1: Axiomatic

It's a new year and a new weird numbering scheme which is actually a very conventional numbering scheme in that it's just numbers. Usually I like to not do straight-up numbers because then in my dashboard you just see 1's all the way down and then 2's, because of the way it creates a preview icon based on the first letter (provided there's no imagery which, there basically never is.) So in recent years I've just been trying to get around that. I thought about doing "Chapter X" but then it's a whole year of C's... am I overthinking it? Surely.

It's New Year's morning and I'm on my second coffee. I haven't done anything particularly productive with my time but I have been pretty productive all week, even if I don't feel like it. I had been meaning to get another post done. Now seems like the time.

The Christmas Snow didn't last past the weirdly mild rest of the week, clearing up on the 27th, leading to a drizzly new year.

Saturday, Mel's parents came over and we spent a few hours having coffee, talking, exchanging gifts etc. Hank was ornery about Papa H's presence, which is so frustrating to all of us. Then later that night we went out to Meghan and Danny's for their holiday party. There was tons of food but nothing you would really call a meal, which was... whatever. We had been asked to bring an app, so we provided some spanakopita, of which we made too much but we had enough to munch on days later. It wasn't really needed though. Meghan went all out with dips and cheeses and meats and even smoked salmon on baguette. I guess that and some meatballs and shrimp would qualify as the entrees, provided you got enough of it. What was there was all good.

As seems to be her thing, Meghan had invited a weirdly wide net of people from her life. She said a few people had dropped out leading to an excess of food. There were two other couples -- her "godsister" and an old co-worker and their partners, as well as her parents, which put a weird vibe on the place for the early goings but eventually they headed out. Mel and I were our usual effervescent selves, but the other couples weren't very chatty, the main common ground was dogs and asking other people about their work. Danny was mostly looking after the kids at first, then joined, then had to take the dogs out.

There were games -- Hungry Hungry Reindeer (use solo cups as hooves to put marshmallows on plates), Holiday Jeopardy (which we won -- I don't really take much pleasure in doing trivia against randos, it never seems fair) and What Do You Meme, which mostly went to the younger couple until I started finding my groove. We left around midnight-ish or one-ish, I'm not sure. It was a fun night out.

Sunday we toyed with the idea of going to Nonna's, but woke up feeling more like just hanging out so that is what we did. At some point we started watching Dexter, which I've never seen the early seasons of.

Monday and Tuesday, Mel was on the hook for work, which she came to regret. I diddled on the computer in the mornings, mostly doing X-Cerpts, then ran errands, getting supplies for our New Year and going to the mall for Calendar Club, and Canadian Tire to return the duplicate blender we got, some wrong-sized light bulbs, and ultimately buy a metal utility shelf for the basement that was on sale. I'll have to assemble it, which is going to be......... a thing. But it will get more shit out of the way.

Our main New Year's plan was to eat nachos, specifically the build-your-own from the Black Bull pub. I had ordered beef, but I was dismayed to find out they didn't include it. I don't think I paid for it though so it's a wash. I did have ground beef to use, so it worked out fine but probably would have been better and easier if they had given me the meat.

Around this time we realized that Hank had gotten on the table and polished off the tin of Christmas cookies Mel's parents had brought. Damn, damn, damn, just what you need when you're making dinner at 7:30 on New Year's Eve. We didn't even know how much chocolate was in the cookies. Maybe one with a Hershey's Kiss, one with semi-sweet chips, one with white chocolate? Ugh.

So we called the Emergency Vet and they said it was probably fine but you should call Animal Poison Control to be sure, so we did, and after a lengthy hold we got through and they did some calculus on it and determined it was fine, unless he starts vomiting. We had to pay for that. Harumph. So we spent all night watching Hank to see signs of... anything. He was just tired though. Reacted well when it was time to eat.

That was the second scare with Hank in a few days, as Mel had pulled something off from behind her ear that she was concerned was a tick. I didn't think it was but what do I know. On Monday I brought it to the Vet as one of my tasks and they assured me they didn't think it was a tick (more likely just a scab, just a little hard round thing,) and if it was, with Hank being current on his meds, there wouldn't have been enough time to transmit any disease -- but the symptoms take 6-8 weeks to appear so, you know, keep an eye out.

Anyway. Our minds more or less at ease, we had our New Year's Dinner and resolved to never, ever leave anything edible on the table unsupervised again, given this was the second time in a few weeks that little rascal has helped himself, after polishing off our breakfast potatoes the weekend prior. I've never had a big dog before where it would have been a concern, although Bella used to climb up there to eat leftover chicken on Sunday nights.

We settled in and watched Woman of the Hour, which let Mel down, and I was liking until the end which I thought was a little flat and made it feel like a cheap made-for-tv thriller. I'm on Letterboxd again so  maybe I'll put some thoughts there. Then more Dexter and switching to Seacrest at 11:50 -- which would have been great except it was five minutes of commercials, some patter with Carrie Underwood, and the ball drop. Excuse me, could they not have given us an adequate 2000's band to ring in the New Year already? Jonas Brothers were coming up next. I flipped it back to Dexter and we went to bed at 1.

We wrote down some memories from the year, and some words for the new year, as we have done the last few years, a nice little tradition that only sort of feels like homework. Honestly it didn't feel that momentous, but one does try to reflect. I read old posts about New Year's Shenanigans I used to get up to, and reflected on the first NYE Mel and I spent together, which was a memorable night (mot of the ret have been very sedate, in fitting with our identity as a couple.)

Tomorrow it's back to work, but at least Maria encouraged me to work from home (whereas I usually feel like I'm being judged if I ask.) I've got a lot of vacation days for the next quarter, blowing through them as is usually necessary at the end of the year. I wouldn't leave them so late, except that you've got to "earn" them throughout the year and if you get ahead of yourself then you have to pay them back if you, say, quit the company, which I have entertained notions of doing. So I pace myself and this is the result. I'll have a week in February and a week in March and now I've got five random days for whenever; I'll use them on random Wednesdays and Thursdays just to mix things up. Always fun.

I thought yesterday about whether I would like to turn my never-gonna-happen script for Metal Hands into a comic or something. Just to get it out into the world. I began thinking about pens and color palettes that would make it not shitty. But I could never draw it. To the degree I can draw, I can draw, but I don't have time and I don't have drive. My medium is whatever you can do with a keyboard. Don't think I haven't thought about making it a book, either! But it still doesn't feel right. You know, this thing is so good but it's going nowhere. Hey, just like me.

I just re-read some posts from Jan 2013. I took some time to write down what my daily routine was like back then. I'm grateful for that, it was nice to put myself back in that time and place. Every so often I do that but inasmuch as I have a routine these days I don't think I've captured it. Put that on the list.

I think I'll call it there. We might go to Nonna's today for coffee, which makes me rare 2nd coffee a senseless endeavor, but my mouth wanted it.

Maybe I should clean the kitchen.

Yeah, maybe.

Keep on rockin'

-Scotto