Someone book me a room (Part 366)...

Chapter 12, Page 31...

So apparently somewhere over the year I miscounted a day, cause there's only 365 days in the year and I got to a count of 366,,,,but I digress....

Thursday I got up and to work with little problems...and then the problems started.  Well not really problems, but holidays are usually no problems and rather laid back and easy going, this year, like Christmas Eve the week before, New Years Eve was insane!  The day before I only had 3 new clients to deal with, this day, I had 10 total!  And there were some nutballs in the group as well.  It was just a crazy day overall.

Thankfully, I still managed to get out of work at the regular time.  Then I headed to the grocery store (which was busy, but not insanely so) for some Diet Coke and celery and ranch dressing.  This was my contribution to the party I was going to.  Oh and some cupcakes as well.

I then drove the ParisPeking household.  I rang the doorbell.  A Local Celebrity, Mr. David ParisPeking opened it and said, "Our youngest has lice.  Welcome and Happy New Year."  It seems they found some lice on the youngest daughter, which resulted in a quick haircut and thorough shampooing with lice shampoo of said daughter, and a thorough shampooing of the other two girls too, just in case.  But it was no biggie (well not for me, I'm not the one who spent several hours over the evening shampooing kids hair and combing through it, as their mother dutifully did).

We exchanged the Christmas gifts we got each other.  I received the first Star Wars trilogy on DVD & Blu-Ray, which was a surprise, and yet a great idea all at the same time. And I recieved a Roku...thingee, which I knew very little about, but which ALCMDPP assures me he'll get hooked up for me Sunday when he's here to watch football and that I will love it.  And since he didn't lead me wrong with the Blu-Ray player/Netflix streaming last Christmas, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt.  I also got two graphic novels from Ghostie that he's been telling me about.  So I'll give those a shot and see if I like them.

After this we had a delcious ALCMDPP cooked meal of roast beef, taters, peas, bread, and even some meatballs they made for the youngest to enjoy.  And we snacked on snacky stuff (including the celery I brought).

After some zombie killing on some video game system by the two guys, while I watched some Minions short movies with the girls, we all retreated to the man-cave where we watched Spaceballs (May the SCHWARTZ be witcha!) Following that, after my inability to get them to watch some Doctor Who on Netflix, we settled in to watch several episodes of Bob's Burgers on Netflix.

About 10:30, Ghostie, being the weakling that he is, gave in to his tiredness and went home.  But, long about 11:10, I was laying on the couch, still watching Bob's Burgers with some of the them, when I too started to feel my eyes uncontrolably shut.  So I told ALCMDPP I too was weak  and was probably going to go home before I fell asleep there.  He said his eyes too were drifting shut (even though the two oldest girls were still awake and holding on...but barely).  So I packed up my stuff, thanked everyone, said goodbye and left.

I got home about 11:30.  I turned on the CNN thing with Kathy and Anderson and watched that until the ball drop.  And the singing of Auld Lang Syne, New York, New York, and whatever other traditional songs they play at that time.  Then I turned everyone off and went up to bed.  I read only a very few short minuted, turned out the light and went promptly to sleep.

I realized this morning, that that was the first time in my LIFE I had been alone at the turn of the new year. I'm not upset or whining about it, just making an observation.  I was with my parents for the early part of my life.  Then I was with friends or out at a club or bar.  And then for the last ten or eleven or so years, I was at the ParisPekings every year.  Always home and in bed by 12:30, but I always was with someone else.  This is the first year I just toated myself with my bottle of Diet Coke I was sipping on (not even any alcohol at midnight).

I am truly an old man now.

POLT