MetaChat - New Year's plans, bunnies?

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31 December 2006

New Year's plans, bunnies? What if anything are you doing to mark the passing of yet another go 'round the sun?→[More:]

I just got up (trying to sleep off some bug that's going around), and am going to spend the day getting rid of all visible cardboard. Our Lady of Perpetual Intoxication (the woman who lives elsewhere on the property) *finally* got the bed and some other furniture out of here, so I can start to set up properly. Then the owner of the local grocery/liquor store (the one I've been painting...the store, not the owner) is having a party for the community at the Lions Hall. His New Year's parties are much-anticipated, apparently: on an island of 1100, at least 300 usually show up, even though the bar's not free (he sells drinks at roughly cost). As with anywhere else, some people here would wade through an ocean of elephant piss and french-kiss their worst enemy to get in to a party with free drinks. And it's like there's an invisible 'booze signal' that goes off in the sky when it happens--they can smell a free drink through 5 miles of dense underbrush. But anyway...the party should be lots of fun, and I'm looking forward to meeting more islanders.

I also had to share this excerpt from an email newsletter from one of my favourite hangouts in Vancouver, The Irish Heather. Now you can see why it's a favourite:

What kind of New Year’s madness do we have planned for you? Well, none actually. We’re not really crazy about the big fake-happy scene with the noisemakers and the crush and the sparkling wine that would burn the shell off an egg, not to mention snogging strangers. Double not to mention a $75 cover charge to listen to a band you’ve never heard before and never will again if God is merciful.

Instead we’re going out on a limb and doing what we do every night: serving up Vancouver’s best pub grub and drinks to our regulars and discriminating newcomers.

No dress code.
No cover charge.
No hassle.
No carbonated Bulgarian plonk slowly eating its way out of the plastic cup.

post by: elizard at: 13:39 | 31 comments

That's awesome! I think we're going to a themed party: Awful Christmas Sweaters. I don't have one, the boyfriend doesn't have one. And I'm too lazy to go to the thrift store looking for one. We're showing up around 11 (the BF has to work until 10), so perhaps the dress code won't apply at that point. I don't really want to go to this party - I don't like most of the hostess's other friends. They're too trendy for my tastes, we don't have anything to talk about. But whatever, there will be champagne. As lons as I stash a whole bottle or two for myself, it'll be an ok night.

posted by youngergirl44 31 December | 13:48

We're staying in, with a bottle of champagne courtesy of the friends I'm catsitting for (the cats are at their apartment, not here; Twinkie is not a fan of strange kitties).

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 31 December | 13:51

I haven't quite made plans that far ahead yet. The GF is attending a Wiccans-only event, so I will be on my own. The Strip will be a madhouse and bus service will be a mess, so I may head over to Boulder Station casino.

posted by mischief 31 December | 13:54

Looks like we will send out the year with a walk on Fort Foster Beach, in sparkly light snow leftover from yesterday, and then First Night in Portsmouth, which starts at 7:30 with fireworks.

posted by Miko 31 December | 13:59

Mrs. Slack and I will be playing Trivial Pursuit, having baked eggrolls and Thai soup, drinking a few Smithwicks, and watching Tristram Shandy and some other movie TBD. And we'll proably fall asleep just minutes before midnight and wake up later and say "shit, I think we slept through New Years. Again". Good times.

posted by Slack-a-gogo 31 December | 14:06

The flu has bested me, for four days running, and my partner's just starting to get it, so we're looking at a long evening coughing together under the comforter, film noir on the tv, glasses of cranberry juice and seltzer at our sides.

And that's enough to make us both happy this year!

Miko, I used to live just off Market Square, and my apartment was the First Night crash pad. I would hole up in my top floor apartment, cooking and watching a movie and drinking champagne tinged with Chambord, and friends would show up for a rest, a snack, or a nap, and celebrate with me. I loved it! It felt like First Night came to me instead of the other way around. [sigh] I do miss Portsmouth sometimes.

Enjoy!

posted by Elsa 31 December | 14:11

I don't know, because I'm old and boring, but one way or another, I'll be drunk.

posted by cmonkey 31 December | 14:16

I just picked up taco fixins for dinner, and a couple bottles of Andre Cold Duck (which I was ripped off on... $5 each!). At about tenish a couple dozen people will show up at my house, and from here we will hike downtown as a group for the ball drop[1] and fireworks.

[1]yeah, we do one, too. ours isn't as huge as the NYC event, but we are the second biggest in the US attendance-wise.

oh... and hi!

posted by kellydamnit 31 December | 14:19

I'm officially hibernating for the next two months. I am large and uncomfortable. I am cranky and stupid. I can no longer sit, stand or banter in my usual manner. So I'm on self-imposed hiatus. Prepare to see a lot more of me online as I am pretty much cutting off all face-to-face contact with real world people.

As such, tonight will probably include watching mr. rossi play Guitar Hero II while the kid accompanies him on tambourine and periodically yells, "You ARE a rock star, Daddy!" and flashes the devil horns. I may even allow myself a glass of wine sipped veeerrrry slowly. Couldn't ask for more.

Hi, kellydamnit! Nice to see you! How have you been?

posted by jrossi4r 31 December | 14:24

I've been pretty good. Work's crazy as all get out, and I suddenly have a social life beyond friday nights, so I don't get around as much as I'd like, though.
And, my roommate bought a PS2, which makes me so thrilled.

posted by kellydamnit 31 December | 14:29

Kelly! Damnit!

Good to see you!

I'd kind of like to stay in at this point, but it's not to be. Definitely not to be, as we met people while we were out who extracted promises on our dead mother (we only have one dead mother, the other one's still kicking) that we would go to the after-midnight party. Oh well, that's a lost cause. I'll be rocking out with my support stockings out, or something.

Let me instead talk about what we are doing tomorrow. Tomorrow, mr. taz is making a pork roast and I'm making black eyed peas and greens. We also have wine and a selection of delectable sweets. We are going to loll around like huge, fat, monstrous, jellylike walruses and eat over and over again. And play computer games, and watch dvds. Hallelujah.

posted by taz 31 December | 14:36

I don't know, because I'm old and boring, but one way or another, I'll be drunk.

cmonkey, that is one the greatest things I have ever read. Old and boring indeed!

posted by richat 31 December | 14:57

I've been feeling weird for a few days now - dizzy, chest pains, all around strange - and in fact I was kind of thinking that maybe I should go to the hospital but then I decided fuck it, if I am in fact having a heart attack it sure is a long drawn out one and probably it's some kind of strange variant of this virus I can't shake so, as I said before, fuck it. I don't have an extra $300 or so to find out I'm stressed and have pleurisy again or something equally Victorian and banal. If I die tonight it's the kids' problem anyway, not mine; hell, my problems will be over.

So I think I'm going to start drinking soon and meanwhile I just rearranged my dining room and then tonight my friend recoveringiowan is having a small gathering (syntax & his lovely wife will likely be there) and I'm going to that. Woot!

posted by mygothlaundry 31 December | 15:25

mgl: you should go to the hospital. Many women (and men, but apparently more women) don't present as the typical pain radiating down left arm kind of heart attack that people think is common.

posted by gaspode 31 December | 15:43

Nah, gaspode, I really have no risk factors for heart disease (except smoking, although I quit a month ago, but other than that there's no family history, I'm not particularly overweight, have low blood pressure & low cholesterol and I'm female & under 55, so the chances of heart disease would seem to be vanishingly small) so I think it's much more likely that this is some kind of weird symptom of the weird cold/flu/virusy thing I've had for the last 10 days. Besides, if it was a heart attack I'd be dead by now.

posted by mygothlaundry 31 December | 16:07

"so the chances of heart disease would seem to be vanishingly small"

Where have I heard that before?

posted by mischief 31 December | 16:13

Not to be a doomsayer, but a good friend of mine who is skinny and has never smoked had a heart attack at 22.
Turned out it was brought on by her birth control, though, so it wasn't totally out of the blue.

But, chest pains could be a lot of things. As could dizziness. I'd see a doc, personally. Shoot, I'd see a doc for anything lasting more than a week. You may need an antibiotic. Last time I let something go that long it turned out I had severe bronchitis, and it's taking forever to completely shake off because it was allowed to grow for so long. No fun there.

posted by kellydamnit 31 December | 16:16

See the post I am about to make.

posted by bunnyfire 31 December | 17:11

Me, I'm cleaning up my place and will try to take a bunch of old clothes to Goodwill before they close. Later I'm going to change into velvet and open a nice bottle of fizz. I'd planned to share it with a couple of friends but they got sick and cancelled so now there's MORE FOR ME.

Tomorrow: black-eyed peas, which were totally unheard of in Montreal where I grew up, but we had them anyway because one of my grandfathers was from Alabama. As always, anyone who wants some and can get here is welcome.

posted by tangerine 31 December | 17:18

I've decided to embrace the fact that I'm all alone in my house by spending the day so far thusly:

-slept in until noon
-made myself delicious breakfast
-wandered around house in bathing suit all day in preparation for the membership to the Y I've been putting off for a couple months.
-ordered scary support sports bra online for working out in.
-cleaned house in dribs and drabs while rocking out to the radio and my more embarrassing music (which I normally listen to with headphones when the roommies are here).
-FINALLY getting myself organized by thoroughly cleaning room/doing laundry/putting all my shit in order.

For tonight, I may get sweet talked into going to a friend's party, otherwise I will cook myself dinner and chill out watching movies and chatting with the bunnies in IRC. I am very pleased with this lack of planning on my part. New Year's is always so frantic and anticlimactic.

posted by SassHat 31 December | 18:03

I'll go to a friend's house to warm up, and join some other friends, then we'll go to the space needle see the fireworks there (yeah, I know they'll probably suck), then we'll go in the holy mission to find a place which doesn't close at 2 am.

As compared to last year, when I got completely shitfaced in vodka+redbull, bought a fake ticket for a rave, couldn't get in, got back to my friend's car, only to discover it broken in and without stereo + my wallet + my cellphone, was too drunk to do something about it, vomitted thoroughly (fortunately outside the car), and passed out until my friends (who had good tickets for the rave) got back.

So yeah, this new year is probably gonna be WAY better than last one's.

posted by qvantamon 31 December | 18:29

just to be clear, i didn't intentionally buy a fake ticket, i paid retail price for a ticket that turned out to be fake.

posted by qvantamon 31 December | 18:42

I'm sitting here in my scarlet and black paw-print robe listening to fireworks going off several miles away and just chlling into 2007.

I'm not sorry to see the end of 2006. Although parts of it were sublime (Vegas, this Christmas) much of it (cancer scare, grief, huge psoriasis flareup) was sucky.

But I feel well and healed, both physically and emotionally and ready for the New Year.

posted by essexjan 31 December | 18:45

We're going to be hanging out at La Casa Masz, eating pizza and watching the ball drop on TV. We've been painting one of the kids' rooms and we'll be doing more of that tomorrow, so can't stay up too late.

posted by tommasz 31 December | 19:06

My plan?

Make 2007 the best year of my life.

Other than that, not much. ;)

posted by jason's_planet 31 December | 20:20

My plan?

Make 2007 the best year of my life.

Other than that, not much. ;)

posted by jason's_planet 31 December | 20:42

Eat finger foods, watch movies (Serenity and Poltergeist, maybe more), there's a bottle of "sparkling white wine" to be opened at some point during the evening and just generally hang out with the mister and wee beasties.

posted by deborah 31 December | 22:06

I'm too sick to go out this year, even though Mr. Twiggy and I have been invited to a fun party. So I get to sit next to him all night on the couch while he grumps about how bored he is.

But for every virtuous resolution I'm making this year, I'm making a naughty resolution, too, so that's fun to think about.

posted by Twiggy 31 December | 22:25

Oh man. We just got home... It's 6:50 a.m. (of New Year's day); I'm usually waking up at this hour... or earlier, most of the time. Whoa.

Plus, there's a huge, giant, really big flying insect in my office (no, I didn't do any drugs!), and I'm reheating the gumbo. Yay, breakfast!

posted by taz 31 December | 23:52

I went to see Letters from Iwo Jima on the upper west side--and still had to show a cop my ID at 12:45 at Central Park South and 7th ( I live across from Carnegie Hall).

posted by brujita 01 January | 01:18

We were invited to a friend's house, but my stepson who doesn't live with us was up from Florida and we didn't know for how long. Turns out not long enough, and my hubby was feeling blue after he left, so we decided to stay home with our boys. (The daughter was invited to a friend's). So we watched "The Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest" and were barely awake at midnight. I can't believe I slept until 9:30, that's unheard of for me. Even the dog let us sleep in that late.

posted by redvixen 01 January | 11:49

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