We did see in 2009 last night. Diane & I were reading in bed when I looked at the clock and saw it was midnight. I wished her a happy new year with a kiss (our 43rd new year together) and we read for a bit longer before turning out the light. We didn't watch the ball drop. Crystal balls are supposed to tell the future and dropping the ball is symbolic of a blunder. I've never been able to understand why dropping a crystal ball became the way to start a new year.
In the wee hours of the morning I dreamed of driving down the Whitesville Rd. past my 1st school, Pinkney #9 (grades 1-6, fall 1950 through spring 1956). In the dream it was still there although I know the building is long gone along with "the farm" which is what we called the place we lived. We didn't farm the land though unless chickens are enough to make a farm all by themselves. As we drove by Pinkney #9 in my lucid dream* I noticed that the front door was open and someone was using the building as an antique shop. We stopped and I toured the place. It was spruced up a bit but the charred wood still showed around where we once had a chimney fire from the Round Oak stove. The outhouses were still there off either side of the woodshed, girls on the left, boys on the right. I chatted with the owner about going to school there, fetching drinking water from the spring down the road every morning, sledding in the winter and skinny dipping in the brook across the road in spring & fall. A pleasant dream of days gone.
I began the morning by cleaning the pellet stove. Our daughter phoned and in response to my sung "Happy new year to you" she replied "happy arbitrarily designated point in time" which brings up another thing I've never understood about new years. Why does the new year begin over a week after the winter solstice? Logically it should begin at the point when the cycle of days getting longer again begins. Oh well, happy arbitrarily designated point in time to one and all. May 2009 be a great year for you even if it is 10 days late relative to the Sun.
*A lucid dream is one in which you are aware that you are dreaming but continue to dream, consciously controlling the dream as it goes. It's sort of like a daydream but you are asleep.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
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Someone at work had told me that the ball didn't actually drop all the way so noone showed it, they just showed a picture. That's a load of hooey. I watched it on the internet (didn't stay up for it) and all 12,000 lbs of it made it down the pole. It is mind boggling, though, to think of what 12,000 lbs of Waterford crystal must be worth.
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