New Year

Politica said that we were having the lamest New Year ever, but I suspect that what we did was pretty common among readers of this blog (apologies to any readers who are more the partying sort!). We hung out at home, watched a movie, went to bed. We had a sparkling grapefruit juice toast at dinner, but with Neighbor Girl and Woman of Many Talents at the table, things felt special. We had twelve bean soup, vegetable risotto, salad, and krumkaker for dessert (when I got my pressure cooker cookbook and saw the recipe for 12 bean soup, I thought "who has 12 kinds of beans in their house?!?" and then looked up at the shelf and realized I was that person. CG and I mixed up jars of bean mix and then she decorated them as holiday gifts for her teachers. We're big fans of 12 bean soup now.)

We watched Proof, and then Politica clicked around on the networks to see what was on. She stopped at Garrison Keillor's special for me. He rang in the new year with a Kenneth Rexroth poem (scroll down--it's the second one on the page) about how beautiful your partner looks when caring for your children. Politica is, um, not a fan of Garrison Keillor, and she particularly dislikes it when he sings. Most of what he was doing late in the special was singing (with some awesome guests, it must be said). But she knows I like his work (like this) quite a bit, so she stopped there, and that's what we watched to ring in the new year. And that's one of the qualities that makes Politica so beautiful--her ability to give me things I love and enjoy, even when it wouldn't be her first choice. She takes pleasure in my goofy enjoyment of corny musicals (she stocked our new iPod with broadway music for my birthday) and Keillor. Her generous spirit reminds me that it's good to listen to your partner, good to turn towards each other.

One of our friends has a family tradition of writing down for each year a hope, a fear, and a prediction. Round is Funny has a tradition of making predictions, and Pilgrim/Heretic did a recap of the year. Politica is helping Woman of Many Talents with her law school statement, Curious Girl is running around wanting company with various schemes (build with me! play with me! be my honey! no, be the big sister and I'll be the mama! let's have a tea party!). So I'd love to be all introspective, but it's more a make-pretend kind of day around here (later, I'll upload a photo of the fancy tea party we had for morning snack). We did make a list in my Curious Girl journal of the cool accomplishments of the year: her first library card, our beach vacation (and jellyfish sting, a topic bringing many people by here. Note to those people: if you're stung by a sea urchin, pee on it. But for a jellyfish sting, wet sand is the ticket. Or the Muppets.) But beyond that, it's not looking like much of a reflective day around here.

Many good wishes for the new year to you and yours.