New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve -- the night we party until 2011!

Not.

One of the families involved came down with some sickness; one has car trouble and can't get the whole family into the cab of a little pickup truck. The other family decided that they were also too old, after all, to party late.

Yesterday I had prepared my meat and cheese noshes, and scrubbed down the kitchen counters; this morning we all pitched in and cleaned the house. We were juuussst finishing up when we got the call about cancelling guests.

Now we could have been angry, and we could have been disappointed, but in fact, we were all relieved. (I really hate staying up late any more.) Bernie and I flung ourselves into the car and went to the store for sauerkraut for tomorrow (we will still be having guests for din tomorrow) and on the way back, got to see spectacular sundogs in the sky.

When I was a kid we called them "cloudbows," but I've been taught that "sundog" is the name for these iridescent bands of light in the sky around the sun. Most of the time in this sighting, we saw two, one on either side of the sun, and then, shortly after we zoomed into the driveway and I roused the household to come see, not only were the two side sundogs, but a colorful arc above the sun as well.

Had the guests not canceled, I would probably still have been dusting furniture and shoving laundry in the dryer, and not looking outside much at all.

All's well that ends well, I say.

Happiness and peace in this brand new year, 2011.