New Year's Evening Crap-Shoot

Last night was probably the most interesting and mobile New Year's Eve I've ever experienced, and had quite the Halifax flavour... To start, Party #1 was a lovely homemade pizza bash at our friend Lili's place. Near 10:00PM, we put on some White Stripes tunes to get us in the mood and off the couch, and then left for Party #2, which basically sucked. Upon entering the quiet-like, conversation-filled gathering, we turned down the lights, put on some disco music, stoked the fire, and then left for Party #3. People outside the door at Party #3 were saying it wasn't happening, so we dropped in, looked at the non-existent dance floor, and without taking our down jackets and toques off, left for Party #4. We all hopped back into Rusty, our trusty 1991 Ford Escort, with me being a sport and parking my butt in the trunk. Come on, this is Halifax after all. The arrival at Party #4 was approximately 8 minutes prior to the entry of 2009. We stood in the kitchen and decided that instead of taking our coats off, we'd melt the snow off our boots, do the countdown with a bunch of strangers, crack open the pink Baby Duck (oh dear god), light some streamers and then run out into the snowy streets. That's just what we did, narrowly missing the explosion of a big gingerbread house with an excess of firecrackers (oh how I wish that was our introduction to 2009!!) . The first moments of the new year were caught on video, as we ran around in the cold and danced with no music next to an empty, yellow school bus (sorry for the Maritimer accent, but I'd been hanging out with Louisa; it's bound to happen). The light rager of a party next to the school bus seemed enticing, and so became Party #5 for fifteen minutes of shaking our groove thang with strangers from NSCAD (Arts students). They know good music, and are in dire need of a heater. The remainder of our group made a collective decision to return to Party # 3 to see if it grew into something good, but first returned to Party #4 to gather our reusable grocery bags full of the gin and tonic we hadn't been drinking. On the deck on our way out, I spotted Matt Lordly in the window of yet another party happening next door, so I quickly popped into what I guess I could call Party #6 to get a hug and a promise of dinner soon. The return to Party #3 made it clear the night was over because the people we went back to see had already bit the dust, and so we took that as a sign to head on home to our warm and cozy beds. Goodbye 2008. Hello 2009. Update on the first day of 2009: I slept in until noon, which is not as active as my usual New Year's Day pattern of taking on the challenge of a hike or some other outdoor excursion. Instead, I'm happy to be listening to CBC Radio 3's best Canadian music of 2008, and watching the enormous blizzard outside from the warmth of our little condo (that which dos not require us to shovel snow). Brian's just made homemade cookies, and the coffee and Baileys is warming up my mug. I love you, 2009.