How I Spent New Year's Eve
Hawk and I took a fairly low-key approach to New Year's Eve this year. We decided weeks ago not to travel. That turns out to have been a prescient decision given all the chaos with extreme weather, flight delays/cancellation, and an operational meltdown with Southwest Airlines, the carrier we likely would have traveled. Instead we visited with friends locally.
This afternoon we drove an hour (give or take) to visit some friends in the area. One of them is very sick and needs the company- when he has energy for it. His spouse needs support, too. We had a good visit today and played a boardgame together.
Even the hour long drive to/from their house got dicey today. We're having heavy rain in the SF Bay Area. It was only a cautionary situation as we drove out to visit them around lunchtime. Cautionary, as in drive cautiously because it's raining. But by the time we left their house at 4:30 there were numerous road closures due to flooding, washouts, and downed trees. UPDATE: San Francisco received 5.46 inches of rainfall on Saturday, a historic amount that nearly broke the record for the rainiest day since modern record keeping began in 1849.
As we were driving home Hawk reached out to friends of ours who were hosting games at their house today. It turns out they canceled the games party because too many people were taking a raincheck... literally, in some cases. We suggested an impromptu NYE gathering at our house instead.
"I don't think we'll stay up 'til midnight," I explained. "We're old. But celebrating New Year's with the ball drop in New York at 9pm Eastern seems too early. Maybe we'll celebrate it with Chicago at 10pm, when they drop a convicted politician from the Sears Tower."
Our impromptu low-key party worked well. We had 4 guests over, for 6 of us total. We played a lighthearted game for a while, celebrated a toast with Chicago at 10pm, then kept on playing and socializing until midnight locally, and did a second toast.
This afternoon we drove an hour (give or take) to visit some friends in the area. One of them is very sick and needs the company- when he has energy for it. His spouse needs support, too. We had a good visit today and played a boardgame together.
Even the hour long drive to/from their house got dicey today. We're having heavy rain in the SF Bay Area. It was only a cautionary situation as we drove out to visit them around lunchtime. Cautionary, as in drive cautiously because it's raining. But by the time we left their house at 4:30 there were numerous road closures due to flooding, washouts, and downed trees. UPDATE: San Francisco received 5.46 inches of rainfall on Saturday, a historic amount that nearly broke the record for the rainiest day since modern record keeping began in 1849.
As we were driving home Hawk reached out to friends of ours who were hosting games at their house today. It turns out they canceled the games party because too many people were taking a raincheck... literally, in some cases. We suggested an impromptu NYE gathering at our house instead.
"I don't think we'll stay up 'til midnight," I explained. "We're old. But celebrating New Year's with the ball drop in New York at 9pm Eastern seems too early. Maybe we'll celebrate it with Chicago at 10pm, when they drop a convicted politician from the Sears Tower."
Our impromptu low-key party worked well. We had 4 guests over, for 6 of us total. We played a lighthearted game for a while, celebrated a toast with Chicago at 10pm, then kept on playing and socializing until midnight locally, and did a second toast.