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They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

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My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Let there be snark.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

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The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

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You are here: Home / Open Threads / View From the Punchbowl

View From the Punchbowl

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We’re hanging out at our backyard tiki bar as usual — wild horses couldn’t drag us out on the roads on Amateur Night. It’s cool enough for the fire pit, but just barely, about 60-ish.

The local yahoos are putting on quite a fireworks show, and the dogs are glued to my shins from the anxiety of it. Neighbors are dropping by singly and in pairs from time to time, but mostly it’s just us chickens.

The Tampa Bay area has a non-commercial radio station — 88.5 (Wmnf.org) — that has a fun New Year’s Eve program on, so we’re listening to that. That’s about it.

Hubby will never make it to midnight, so I’ll be ringing in 2015 with the kid and dogs and any intrepid neighbors who are still out and about. Then tomorrow I’ll veg out and watch football all day. You?

Reader Interactions

82Comments

  2. 2.

    Poopyman

    It’s about 20 degrees here in balmy Southern MD, and the moon is glaring down bright as anything.

    I’m staying inside handling the doorman chores for the two cats brave stupid enough to want to go out there.

  3. 3.

    Mnemosyne

    G will be home from work in about three hours. Then it’s chicken tostadas from the crockpot, some prosecco from the monstrous bottle his boss gave him, and probably falling asleep in front of a movie until I wake him up at midnight and send him to bed.

    Tomorrow morning is a chocolate chip Dutch baby, more prosecco, and the Rose Parade in my Batgirl jammies. Maybe next year he’ll have a new job and we could actually go somewhere on NYE, or at least eat at a decent hour! :-o

  4. 4.

    Roger Moore

    I am planning on walking the whole Rose Parade route tonight. I live about 1 1/2 miles past the end of the route, so I’ll walk to the end, all the way to the start, and then continue on to look at the floats, which start lining up the night before. It’s a good long walk, but it’s a ton of fun because the whole parade route is one giant New Years Eve party. Fortunately, there’s also decent public transportation that can get me most of the way home, so I don’t have to reverse my steps and walk the whole thing the other way.

  8. 8.

    Cckids

    Making pans of cinnamon rolls & egg stratas & other comfort foods to take to my brother-in-laws family. His dad took his own life this morning, at 55 years old. Food seems inadequate but its what I can do. Just devastating to the whole family.

  9. 9.

    Debbie(aussie)

    Happy New year Juicers. (just in case I miss you later)

    Looks like rain here, half way through the first day of 2015, might even storm, just over 30c and very muggy.

  10. 10.

    Poopyman

    From the Newsmax ad over there:

    Bernard Kerik: NYPD Ready at Times Square

    Is Bernie taking the place of zombie Dick Clark? Otherwise, who the fuck cares?

  11. 11.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Cckids: Christ, how awful. Food may seem inadequate, but it is needed and it conveys your concern and sympathy better than any words could.

  14. 14.

    Poopyman

    @Cckids: Holy crap, that sucks. You’re doing what you can, which is being a comfort. Believe me, it helps a lot knowing other folks care.

  16. 16.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I’ve been fighting an annoying cough and low-grade fever for a couple of days, so even if I were one who goes out on New Year’s Eve, I wouldn’t be going out on this New Year’s Eve. I expect I’ll be long asleep by the time 12 o’clock hits, so I’ll take this opportunity to wish all Juicers a safe and warm evening tonight, and a year that greatly improves on the one we’re leaving behind. Thanks to all the wonderful commenters and lurkers here, most especially the front pagers who do such yeoman work. See you on the Other Side of Midnight.

  17. 17.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Cckids:

    Oh god, that is awful. I’m so very sorry for your brother in law and his family, and heartbroken for the pain the father must have been in.

  20. 20.

    PIGL

    Well, I will be going out to middle-aged house rocker at an art space here in East Van. The band is what we in Vancouver call a “fuck band”, ex-punk rockers from the glory days of 35 years ago. I plan to stumble homewards about 0300h. But I will keep a thought on you and your Tiki bar, Ms. Cracker—-it looks very comfy, and much more age-appropriate.

    I hope this year will go better for you and your family.

  22. 22.

    Josie

    I may actually have a third glass of wine in honor of the new year and then I will pass out way too early. Happy New Year to everyone and wishing for a better year than the one that just passed.
    (Not a high bar)

  23. 23.

    RaflW

    We’re at the age where we got invited to one party tonight (we’re going, it’ll be mellow) and three parties tomorrow during the day.

    Which suits me OK – two tomorrow would be better, but the extrovert partner will want to go to them all!

    ETA: it’s 10 deg F here in the finally-frozen Minne-snow-ta. Up from -7 in the overnight hours.

  25. 25.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Cckids: How horrible; my heart goes out to that family. You’re doing what you can, which is all we can do. And they’re in no shape to think about the practical things like food.

  27. 27.

    PurpleGirl

    @Cckids: How horrible! The food and your presence will show you care and provide sustenance when no one feels like cooking. I hope they can find peace and comfort.

  28. 28.

    Poopyman

    Did I mention today is Day One of what promises to be a magnificent cold? I’m fighting it with cabernet.

  31. 31.

    Pogonip

    It’s 15 degrees here, Betty.

    On the other hand, you have giant flying roaches, and we don’t. So there.

    My son will watch the ball and then wake me up to let me know it dropped.

  35. 35.

    Elizabelle

    Watching Sunset Boulevard. It’s New Year’s Eve in the story. William Holden has just asked if “all the waxworks are coming” to Norma’s NYE party.

    Good, good flick.

    ETA: I love Max. And I’d forgotten some of the Norma Desmond encounter began with a dead monkey.

  41. 41.

    lamh36

    @Roger Moore: I was reading about the lady who wasn’t allowed to walk in the Rose Parade back in the day because she was Black.

    Racism And Redemption At The Tournament Of Roses Parade via @forbes

    …a tale of racism and redemption from a 57-year-old injustice involving the parade itself.

    Riding on the first float in the 126th edition of this New Year’s Day tradition, before some 700,000 spectators in Pasadena, Calif. and an estimated 70 million television viewers, will be 82-year-old Joan Williams. She was first slated to ride in the parade in 1958 as Miss Crown City, but later denied the honor because she was African-American.

    In 1957, Williams, her husband and two daughters had just moved to Pasadena (about 10 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles), where she worked for the city’s Department of Water and Power. She didn’t even know there was a Miss Crown City – a Pasadena city employee who appeared at civic ceremonies and rode on the city’s Rose Parade float – until her colleagues had nominated her for the position…

    Williams sat for a portrait – “with a tiara on!” – and was given a list of appearances: department store ribbon cutting, opening of the new Sears and, of course, the Rose Parade.

    Then a reporter from a local newspaper went to the Williams home “and met my family, which consisted of my brown-skinned husband and my two little girls.”

    As Jet magazine reported, “word spread that light-complexioned Mrs. Williams was a Negro.”

    “Within days, it all went downhill,” Ms. Williams says. She was told that, for budgetary reasons, the city had decided not to enter a float in that year’s Tournament of Roses Parade.

    “The parade happened,” she told me. “I just wasn’t in it.”

    On top of that, “People I worked with stopped speaking with me. And it was all because of assumptions that they had made when they nominated me.”

    “You can imagine how I felt. I was young, I was excited. I had been watching the parade all my life,” said the Los Angeles native. “It was a wonderful, festive time I thought I would be part of.”

    Although Ms. Williams calls the episode “a slap in the face,” she also insists “I didn’t dwell on it, and I haven’t dwelt on it.”…

    I’ll say it again, white folk today, should be very happy with how long Black folk have CHOSEN to “not dwell” on the history and practice of racism in this country, cause mahn, if we had not…

    HAPPY NEW YEARS!

  42. 42.

    ruemara

    Consumed the celebratory sushi roll of spicy tuna liberally dosed with wasabi. MAH LEETHPS AH BUNNIGH. And I made my very first cocktail, a vodka kiwi sparkler. I had to improvise, it didn’t seem frugal to blow 5 bucks on a mini-prosecco. But not on a lottery ticket. Girl has to dream. But the first one of these sparklers has me feeling very um mellow. I have apple slices bathed in stevia and lime baking in the oven for dessert and I am all set with candles and my poshes pajamas to ring in the new year. I hope to be at the gym either before the rose parade or in time to watch the rose parade while I workout. If not, I’ll do a kickboxing and weight lifting session at home, then head out for the tasty celebratory brunch I promised myself. The new year is off to a great start.

  44. 44.

    Brendan in Charlotte

    I’ve done my usual NYE routine. Got to the grocery store before they closed, so I don’t need to go out tomorrow morning. Will stay up as late as I can, but will probably be in bed before midnight. Only about 8 blocks from the fireworks, so i won’t miss them. It’s gonna be 30 degrees here for New Years. I’m not used to having New Years Eve and Day off, so I’m headed to my brother’s tomorrow. We’ll commiserate about how our football team (The Bills) will recover from their best year in a decade – and still need a QB and new coach.

  45. 45.

    Tommy

    @Cckids: That is sad. Very sad. I hope this doesn’t sound remotely flippant, but never underestimate food helping in a time of pain.

  46. 46.

    satby

    @Cckids: that’s terrible. Sorry to hear that. People are always grateful for the consideration of food at a time like this though. It’s condolences in action.

  47. 47.

    RaflW

    @Pogonip: Oh, no, I’m in my very late 40s, as my sis-in-law (who turned 50 this year) puts it.

    I should have mentioned that the three parties tomorrow start at 11am, noon and 1pm and feature food over daemon alcohol. 18 year olds would only wake up in time for the dregs of ham rolls & cheese and crackers.

  49. 49.

    lamh36

    So I’m gonna probably gonna watch Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin NYE “special” on CNN.

    I just like to see Griffin rag on Cooper.

    Happy New Year’s BJers

  50. 50.

    satby

    Blew more of my day today than I planned fighting with an experimental batch of soap to test 2 new molds, one of which leaked raw soap all over the bottom of the oven, creating enough smoke to make me open the doors and windows in our balmy 20 degree weather.
    The dogs were quite disgusted.
    So tomorrow I have to do the post Christmas cleaning I planned to do today.

  52. 52.

    Roger Moore

    @lamh36:
    For all that Pasadena brags about Jackie Robinson now, they weren’t so proud of him back when he actually lived here. It took 50 years after he broke the color line in baseball before there was a statue of him in his hometown.

  57. 57.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: I had better wish you a Happy New Year now, then, before you fade!

    I am about to make a late supper of a sort of mini pizza, using naan for the crust, with spicy red peppers from my garden, kalamata olives and mozarella cheese. Accompanied by Blenheim’s ginger ale – the finest ginger ale you’ll find anywhere, very spicy.

    Would you like to join me? I’m sure the heat from the pizza and the ginger ale would cure what ails you!

  58. 58.

    Baud

    Alright, Juicers. It’s midnight in Rio, which is good enough for me. I’ll see you on the other side. Happy new year, everyone. Thanks for the company tonight and every day.

  59. 59.

    JPL

    An Affair to Remember is a little sappy.. Really Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories… Winter is cold.. Oh well, Cary Grant is hot.

  60. 60.

    Josie

    @satby: I can sympathize. I make soap, also, and I know how hard it is to clean up a raw soap mess. I hope you did not get any skin burns from dealing with it.

  65. 65.

    lamh36

    IDK why, but I really do love the Griffin/Cooper collabo on CNN every New Year…I literally giggle the whole time…

  67. 67.

    gogol's wife

    @JPL:

    Cary Grant is so hot. Did you enjoy Cary Grant Month on TCM? I did.

    Just finished the 1972 Elvis film. In 1972 I thought Elvis was so kitschy. Well, he was, but boy he was a kickass singer.

  69. 69.

    satby

    @Josie: how cool, a fellow soaper!
    No, no burns. I was CPOP, so it was partially done.
    Best smelling smoke ever, but thick.
    I finished the rest in a crock pot and glopped it into a different mold. It’s going to make nice laundry soap… later.

  71. 71.

    Pogonip

    @RaflW: Indeed. I used to be one. Now, at a quarter to ten local time, I’m going to bed. I am sure I will be reading the site next year.

  74. 74.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @gogol’s wife: Elvis’s appeal escapes me a bit. From his era, I prefer Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Eddie Cochran. OTOH, my mom is still a huge Elvis fan.

  75. 75.

    Gravie

    Eating some homemade paella and challah rolls, drinking a nice whiskey sour, watching Jeopardy in a few minutes (Pacific time, you know), then going out for the early end of a live blues band at a local dive bar. We should be home by 10:30, and if we can stay awake, we’ll ring in the new year with a bottle of champagne in front of our fireplace, with our soon-to-be-mulch Xmas tree providing festive lighting. Not too bad for a couple of 60++ old geezers.

  78. 78.

    Tree With Water

    @efgoldman: Indeed. Lennon later referred to 1965 as his “fat Elvis period”. He also claimed the Elvis he knew and loved was tamed by the army, and every Elvis fan knows what he meant by that. Poor old Elvis also badmouthed the Beatles to Richard Nixon as America’s enemies in the war, alas, on (some) drugs, just a few years before drugs finished him. He gave a lot to the world before his tragic end, old Elvis did.

  79. 79.

    moderateindy

    I personally love NYE, mostly because living in the Chicago area there are so many great options when it comes to music, and restaurants. I haven’t been to a bar on NYE, in 20+ years that wasn’t a music venue, so you don’t tend to get the crowd of overly drunken revellers. Restaurants usually have special menus, so that is an extra treat, though often pricey. Going to a 10:30 seating prix fixe in a bit, but luckily am being taken, with a few other lucky souls, by a wealthy friend. and his wife, so that is nice. It’ll be followed by a nice late night jam session back at his house. (Mostly acoustic, as to not disturb the neighbors.) Also, he keeps a stunning collection of bourbons, so that always makes it fun!

  81. 81.

    Cckids

    Thank you to everyone for your kind thoughts. It isn’t as though I’m personally devastated, but my heart aches for the family, my nephews in particular. In 14 months, they’ve lost both grandfathers, 2 great-grandfathers, an uncle & their dog. That’s a sucky year at any time, but when you’re 5 & 7, really tough to comprehend.
    Will be glad to see the end of 2014.

  82. 82.

    J R in WV

    Well, some things about 2014 have sucked. My shoulder has gradually failed, nearly totally so at this point. I have replacement joint surgery scheduled for mid-Feb. I’m told it will be miserable, but it’s miserable now too.

    Aside from that, rolled a wonderful 2008 F-350 truck back in March, part of why my shoulder hurts, but mostly they tell me from osteoarthritis. No cartilage left to make things smooth.

    Hope to do some travel this new year, once my shoulder is all better. Thinking about starting a new project, not construction, have been told my hands-on construction days are behind me.

    Went to a younger friend’s NYE party, about 20 miles across the county, he grew up in very real poverty, many times if he didn’t take a .22 rifle into the woods to shoot a rabbit or squirrels they would have had nothing to eat, at the age of 11 or 12. Now he runs a successful construction company building water systems. Great to see his success, great wife and kids.

    Several of his friends/employees were there. One fellow has a band-aid on his nose, said it was bitten badly (?!?!) some time back. But friends indicated he was hurt on the job… probably a joke, maybe.

    Happy New Year, everybody…!!!

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