Thursday, December 31, 2009. Year's End, With Nothing. If all had gone according to plan, the Marys would be at the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego tonight, and I would have been home alone on New Year's Eve. Mary Ann is lamenting that she's here instead of in California, but not because of missing "The Del." That plan fell off the table when Mary Leigh made it clear that she wanted to be among her circle of friends on New Year's Eve, at a theoretical party. But MA's concern centered on Jude, who she feared would have no place to celebrate and would wind up alone in Los Angeles. I keep trying to tell her that, for a twenty-year-old man, being with his mother on New Year's Eve is even worse than being alone. And, in any case, Jude did turn up a party to attend.
For this and other reasons, Mary Ann is in a funk. She says this is the worst New Year's Eve of her life. I can't figure out why, but even if I could it wouldn't do either of us a bit of good. It's been years since we went out on New Year's Eve anyway. I agree with Dean Martin, who said he stayed home that night because the hot spots were filled with amateur drinkers. We go out plenty enough during the rest of the year. In past years, we just sat around with the kids and watched the ball drop on Times Square and the New Orleans version of that. But we still are without the converter box that makes local television watchable. I pulled up the Times Square moment on my computer, but it was on a teeny little screen.
I didn't give it much thought tonight, but as I write this now I find little to complain about in 2009. The worst thing that happened was the destruction of my website by the Russians on Katrina Day. (It just occurred to me that was the exact date malware attack occurred.) The invasion cost us a good bit of money and time, but I came out of it with a much stronger, better-looking site. It's done well enough to keep the tuitions paid up. Those set a record this year, reaching a number that would have been unimaginable two years ago. But Jude is fully engaged in exciting work, and Mary Leigh is having the ideal senior year in high school.
This year we went to England on the Queen Mary 2, traveled a good bit otherwise, and are in good health. I read sixty-six books this year and worked 150 crossword puzzles. The restaurant scene kept growing, but the demand for my services seems to be shrinking a little. In sum, I think this will be one of those years that will be hard to recall ten years from now. I will be happy that I didn't skip a single day of this journal the entire year.
