Just Another New Years Eve

New Years Eve has been my least favorite holiday for quite a few years now.

I loved New Years Eve as a little girl. I remember New Years Eves of the late 60’s and early 70s where family and friends got together at our house for elaborate parties thrown by my parents. My brother and I would wear our New Years hats and carry canes and dance to celebrate the new year.

As I left my teens and moved into my early twenties, I found myself spending New Years Eve with friends at parties where I would make every effort not to remain sober. During those years, friends were plentiful and I always had somewhere to go, whether it was a house party or a club party.

Mid to late twenties...fun, fun, fun! I decided I would throw my own parties (I hated driving on New Years Eve) – successful ones for a few years running. One of the best ones was the first one I ever threw. I lived in the attic of a Victorian house at the time. One of the guys asked if he could bring his guitar – he sure did, along with an entire band that ended up jamming in my bedroom because I had nowhere else to put them. I had about 40 people in my 3-room apartment and received noise complaints from the drunk downstairs (who we placated with a huge plate of food). Ironically, the born again Christians living in the same house never complained.

My dislike of New Years Eve began in my early thirties when my friends had begun to have children and were less interested in going to parties. My parties had begun to mellow out anyway, although in a good kind of way. The last few were held in the house my husband and I had bought and had really become respectable.  Food, not alcohol, had become the primary focus, although living in a cold climate allowed for beverages to be chilled outside. However, my parties had run their course. My friends were settling down and raising families and were not interested in parties.

Since my parties ended, New Years Eve has become a lost day for me. For a few years, my husband and I tried the “partying in the big hotel” thing, but unless you have a table full of people that you know, it really isn’t too much fun. The fancy hotel ballrooms pack 10-12 at an overpriced table. We found ourselves sitting with strangers with whom we spoke because we were proximal, not because we had anything in common. The most amusing part of the evening was the entertainment value of amateurs being overtaken my alcohol.

In our last few years in New York, we would spend New Years Eve at my parent’s home – full circle. We would eat dinner, then watch the ball drop and call it a night shortly after. Those are the ones I enjoyed the most.

However, for so many years, New Years Eve has never sat right with me. I end up going over the year prior in my mind and giving myself a mental flogging for all I haven’t accomplished. I blame society for leading people to have higher than normal expectations, including leading a glamorous life that doesn’t exist.

It is what it is.

Don't look so sad

It's not so bad, you know

It's just another night

That's all it is
It's not the first It's not the worst you know

We've come through all the rest

We'll get through this
We've made mistakes

But we've made good friends too

Remember all the nights

We spent with them?
And all our plans

Who says they can't come true?

Tonight's another chance to start again
It's just another New Year's Eve

Another night like all the rest

It's just another New Year's Eve

Let's make it the best
It's just another New Year's Eve

It's just another Auld Lang Syne

But when we're through this New Year

You'll see, will be just fine
We're not alone, we've got the world you know

And it won't let us down, just wait and see

And we'll grow old but think how wise we'll grow?

There's more you know, it's only New Year's Eve
It's just another New Year's Eve

Another night like all the rest It's just another New Year's Eve

Let's make it the best
It's just another New Year's Eve It's just another Auld Lang Syne

But when we're through this New Year

You'll see, will be just fine

©Barry Manilow

A Bug's Life...er...A Life with Bugs?

Living in a sub-tropical climate has its advantages, such as walking out on a sunny December day without a jacket. On a really warm December day, one is even able to go swimming.

When I moved to Florida, I had to get used to all different kinds of critters -- bobcats, foxes, black bear, lizards, bullfrogs, tortoises, and a host of other creatures I was not used to seeing as often up north.

Unfortunately, I discovered an entirely new group of beasts that I have no desire to share any of my space with.

Bugs.

You see, the warmer the climate, the bigger the bugs. Since I have been down south, I have seen some of the biggest bugs I have ever seen in my lifetime. Some of the bugs here are bigger than birds. I remember when the two boys next door were playing in their garage, a beast of a bug flew into their space, causing them to scream like girls as they ran out as quickly as their little legs could carry them.

The grasshoppers are enormous. My first spring here, I saw one of them on the outside of the screen of my lanai and I was terrified to go outside because I was afraid to be near anything that large. Wolf spiders take up a special section of real estate all their own and if that real estate happens to be your bathroom, well, you have...issues.

The biggest offender of my bug world is the palmetto bug.

Palmetto bug.

The name sounds so sweet and innocent, doesn't it? The name "palmetto bug" creates the illusion of a beautiful, colorful bug that one may possibly find in a palm tree, perhaps as dainty as a ladybug or as beautiful as a butterfly.

Unfortunately, the palmetto bug is neither beautiful nor dainty. The palmetto bug is designed from the stuff that nightmares are made of; and, unfortunately, they are a common occurrence in a sub-tropical  climate. This hideous beast is what a typical palmetto bug looks like.

They find their way in by the sneakiest of methods. They like to hang out in door jams and in other tight places where they feel "secure." They seem to appear out of nowhere. For example, one night I was setting up my coffee maker for the next morning. I saw a bit of coffee that I thought I spilled on the counter and when I leaned in closer, I realized that it had legs. There was one of this horribly ugly creatures, flipped over on its back, legs wildly kicking.

I don't worry so much about the upside down ones because those are the ones about to die. If they are flipped over, that means that they are about to die and that they are slowly drying out. Just leave them there to die on their own or nail them with ant and roach spray and have the husband remove the carcass later.

It's the right-side up ones really freak me out. You haven't lived until you have lifted up a box of cereal and seen one scurry towards you or sat on the commode only to see antennae (one of their favorite places to hide is around the toilet bowl). Finding one in the shower is another personal favorite of mine.

They don't do much. As far I I know, they don't bite and they don't multiply in the same numbers or speed as the city cockroach does. On average, I see three a week. However, they are bigger, uglier, and harder to kill than their city counterparts. Step on a palmetto bug and the beast lives on.

I realize that my fear is somewhat irrational. In fact, my entire thought pattern regarding bugs is irrational. The bigger the bug, the greater the fear. Using my logic, I would not be in the least bit fazed if a black widow crawled on me, but would run screaming if a palmetto bug came within a few feet of me.

It's a life with bugs.

North vs. South...Barbeque!

When I was up north, I remember sitting at a bar with the lunchtime crowd when the discussion of barbeque came up. There were two southerners amongst the group, obviously outnumbered. Being a northerner, I figured this would be a quick discussion -- how much of a discussion could they possibly have about barbeque? I sat there for an hour and a half and listened to both sides. Once each side moved past the language gap, the conversation  proved to be very interesting and educational.

Up north, barbeque means one thing -- to cook outside.  Up north, if you are invited to a barbeque, you are invited to someone's house for summertime comfort food...hamburgers and hotdogs, sometimes with sausage and steak.

No so in the South. In the South, barbeque has a culture of its own. Not only are people proud of their cooking (a number of folks have huge smokers outside where meat can can be smoked for hours), but they are serious about their sauces. They have actual contests and events featuring sauces. For a good many of the southern people, the hotter the better.

Yesterday, my husband and I sat in Sonny's, a popular barbeque chain here in Florida. I had acquired a ravenous taste for barbeque since I moved down south, so much so that it constantly competes with my ever present sushi hankerings.

My husband commented that I never use sauces. No...I don't. I am not a sauce person when it comes to barbeque. I like my sliced pork "straight up," thank-you-very-much. I find the sauces too sticky and besides,  I hate messy foods.

"But that's the whole purpose of barbeque! The sauce!" he countered.

Yeah, maybe he's right. Then again, he was talking to the same person who does not butter her grits and drowns them in milk with no other toppings added!

What can I say?

I meander to the beat of a different drummer.

Over 40 Years have Past...

Growing up in that late 1960's and early 1970's wasn't bad. The war in Vietnam was raging full steam ahead, but my brother and I were both too young to notice or care. My father was well past the age of getting drafted and the nightly newscasts of the events in Vietnam and Cambodia served only as white noise in the soundtrack of my existence.

Summer was my favorite season, not only because school was in recess, but because I had the opportunity to spend a week with my grandparents by myself in New Jersey (my brother and I were allotted each separate weeks to visit in order to retain my grandparents' sanity).

My grandparents only lived an hour's drive away from me, but in my childlike mind, it seemed as if they lived 3000 miles away. I lived in New York City and they lived in southern New Jersey -- an area punctuated with corn fields and farms, pine barrens and lakes. Their grocery stores had odd names. My grandparents lived in a development in which each street was named after a bird and when I walked down the street, strangers would wave at me and I could wave back without feeling weird. In the evening, the night sky would get so black that if I looked up, I could see all the stars in the sky. At twilight, the chorus of the crickets, locusts and cicadas was deafening.

I slept in a pull-out bed in my grandparents' living room. I believe the sense of smell is one of the strongest senses in which to bring back memories. Even today, if I closed my eyes and let my mind drift back to 1972, it would be 11pm and I would be crawling into bed, smelling the fresh aroma of my grandmother's sheets. I cannot describe the scent except to say that it was a distinctive, light floral. I have only smelled that scent one time outside of my grandparents' house and that was on the day my grandmother died. I was sitting in Applebee's with my husband and as I was trying to fight back my tears, a gentle breeze carrying that scent drifted gently past my nose. I believe it was her coming to tell me everything would be ok.

In the mornings, I would wake up early and join my grandfather on the porch in order to watch the birds begin their day. I can still see the birds zipping back and forth, following their morning routines, blissfully unaware of their human spectators.

I was a child of the water and loved to go with my grandparents to a tiny freshwater lake called Lake Whiting. The lake was so small that one could look across the entire lake and see the opposite side. As my grandparents explained, we would sit on the "good" side of the lake -- the side where the water was clearer and there were fewer stones at the bottom. I remember opening my eyes underwater and seeing the sun shine through the water onto the pale, gold sand that was the bottom. I can still hear my grandmother call out, "Remember! Only up to your armpits!" and every so often I would stand up in the water as my grandparents sat on their beach chairs on the shore line and hold my arms up as if to say proudly, "See! only up to my armpits!"

The three of us would go to this lake every day, but the most special day of all was the one day of "my" week that my grandfather and I would go to the lake early in the morning on our own. Sometimes he would go in the water with me and sometimes he would not. In between swims, we would just sit and talk about anything and everything and nothing in particular. I was so young then and didn't realize that years later, I would give anything just to hear his voice once more calling me his "little sugarplum."

Dinner time was a favorite as we always had fresh tomatoes and my grandmother cooked all my favorite foods. At home, I always had a limit as to how much I could consume, but no so at my grandparents' house. At my grandparents' house, I was welcome to take seconds, thirds, and fourths...and I did! We had my favorite -- mashed potatoes, every night. My grandmother made them extra creamy with slabs of butter and heavy cream with never a lump. I always drank ginger ale for dinner -- only Schweppes. My grandfather would pour my ginger ale "just right" into one of their glasses which had a picture of a bird on it. No one could pour ginger ale the way my grandfather did.

Later, I would follow my grandfather to the communal garbage pails in order to dump the night's trash. All the neighbors joked with my grandfather by calling me his little shadow.

Later on in the evening, we would have ice cream treats we called "super dupers" which were ice cream cones filled to capacity (and I mean filled to capacity) with ice cream and topped off with sprinkles. My grandmother would stand in the kitchen and pack each cone with ice cream as tight as she could, daring even the slightest bit of air to infiltrate any area of the cone in which ice cream rightfully belonged.

Neither the Watergate hearings or Hurricane Belle could ruin my summers at my grandparents' house, but all good things had to to an end. I remember deciding that once I turned thirteen I would be too old to spend "my" week with my grandparents. I distinctly remember making up my mind as if it were an important, life-altering decision. In a way, my decision to end my trips to my grandparents was a milestone -- I was a "big girl" now and spending summers at my grandparents seemed so "little girl."

Years later, during my 21st summer, I spent a week at my grandparents, although under an entirely different context. I was on break from college and my grandfather had been stricken with cancer and was being operated on. My parents were in California on vacation and my brother, who was already married and out of the house could not take leave from his job in order to stay with my grandmother, who we assumed would be receiving bad news after my grandfather's surgery.

My grandmother and I took trips to the hospital every day, trying desperately to be strong for one another and failing miserably. I remember one evening as night was falling, looking out of the windows at the nursery, where nurses and new mothers were cradling newborns and wondering as my grandfather lay dying, new lives were beginning.

Years have passed and both of my grandparents are long gone. Their house is now owned by another family and the little babies I saw in the nursery all those years ago are all grown up now. Life changes, but within our hearts we always hold dear those things which no one can every take away from us -- our memories.

Florida Comes Alive...

Seasons Greetings....from the Sunshine State.

Now that the weather is nicer, more people are out doing things and spending more time outside. Sounds so strange compared to this time of year up north, where I used to spend most of my time indoors hiding from the grey skies and shielding myself from the cold weather.

Down here, November is the time where things come alive...by the time November arrives, I have so many things to do that I find it difficult to choose, especially during the weekends. Outdoor events overlap each other with insane frenzy.

Christmas time is wonderful here. Last night, we spent a few hours strolling through Venetian Gardens looking at the light show. Afterwards, we sat on the grass and watched the holiday boat parade out on the water. I sat outside wearing a tank top while the temperature stayed at a perfect 70 degrees.

The sole purpose of this entry is to extoll the virtues of the warm southern climate -- nothing more, nothing less.

Not a big thing to those readers who were born and raised in warmer climates, but to those of us who froze every year during northern winters, this is a dream come true.