(Mildly) Happy New Year!

My wildest New Years to date was with Rachael, that rock gig smokin' violin chick we all know and love.

Simon the intrepid pup and I were visiting her in Seattle and it was either the milennium (2000) or the real milennium (2001), so we decided to go camping. We took the ferry over to one of the islands and tooled around all day admiring the homes and wishing we were computer geeks so we could afford to live there. I would love to be able to complain about the tourists clogging up the roads and crowding the ferry, to hear the sea at night and imagine it was a belonging, like the carpeting in my cottage home. I would promise not to forget those on the outside looking in, to always hire live musicians and let them in the front door, even.

So it was dark when we pulled into the campground, which was entirely and strangely deserted. We set up camp, started a small fire and got ready to settle in when Simon got all nervous and began backing into our legs while staring out of the circle cast by the firelight. Haha we laughed, ha. Silly Simon the wussy dog, he's afraid of crinkly bags and unusually large mum plants. What does he know about deserted campsites?

I swear we would have made it the whole night. Pinky swear, even. But then this old Mercury purred through the winding loop of the road, past us and back... twice. Then they left. Then we did.

This is the trouble with New Years' Eve. Fun people tend to end up bored and crazy people tend to end up making with the hardcore.

Am I a spaniel-level wuss? Do I have less bravado than a dog who believed swingsets to be of the devil? Maybe.
Yes.
But it's a whole new year, and we will create our own brand of festive on five secure acres near Aumsville, and I will be here to tell you all about it.

So Rock IT, Dick! Send that ball on down, ring it it, Syne the Auld Lang.
Wheeeeeee! (but not too much)