Into the New Year

Having spent my Christmas Eve and day evenings watching the Star Wars trilogies late into the morning, I've been paying the price with a wicked cold this past week, and so I haven't been inclined to write much.

That doesn't mean I've gotten to miss out entirely on New Year's festivities. I was out last night working and planned on going home afterwards, but since I didn't finish until 11 anyway, I figured I would stick around for the Kennedy Center's year's-end shindig.

It was fine for what it was. The food and drink that was at least a dollar too expensive, but given the $100+ price tags on other parties in the area, I'm not going to complain. On either of the Grand Foyer's side stages were classical players providing background music.

No one started a 10-second countdown before the great changeover, though the entire gathering did spend the last few minutes of 2010 building itself into a cacophony of noisemakers the likes of which no one will ever hear at the Kennedy Center any other time of the year. As we entered 2011 hundreds/thousands of balloons were dropped from the ceiling. The noise of their popping, magnified by the Foyer's acoustics, sounded much like fireworks, but without the gaudiness and smoke.

That was all I needed, along with lots of sleep. I'm still working on the sleep.

[Edited for detail]