Sing out the old, bring in the new.  Should auld acquaintance be forgot and auld lang syne! Whatever…

Even as a young adult I never enjoyed New Years Eve.

I never liked the pressure and expectation I felt of having to stay up late and have fun “ringing” in the new year.  During the early years of our marriage our friends would urge us to come out for New Years and have fun.  We usually declined because we preferred to be home and in bed at our usual hour.   Later when our children were teenagers and young adults I grew to hate New Years because I worried that my kids were going to make a bad decision at the party they were at or would be on the road late at night with all the real and imagined dangers I laid awake worrying about.

Now my kids are grown, two of them married, and one still at home.   I worry less about them but always feel better waking up New Years Day knowing everyone is safe and we can now get past all this silliness of “New Years” and move on with life.  Yes, I know – what a Scrooge I am!

This year was a little unique in that one of my kids was on vacation in Paris with his wife.   So at 3:15 PM Pacific Time I text him and said “hey – I just realized it’s the new year in Paris. Happy new year”.  Jonathan replied (in his usual dry humor), “Indeed.  Happy New Year from the future…”  My other son was on a plane with his wife flying home to Illinois after spending the holidays in Southern California with her family.  Michael text me about 10:15 PM and said, “happy new year from the central time zone”.  They had made it home from O’Hare just in time for midnight – their first new years eve as a married couple.

My daughter was home and in bed by 10:00.   I knew she would have rather been somewhere else celebrating.  But not much was happening and she stayed in for the night sharing dinner with us and hitting the sack early.  I felt a little bad for her but inside I was happy that I could retire not having to worry about her getting home.

And then there is my Golden Kali for whom December 31 really is just another one the 364 and 1/4 days per year.

Except for the “boom-booms”.  The boom-booms began at midnight and lasted for about 30 minutes.

As expected, they spooked Kali and made her uneasy.  The firecrackers and other means of “ringing” in the new year make Kali very skittish.   She experienced the same thing this past July 4th.  After last night I know I’ll need to get something (hopefully something natural) that I can use to  proactively help her stay calm during periods of foolish (see, what a Scrooge I am!) celebration and also during the occasional thunderstorm (which will occur more regularly later this year but more on that in a future post).

Kali and I began our day like most others: rising relatively early, breakfast for Kali, coffee and the sports section for me, and so on from there.  I have to admit that as much as I dislike New Years Eve I have always really liked News Year Day.  Part of the reason is that New Years Eve is over with and the other part is that during the morning much of the neighborhood and town is asleep from to much ringing, singing, and auld lang syne-ing the night before.

Like almost every other morning, Kali and I walked along our creek trail out to the pond and back along the fairways of hole number four and five of the recently closed golf course.  It was just another morning except the world was just a little more quiet than usual because of the aforementioned sleeping singers, ringers, and syners.

So 2016 begins just as 2015 began and ended:  by waking up next to my bride of 33 years whom I remain desperatly in love with, by thinking about my kids spread around the globe that I am so proud of, and with a dog by my side waiting patiently for me to get up so that we can get on with our routine and enjoy this, which is just another day.

Just another day at the pond…. (1/1/16)