New Year’s Eve; time for reflection and resolutions. Or drinking, if the other two don’t catch your fancy. Probably best not to mix the three. Reflective drinking or resolute drinking maybe. Queenie just got a text from Nadia, who is her normal NYE buddy. Strange to be away and not seeing her. Strange but not unprecedented.
Queenie just got back from NYC. Via New Jersey. A very enjoyable few days, which she will blog in bits and pieces, what with having a lot to do at the moment.
I left Halifax on Christmas Eve very early. The city was hushed under a soft layer of snow when the taxi came, and we took it slow to the airport – there were a couple of ditched cars on the way – then I wandered around the deserted airport for an hour until my flight was called. We had to sit on the plane for an hour until the de-icer got to us. Then up, up, up we went into a world of white and through to a bright blue sky and the sun beating in the window of the plane.
My two tall, highly intelligent, well-educated, liberal, environmentalist, politically active adult friends were waiting for me at the gate in Newark wearing candy cane striped reindeer antlers, as promised. Mike’s left antler was drooping slightly forward, giving him a slightly poignant air, which was at odds with the giddiness of the moment. Then we hung around waiting for the Dublin contingent while I drank a Starbucks and talked at a hundred miles an hour.
About forty minutes later, my presents, I mean my friends (who were carrying my presents but that’s not why I was so happy to see them) walked through the same gate as I had and Christmas was underway.
I am always amazed at how much good friends have to say to each other and how five days and nights with a close group can pass in a blur of chatter about everything under the sun.
We had a lovely dinner party at Jersey Girl’s big dining table and talked nineteen to the dozen while opening our Christmas presents. Ireland did Queenie proud this year. I am coming down with tomato cup a soup and Barry’s teabags. As well as my annual stache of books – Jane Smiley’s book on writing, Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Desertion; a book of Nick Laird’s poetry and two books which I would file under Offalyiana if I ever filed my book collection on that website that enables you to – God and the Referee, a very funny compilation of GAA quotes, and from Crinkill to Kathmandu, a book of poetry and writing by some friends from home.
The Queen Mother had also included some photos of herself and her consort and my brother. Which was very thoughtful, as I didn’t have any.
And I got a pretty evening bag and some beautiful jewellery. And then when I got up in the morning, there was a big red stocking with my name on it, with loads of goodies in it from Santa, including a very useful bear whistle (see earlier entries).
We got muffled up for the wind and rain, and went to watch George Washington cross the Delaware. As Jersey Girl says, re-enactment enthusiasts are truly mad. It was interesting, but very wet. The river was very wide, and we were on the receiving side, so there was a lot of standing around waiting for the re-enacters to arrive. There was plenty of spectator action going on on our side though. I sneaked around taking photos of the more ridiculous looking ones and began a week-long obsession with photographing the ubiquitous Stars and Stripes.
Finally, a cannon boomed and the re-enacters pottered across the Delaware in the rain and everyone cheered when they arrived and went home to dry off and eat their dinner.
We had a vegetarian Christmas dinner, my first ever, which was yummy and certainly beat last year’s Venezuelan Christmas dinner by a country mile. Then we played a board game that involved being a dealer in the high stakes world of the international art market. Jersey Girl won. Queenie spent too much time trying to figure out how to win the game and not enough time actually paying attention to what the other players were doing.
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