New Year's Eve.

Here I am blogging at 2:15 AM on January 1, 2011. I'm pretty sure it's the first post of the year, at least on this blog. Why am I blogging now? Well, why not? Here's what happened.

At 5:30 PM yesterday Twila and I went to the Bridgeview Tavern for dinner. I'm not sure what bridge it views, actually, but it might be the Tappan Zee. We've eaten there many times, but I haven't looked around for bridges, that I recall. The Bridgeview is one of the first restaurants that Twila and I ate at on this New York adventure, so we thought it would be nice to eat there at the adventure's end, as well. Dinner was nice, and then we went home to get ready for the main event.

We did that mostly by taking a nap. Since 8:00 PM is our usual bedtime, we knew that our excursion to Times Square at midnight would present challenges. We had a pleasant snooze, and then did final preparations.

We had certainly learned our lesson about dressing warmly. I nearly froze my nubbles off (my spellchecker didn't flag "nubble", and it's not in my dictionary, but I'm going with it anyway) at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, as you know. And Thursday night when we emerged from dinner at Zuni's the warm afternoon had given way to a chilly evening, so we shivered our way to Grand Central.

This time we wouldn't be fooled. I wore a long-sleeved T-shirt, a fleece jacket, a sweatshirt, and an outer jacket, and I put a furry floppy-eared hat on my head. Heh. Twila wore her pile jacket among her many layers. We were ready.

Ready, as it happened, for a 44 degree night. Not only was the train a sauna, but there was little relief when we emerged from GCT. Oh, well, it wasn't a big deal. Nothing a shower wouldn't take care of later.

We were a bit surprised about how few people were outside the terminal. After all, a million people were expected in Times Square. Soon enough we learned that the million people were there, and they pretty much filled it. Police had erected barriers blocks away to keep the crowd from getting too… well, crowded.

We did our best. At one point one of the numerous policemen turned his back and I quickly hopped over a barrier, only to slip and land on my butt. The crowd oohed and ahhed, but I was unhurt, and I popped up to help Twila over. A lot of good it did us, because it was so crowded we couldn't move. So we walked five blocks away from Times Square, then up to 9th Avenue, and then back. There were barricades everywhere. When we got to 42nd Street we asked a cop where we might be able to see the ball, and he said 52nd and 7th Avenue, so we hied up there. Unfortunately, no balls were visible.

For the next hour we went up one street and down another, toward the square, away from the square, battling crowds and traffic. Finally we arrived at a spot where Twila was able to see the ball with her 24x optical zoom. She took a picture, and then the ball disappeared. We gave up and started the long roundabout way back to Grand Central.

A few minutes later Twila asked me what time it was, and I was surprised to see that it was 12:10 AM. We had completely missed the moment of the New Year. No wonder the ball had disappeared.

We still had a long way to go to the terminal to catch our train. Many of you have walked with Twila, so you know that walking with her is like sprinting. She'd be strolling along and I'd be panting behind her, when suddenly she'd zig and zag and pass a couple of people, but the lines would instantly close and soon she'd be almost out of sight. I'd run to catch up, when I got a chance. It went like that all the way to the station, and it was really a waste, because we were 4 minutes early.

Anyway, we finally got back to Tarrytown at some ungodly hour, hopped in my car, pressed the START button, and… nothing. The dash lit, but that was it. So I pressed the START button again to turn the dash lights off, and they wouldn't go off. I spent some time pulling relays and wiggling fuses and cursing and kicking the tires, but the car had decided not to start, and I couldn't convince it otherwise. Finally the dash lights went off, at least. It was too late and we were too tired to deal with it, so we took a cab home. I decided to have a beer to relax before going to bed, and now I've done that, and I've blogged, so off I go.

Happy New Year!