Twenty Eleven

Matt says that saying "Twenty-eleven" instead of "two thousand eleven" sounds more comfortable and familiar, like you are actually living in a time and not imagining it from a distant vantage point. He says that "two thousand eleven" sounds like something people in the 1960's would be saying, with wild surmise.  I told him that I still feel that I am imagining 2011. I expect we'll get better acquainted though, this year and me.

How was your night last night?  We were up in North Carolina, at the mountain house with friends and my mom and dad.  We let the kids stay up until ten.  I love my children and delight in their company, but to me, ringing in the new year is adult time. The bigger kids asked if they could stay up, please please, and we said, "No."

We watched Inglourious Basterds, drank some prosecco, and watched the fireworks set off by some people farther down the mountain.  We know them only as The Two Lawyers, but word reached us via mountain grapevine that they would be setting off a whole mess of fireworks.  Word also reached us that, before returning to their house after Christmas, they had left the heat turned off and their toilets froze and broke. They apparently rallied from this misfortune, as they did shoot off some fireworks that we could see perfectly from my parents' deck.

When I say "mountain grapevine," I mean this old begrizzled guy who rides around on his four wheeler and will come into your house and drink you dry, if you are not very careful.  Dad said, of entertaining this visitor, "I just make no move toward a second drink."

One afternoon while the snow was turning to slush and Mr. Grapevine was inside drinking my dad's whiskey, Mr. Grapevine's dog was outside cavorting around by where the kids were sledding, and Hank slid right into him.  It was a scene.  Hank took the dog's legs clean out from under him, and for a few moments, the dog was sledding on Hank's lap.  Then the dog clambered off, leaving Hank in a state of shock as he finished his ride.  It didn't seem like it had been a serious collision, so naturally every adult in the vicinity started laughing.  It had just looked so ridiculous.

If it were a just and good universe I would have been filming this.

But then Hank began to cry large splashy tears.  I asked him if he was hurt and he said, "It hurts all over my body."  So I think it might have been a solid body blow for both boy and dog.  Both recovered just fine, though Hank's eye was swollen. I think he hit the dog's collar with it.

So that was about it.  We watched the Two Lawyers' fireworks, toasted the good company, finished watching our movie, and wished 2010 well on its way.

Happy New Year! Here's to getting acquainted with the future.