but did we want both pieces? We paid for the sofa, not realizing that the woman in the shop couldn't deliver it. Oh my.

I called our friend J... she has a truck..... and was more than willing to bring us to pick up the sofa today. Between our house and the shop, I decided to get the love seat if the woman would give us an even better price than she did yesterday. My husband's idea was to use the love seat on the third floor.... we're planning to turn that big room into a library, and the ivory love seat would be the perfect style and size. Before I could even ask for a good walking-out-the-door price on that love seat, the woman offered it to us for $75 less than she quoted yesterday. Sold. Now we had two pieces of furniture for J's truck.

While my husband and I got the sofa and the love seat into the back of the truck, J walked around the shop and found some treasures for her own house. We're planning to go back there and rescue them from the shop and bring them to her home. We're also planning to go antique hunting on a regular basis. Have truck, will travel. And, of course, there's a sign in that shop that clearly says "Your husband just called... he said to buy whatever you want."

For two hours this evening, I arranged and re-arranged the living room, the TV room, and even some of the upstairs rooms. The new antique sofa is in the living room, the one that was there is in the TV room, and the one that was in the TV room is now in the living room of the guest house in the barn. Perfect. The matching love seat to the 'new' sofa in our living room is in the guest cottage, looking very nice in there, but it will eventually come back into the main house here and go up to the third floor library...... when the third floor becomes a library.

I switched coffee tables and chairs, end tables and tea tables...... when you move one thing, it just leads to moving something else. This afternoon and this evening was like playing in a life-sized doll house..... but all the rooms are together now..... coffee tables and tea tables are in the perfect places... chairs from upstairs were moved downstairs, and a couple of chairs from downstairs were carried upstairs. (Of course, all the little elves came out of hiding to help with the moving.)

When we drove to College Station yesterday, my husband and I went to one of the big-name furniture stores.... we looked at bookcases and wall units. I also peeked at some sofas as we walked around the store. Everything was so new..... not a scratch anywhere. Perfectly perfect, in a no-one-lives-here sort of way. That's not how I want my house to look. This is a 100-year-old home.... it has a history, a significance. The scratches and scrapes on antique furniture give it a history, a character, a personality... a life. I look at my 'new' sofa in the living room and wonder about its original owners. I think about that old glass-fronted bookcase we didn't buy (yet) and wonder if the rope burns on the wood were made decades ago when it had been tied to a wagon going across the Texas desert. (Okay, that's a stretch, but you never know.)

I grew up mostly in my grandmother's houses, both of which were filled with old furniture.... and what they had was taken care of for decades and decades..... not replaced because they went out of style, but loved all the more because they were out of style. (I can still hear my Uncle Mino saying "They don't make wood furniture like this anymore.")

I love, love, love antique and resale shops...... the treasures in those stores aren't new... they're better than new because they've been loved and polished and moved around from place to place and who knows how many houses a piece of antique furniture has been in before it finds itself in your home..... and then you get to love it and polish it and arrange and re-arrange it from room to room.....

Life is good. I'm coming up on my 60th birthday. Take a breath. Life is still good. But 60..... Give me a blessed break.

Where did the week go?

Seven days have disappeared........ I've been painting, painting, painting........ the master bedroom is done, and looks beautiful. Gone are the white inside-an-eggshell walls. The room is now a rich beige and everything in the room looks brand new and more vibrant. I've already started painting my sitting room.... one wall at a time... and by the end of this week, I hope to have this room done also, and then I'll start on my dressing room. Same color for all three rooms..... when you find the perfect color, stick with it.

We've had warm weather this past week...... Spring-like..... some cloudy days without rain, but it was still warm so I'm not complaining. My cousins in NY have already had snow and ice..... snow shovels and ice scrapers came out of closets and car trunks. I do not miss that northeast winter weather, and I wish my cousins didn't have to deal with it either.

I had a ladies-only lunch here this past Thursday, for friend V who drove up from our old neighborhood..... I invited J and J to come over for lunch as well, to meet V and enjoy the Valentine decorations that are already up in the living room and dining room. Invitations have gone out for our Valentine party, and we're looking forward to that. Our first Valentine party since we moved here, although we've had a couple of small Valentine dinners in this house.

When V got here on Thursday, she came walking down the path with her usual sing-song "Helllloooooo" and it sounded like the old days back in Clear Lake. V lived next door to us, and when we moved into that house, she was the first of our neighbors to come over with a plate of cookies and welcome us to the neighborhood. V was the best next-door neighbor, and her two little girls came in and out of our house from time to time, having tea or ice cream with us, or showing us their Halloween costumes or talking about their latest projects at school or Girl Scout camp. Now V's daughters are away from home... one up in Dallas, the other off in Germany. Not little girls anymore, certainly, but I still remember those little-girl faces smiling at me when they knocked on my door and asked if they could visit with Gracie and the cats.

So that's been the week...... painting.... lunch with the girls..... delivering Valentine invitations.... and counting down the days here till my birthday. The big 6-0. How can that possibly be? I look in the mirror and don't see anyone there who looks older than 45. I don't see anyone in that mirror who even feels older than 30, for goodness sakes. So how in the world could I be getting ready to celebrate a 60th birthday? I remember when I turned 50...... my dad said to me over the phone "Gee, you're getting up there, aren't you?"

Well, I'm still getting up there, but somehow, 60 doesn't seem old to me anymore, and it doesn't look old or feel old, so maybe 60 is the new 30, or the new 45. At least in my mirror. My Aunt Dolly will be 99 this coming June. Last year, before her 98th birthday, she told me that when she looked in the mirror, she saw an old lady. I told her that she needed a new mirror, and that's what I brought to her when we went to Florida for her birthday last year. My Aunt Dolly didn't start looking older till she turned 85, and even now at 98, she still doesn't look 98. At least not in my eyes. When I told her that, she said that her own eyes still remember what she looked like at 19, "and I didn't look like this when I was 19!"

Well, 98 is not exactly the new 19, but we should all be lucky enough to be celebrating a 98th birthday and still have the health and energy of someone 40 years younger. My Aunt Dolly is a little Energizer Bunny, still going and going and going. And if she can still keep going and going at 98, then I can certainly enjoy this upcoming 60th birthday and not worry about the number.

But gee whiz........ 60..... Give me a blessed break.

Think outside the paint can....

I woke up one morning after Christmas was all packed away and I told my husband that I was tired of all the bright-white walls in the second floor rooms.... "It's like living inside an egg shell."

I have never liked white walls. They're cold, stark, hard. Not a hint of character, in my opinion. So off we went to Home Depot to look at paint colors. The sample cards my husband picked out were just a tinge more than bright white. "I want color. Real color. I want to be able to see it from across the room, without my glasses."

Do you know how many shades of beige and ivory there are on those paint sample cards? We looked at all of them. Finally settled on one called "Porcelain Skin." No yellow or brown or pink undertones... just a nice soft beige that we can both live with. Actually, I could have lived very well with a beige two or three shades darker, but when you put paint on with a brush instead of a roller, you can make that subtle color richer and more vibrant, which is exactly what I did. (Had I put that paint on any thicker, I would have needed a trowel, not a brush.)

My cousin F told me that I have a 'fear of the roller.' She may be right. I hate using rollers, especially on walls that are textured, which all of these are. Rollers make a mess, you need massive amounts of drop cloths, plus if you don't wear your oldest throw-away clothes, whatever you're wearing as you're rolling that paint on the walls will definitely need to be thrown away when you're done. I also have a fear of ladders, so I've been using a three-step step stool for all of this painting. My husband just had to do the wall over the bed..... there's a wide, deep piece of moulding over the windows on that wall, and even on the third step, I couldn't see the line between the ceiling and the wall.

So I've been using a brush, and painting one wall a day. Our bedroom is the largest room on the second floor, with lots of little alcoves and small walls, in addition to the three long walls. I was going to save that room for last, but now that it's almost done, I'm glad I started with the biggest room. No more bright white..... no more waking up in an eggshell...... the room is a rich beige-ivory, soft and warm-looking..... my curtains look new again, and the paintings look much better on the darker walls than on the bright white.

My mornings have been consumed with painting.... my right arm feels like lead after I'm done.... I haven't had nail polish on my fingernails since Christmas.... (unless you count a thin coating of the same beige-ivory paint that's on the bedroom walls)......

The KitchenAid.

We talked about getting a KitchenAid before the holidays.... checked the prices and couldn't make up our minds if we wanted to spend that much money on a kitchen appliance that may just sit on the counter. Would I use the KitchenAid every day? Every other? Once a week? Once a month?

I asked those very questions to my friend V, who bought a KitchenAid a few months ago when she re-did her kitchen. "Sometimes I use it, sometimes I don't..... but it sure does look pretty sitting there on my new counter-top."

We decided not to get one before Christmas, but to check out the prices after the holidays were over. True to his researching-self, my husband searched the Internet and found one at a sale price, with free shipping, no tax, and a $30 rebate on top of all of that. Plus, they had the bright red KitchenAid with the glass bowl instead of the silver bowl. Perfect all the way around. (If the KitchenAid was going to be just sitting pretty on my counter-top, I wanted it to have a vintage-looking glass bowl instead a space-age silver bowl.)

The KitchenAid was delivered on Monday.... the rebate paper went into the mail on Tuesday...... and the bright red mixing machine has done a lot more than just look pretty on my counter-top. So far, I have used it to mix and knead bread dough.... which gave us the best Italian bread we've had since our last trip to New York. (My bread machine is now on a shelf in the pantry, and will most likely be donated to the thrift store now that I have mastered the art of getting yeast to do its thing before the KitchenAid takes over the mixing and kneading).

I have also made a batch of cookies.... totally delicious, filled with chopped pecans, chocolate chips, Raisinettes, oatmeal, eggs, flour, sugar, butter. Does the fact that the recipe has healthy oatmeal in it cancel out the not-so-healthy sugar and butter? Probably not.... but that KitchenAid took just a couple of minutes to turn all of that into a perfect cookie dough.

Then today, I made meatballs. Haven't made those in a good long while. I hate, hate, hate to mix up the ground beef-- takes forever to blend in the diced onions, parsley, oregano, chopped bits of raisins and pistachios (didn't have Italian pignoli nuts in the house), eggs, fresh bread crumbs. Best way to mix all of that is with your hands, which is just something I don't care to do... and using a big spoon or a fork will just kill your wrist before it's well-mixed. But.... into the glass bowl of the KitchenAid went all of that, and within a minute, voila! Perfectly mixed... ready to be shaped and browned in the pan and then simmered in the sauce. I had one meatball for lunch with a small piece of bread..... then one more meatball for dinner with a little bit of spaghetti. I usually don't eat red meat...... I hardly ever eat red meat..... but somehow, meatballs made with top sirloin with grandma's recipe makes you forget there was ever a cow involved.

The KitchenAid is working out just fine... definitely worth the money it cost, and when it's not in use, it does indeed look very pretty sitting on the kitchen counter-top.

When we traveled to Germany a few years ago, we had a car with a GPS-thing in it.... the woman's voice would give us directions from place to place and when we successfully got to our destination, the voice would say "You have arrived."

That's the little voice I heard the first time I made real bread dough with the KitchenAid..... and I heard it again when the cookie batter came out so perfectly. You have arrived..... you have a bright red KitchenAid that has made cooking fun again..... You have arrived.

"War Horse"

We went to the movies today to see War Horse.......... I expected a movie about a horse, which of course it was..... but all I could see when they showed a close-up of "Joey's" face was the expression in our dog Gracie's eyes when she looked up at my husband. Total loyalty, total devotion, total trust.

The movie was excellent.... wonderfully written, beautifully filmed.... some of the war scenes were hard to look at, and I had to close my eyes during a few parts here and there.... but that horse..... I was absolutely lost during the movie and nearly destroyed when it was over. Tissues came out of my pocket and as we were leaving, I had to hold onto the handrail on the way out because my eyes were still puddled up and filled with Gracie. At one point, my husband asked me what was wrong and it was all I could do to just whisper "Gracie...."

I cried on the day we had to put Gracie to sleep, but it was just a few tears of loss, not a flood of overwhelming sadness. This afternoon, watching that movie and seeing the expressions and feelings in that horse's eyes, everything that was good and kind and real and true about Gracie came front and center in my mind and wouldn't go away.

It's amazing to me what can trigger memories that you think are buried in dark corners of your mind. I cried for Gracie today, who has been 'gone' for a year and a half. We still miss her.... we still don't want to get another dog. "We've already had the best dog," says my husband... "How do you top that?"

"Same Kind of Different As Me"

I've been reading that book..... I found it in the thrift store, and picked it up just because its cover caught my attention. It's a true story, with photographs in the back of book showing you the people in the story. Between the cover artwork and the photographs, I just had to read this book. And I have been....... last night I had to put the book down for a bit and walk away from it. The story got a bit intense, which I knew it would.... I knew what would happen to the woman in the story and the sadness of it all was hard to read at parts.

"Same Kind of Different As Me" is a story of love and friendship, trust and dignity. If this book teaches you anything at all, it will teach you the value of not judging anyone but yourself. Unless you can truly walk around in another person's shoes and truly feel what they've been carrying around in their soul, then you really have no idea, no idea whatsoever, why they are the way they are, and why they think differently than you do. The conclusions you may come to about their decisions will most likely have no place in their lives.

I looked on the Internet this morning to see if Ron Hall and Denver Moore had written another book...... and they did-- the title is "What Difference Do It Make?" I found the book on Half.com and ordered it already. My chances of finding their second book in the thrift shop would be slim, and I don't want to miss reading their 'lessons.'


And today's lesson...... don't walk in the pouring rain, especially when the sky is sending down thunder and lightning. That's what is happening out there this morning. Walking has been suspended for a while, until the sun comes out and the sky turns blue and the weather gets more civilized out there. However... we need the rain, so that's not a complaint.

I will finish that book today..... "Same Kind of Different As Me." It's going to be hard to let go of these people and their story.

Fox happens...

It never fails... when my husband isn't home for a day, all the wildlife come out to play.

We had a fox in the yard the other day, in the middle of the afternoon, a bright sunny warm day..... that fox should have been in his hiding place, sound asleep, dreaming of night-time hunting in the woods. I just happened to look out the kitchen door and there was the fox, sitting in the sun by the barn, watching the chickens walk around the yard. I think I said something like "Are you kidding me?!"

Out the back door I went, trying to get the chickens to follow me into the coop, which thankfully they did. Maybe they had seen the fox? They're usually not so cooperative on a sunny afternoon way before their lock-up-the-coop time. With the chickens in the coop, I went towards the barn to see what the fox was doing.... and there he was, just sitting there, looking right at me with his head down a bit towards the ground.

Without thinking, I walked up towards the barn, getting closer to that pretty little fox, waving my arms in the air and telling it to Go home! Go on, get out of here and go home! And the little fox just looked at me, not moving, barely raising its head. I think I was about four feet away from the fox..... I could see its eyes clearly, could see its beautiful fur and that bushy tail... and I could also see that there was something wrong with one of its back legs. Oh my. Just what we needed.... an injured or sick fox.

At that moment, our outside cat Gatsby comes up and stands behind me, and decides he's going to protect his mama and his kingdom..... quiet reserved gentleman-Gatsby becomes a screeching-hissing Halloween cat. "Sure, Gatsby.... be brave when you're standing behind me... if the fox decides to attack, he'll get me first." And Gatsby kept hissing and screeching..... so I picked him up and carried his little hissing self into the house.

Back I went to the yard, with my cell phone. I started calling up all the neighbors..... (the guys)..... and not one of them was home. Are you kidding me? My husband is gone, and all the other guys are gone as well? Then I called G, who lives by herself down the road....... she has killed snakes on her property. Surely she would know what to do with an injured fox. "I'll be right there......." and she was, along with her cell phone and the numbers for the local Wildlife Rescue people.

We sat there watching the fox, who was watching us. G pulled on a pair of work gloves and walked over to the fox and got close, then closer still.... and the fox was looking and staring at her, not moving till she got just a little bit too close and then the fox hobbled off into the barn. The lady at the Wildlife Rescue place told us to put cat food into a catch/release trap..... she said if we caught the fox, she'd come by and pick him up, take care of his leg, then release him.

"Smart as a fox." "Sly as a fox." The fox on our property was both smart and sly, I guess, because the can of cat food that I put into that catch/release trap didn't tempt him one bit..... and we haven't seen him since. I keep looking out by the barn, and inside the barn.... no sign of a fox out there.... and I haven't heard Gatsby screeching or hissing out in the yard either.

Country life....... quiet, serene, beautiful........ and filled with wildlife and livestock and little crawling slithering sneaking things that go bump in the proverbial night.

New Year's Day

Welcome to 2012.... as I type, I've got dough in the bread machine. As soon as it's mixed and kneaded, I will take it out and let it rise so I can form it into four separate loaves. After going to H&K's for dinner the other night and having H's homemade French bread with dinner, I am determined to make my own and see what happens. One thing I will always miss about NY-- the Italian bakeries with the delicious breads and pastries that you just can't get anywhere else.

The recipe that H used for the bread is in the book "French Women Don't Get Fat." (And why don't they get fat? Because they eat whatever they want, when they want, but they eat very very small portions. Plus they walk, walk, walk. And they don't eat processed foods that are being popped out by factories and displayed on grocery store shelves.... more thought is given to the design of the labels than to the nutritional value of the contents.)

So I thought I'd give this bread recipe a try....... and I also thought the bread machine could do a better job of mixing and kneading than I could do..... so we'll see what happens.

We had a very nice New Year's Eve dinner with J&J and J&G last night. The dining room table was covered in pink and red, silver and gold, with candles and mirror balls at each place setting. "Happy New Year" Mardi Gras necklaces for the ladies, noise-makers for the guys.... that table was dressed to kill last night. I think that's my favorite part of entertaining-- dressing up the table. We all contributed to the dinner, and once again, a 'pot-luck' dinner turned into a feast with turkey, ham, stuffing, mini quiches, lobster risotto, decadent chocolate cake and delicious macaroons.

We had a list of 1950s and 1960s trivia questions, and that turned out to be a lot of fun. Between now and the next party (Valentine's Day) we will dig up more questions/answers from different decades. After we toasted London's midnight hour, and then Paris's midnight hour, we had dessert..... and then my husband surprised everyone with fireworks. The weather was beautiful last night and we all sat outside on the porch steps and watched the Roman candles lighting up the sky with every color in the rainbow.

At one point, I ran back into the house to check on Houdini and Bluebell...... I wanted to make sure the parakeets' cage was covered... it doesn't take much to scare those little birds into flying around their cage and losing their feathers. And poor Gatsby-- I had forgotten he was outside, so I'm sure he was hiding under the cottage during the fireworks, and he didn't come out of there until an hour after everyone had gone home. As he walked into the back door, Gatsby gave me a loud meow ("How could you leave me out there?") and then he went into the TV room to drown his sorrows in his bowl of Meow Mix.

I cleaned up the kitchen after our friends went home..... and we watched the NYC celebration of 2012...... Dick Clark was there...... how that man remains wrinkle-free after all he's been through these past few years is just beyond me....... and then we called it a night. We didn't even stay up to celebrate midnight on Texas time. We saw The Ball drop in NYC, and that was celebration enough. And as we do each New Year's Eve, we talked about Guy Lombardo at the Waldorf. Neither my husband nor I ever went to the Waldorf to hear Lombardo's band, but we saw them on television years and years ago.

New Year's Eve needs another really good band. Not Lady Ga-Ga in all of her outrageous outfits..... not all the denim and rhinestone-covered 15-minute-wonder groups....... we need a real band with real musicians.

Until then, we'll just continue to watch The Ball in Times Square, and then call it a night.