… and a Happy New Year!

That’s right, the Merry Christmas part of that little ditty is over and done with. Now we are left with a four day work week (that nonetheless seems interminable) until our next major holiday (and another three day weekend). I must say, though, that I had a fabulous time.

• Skiing Christmas Eve in Breckenridge: We had to share a chair lift with other people a whole of two times the entire day. Plus, I completed several blue/blacks on my snowboard—quite a feat considering I only began snowboarding last season.
• Skiing Christmas Day at Copper Mountain: My sis and bro came along for family fun on the slopes. We were tragically late, which did not matter at all on such a day. There was no traffic on the roads and little on the slopes. Nothing like a Christmas lunch of Heineken and Rice Krispie Treats!
• Winning $70 playing Texas Hold ‘Em on Christmas night: Okay, so $10 of that was mine = $60. And then I put in The Boyfriend’s ante = $50. Then my sis wrote a check for her and her hubby (which I’m sure is good but, hey, isn’t cash) = $30. Flopping a straight and keeping it on the down-low until the River = priceless. Well, I actually prefer the money to the pricelessness.
• Thoughtful and amazing gifts received: a Peugeot salt and pepper mill set, a year subscription to Bon Appetit, a red corduroy pea coat, a frozen yogurt machine, DVD’s, book of the month club subscription, snowboarding/motorcycling gloves, mixing bowls… I am spoiled rotten and my kitchen shall be even more fabulous than last year. Watch out world, here comes Gnomey C (C is for Chef, silly), the most delicious thing to emerge from the enchanted forest since the Kiebler Elves. And let’s face it, far less fattening.
• Seeing Molly: Darling, you do look so ultra-fabulous, did I forget to mention? So svelte and slender in that up-to-the-minute tweed skirt and so tall in those black boots. You are a red-haired vixen, Mol, and I miss you!

Back to Arizona and reality. Not back to full scale blogging, however, I am afraid to say. I have set aside this week to finish up my grad school stuff, to get it off my plate once and for all so that the New Year’s Eve drunkenness will not be totally pointless—it shall be a celebration of another year of anticipation and hopefully not another year of depressing rejection. Either way, a better excuse for getting drunk than a ball dropping or the metaphor of a diapered baby replacing the bearded old-timer. Man, how did he get so damn old in just one year, I ask and fearfully peer into the mirror at my own face.