Elisabeth and I have always preferred to avoid large, drunken parties on New Year’s Eve. Elisabeth also insists on avoiding Spam. I somehow get over this heartbreak every year.
This year, on New Year’s Eve, Elisabeth and I decided to go to our favorite restaurant midway up Chautauqua Lake. Sadly, Guppy’s stayed closed on New Year’s Eve. I then suggested Five Guys and Elisabeth threatened legal action. We settled on our local Japanese steak house for two reasons: 1) it was open and B) there was a reasonably good chance that our chef might inadvertently singe our eyebrows while making our dinner.
Not wanting to rush into dinner, Elisabeth and I visited the bar at our local Red Lobster. When you think of “hip,” you think of us. Elisabeth and I rocked the [Red] Lobster bringing visions of the B-52s to mind. Tin Roof Rusted! Anyway, the Red Lobster bar actually drew a crowd on New Year’s Eve. It was elbow to elbow full of middle-aged couples from across the Jamestown metropolitan area looking for love in Davey Jones’ Locker. The biggest draw for us was that the Red Lobster was walking distance to the Japanese steak house.
We arrived for our fashionably late 7:30 reservation and our hostess seated us right away. Our chef did not disappoint. He wielded his spatula as if it was a pistol. Sake flowed freely from his bottle. The onion volcano burned brightly. Sake flowed even more. Dinner landed on our plates in stark defiance of the laws of physics. Our eyebrows did not burn which slightly disappointed me.
Where was Wallace you ask? Some kind folks at church ran a babysitting service on New Year’s Eve. Wallace ended up spending the evening with some outgoing teenage girls, one wicked cool mom, and all the macaroni and cheese he could eat. Truly, this eleven year old boy was in heaven. Wallace almost cried when we arrived at the ungodly hour of 9:00 PM to pick him up.
True to form, Wallace stayed up late and then announced his presence at 7:20 AM on New Year’s Day. Through a groggy haze, I managed to recognize our far too energetic son. Karma had arrived and I did not know why. I got up and made cinnamon roll French toast bake for breakfast. Wallace dined with us and then took a nap. Elisabeth and I both had a few choice comments about Wallace’s complete inability to wake up for school at 7:20 AM but his uncanny ability to wake up early on a holiday only to return to bed after we both were wide awake. We were so annoyed that we put together the longest sentence in this post. Again, Karma offered no explanation.
As I write this, school and work both resume tomorrow. A general sense of post-holiday melancholy settled over our house at approximately 1:37 PM today. Wallace, for the first time in over a week, realized that tomorrow was not a vacation day. Elisabeth and I, with visions of morning traffic in our heads, morosely readied ourselves for the start of the first work week of 2016.
I pause here to remember how much we enjoyed Advent, Christmas, and New Year’s. We spent time together as a family and also with our extended family. Wallace got to relax and work on several Lego projects. The whole family worked on having fun with our eyebrows intact.
Postscript: The Rankin family resumed school and work without too much angst. However, winter arrived with the coldest and snowiest morning this season. Wallace and I spent the early evening discussing the finer points of modern music and once again proving that I am a middle aged father.
Leave a Reply