Knowing that Andrea would never even entertain the idea of staying up to ring in the New Year, I thought to myself on January 31st, "Should I line up some things to do until the clock strikes its first 'dong' of 2012?" Yea, that could be fun, I could watch an M. Night Shyamalan movie, or do some story writing during those quiet hours. Of course it wouldn't be anything like being at home where we would certainly be popping Old Wisconsin "little smokies" (baby sausages) to chase down the Piggly Wiggly cheese platter and Townhouse crackers. We might even go all out and heat up some spiced apple cider and watch a "Blues Brothers" movie between shots in a never ending streak of pool games.
Huh, the more I thought about what would be happening at home, the more I began to question the point of me staying up….staying up until what? The Ethiopian calendar celebrates its New Year in our month of September, so there certainly isn't any cultural hype over our January 1st. But that's them, I suppose I should stay true to my culture and stay up to midnight by my watch, but still I question, what "event" am I really celebrating? If the New Year begins when my current time zone hits 0:00, then I suppose it is entirely relative on where I am, for at home the party would just barely be getting started (midnight here is 3pm there). Then the thought crossed my mind, why don't I get a good night sleep, wake up and celebrate the New Year "with" my family at their midnight. That seems a bit more reasonable except that it's really hard to be excited, counting down the minutes to 9am. I guess I should have been better prepared for such an entirely relative celebration, for as lo
ng as I remember, I have been watching the TV for some silly ball to drop in Times Square and a whole lot of hoopla only to mark one hour to go for us in the Central time zone.
In the end, the decision was made for me. For whatever it was that we ate for dinner on the so called New Year's Eve, didn't sit well with either Andrea or I and boy did our stomachs complain about it. With only one bathroom in the house, we certainly gave it no rest for a good hour. After the dust had settled a bit, we were both pooped out, and happily hit the hay at our normal bedtime.
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