2006: Let's Get This Party Started!

Happy New Year, everyone!

I rang in 2006 with great friends, wearing feather tiara's and popping streamers and dancing around the dining room. Before the hooting and hollering died down, there was a cake with a match in it, and everyone was singing happy birthday. To me! A surprise, an early celebration, as one of us has to hit the road tomorrow for a business trip (Vegas, yeah, right, business), and didn't want to miss out on any b-day fanfare. (I'm not telling you when it is.)

That was the beginning of my busy day. I slept some, had a little lunch and shopping with Mom, and then joined Ilaiy to help him prepare for his Vegas trip. That means, primarily, that I was bequeathed all of the fantastic home-cooked Indian food that won't survive his 2-week absence. In exchange for cilantro chicken and goan fish, like Mama used to make, I helped shop for sundries, and harped about what all he should not forget to pack. Look, I will nag for food!

I just have to share the Amusing Encounter Du Jour, then:

While erranding, we ducked into a sparsely-populated Walgreens to buy a camera battery. I don't know which music was being piped in, but it had a good fun beat to it, and on the way up to the check out, which was empty except for a bored-looking young man standing at the register, we started dancing.

We sashayed up to the counter, and continued to dance around. The clerk got a slow smile on his face, put down the plastic bag he was opening for us, and joined right in, dancing and shakin' it behind the counter. He started laughing, and said, "oh, you guys makin' me feel so dance-ful!"

A laugh and a dance! I can't think of a better way to start and finish the first day of this new year.

I wish you all a Danceful 2006.