2022 Life Logs, Day 01: Happy New Year on the Eighth Day of Christmas
Date: Saturday, January 1, 2022
Weather: Overcast, Dreary, but Warm; High Temp 53, Low Temp 44 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Here’s wishing you and yours a Healthy and Happy 2022. I brought in the New Year with Olga and her daughter, and we then continued to talk until after 1 pm. It’s been many, many years since I have been out after midnight on New Year’s Eve, but we popped the cork on a bottle of Prosecco at midnight and I stayed a little longer to toast the New Year.
My father’s words always haunt me on New Year’s Day. He said that you will live the rest of the year the way you do on New Year’s Day. Well, I guess I’m going to stay up late, sleep until 10 am, do something for others, cook for hours, and then enjoy a dinner with family. At least that is what I did do today. Once I got home last night, Shadow and I stayed up until 2:30 and slept in until 10. Then I headed to Heather’s to do the animal chores. I was delighted that the kittens had not been able to breech my most recent ‘fort’ around the hydroponic grow system. I fed the kittens, cleaned Zuzu’s cage, and headed home to walk with Shadow. Then I started cooking a traditional New Year’s Day dinner for Heather and family when they returned from Maine this evening. Heather and I had a bit of back and forth communication about the state of their health. Jed, Sam, and Ollie got colds while in Maine and she wasn’t sure they should come over for dinner. Jed has tested negative for Covid and their symptoms are all those of just a nasty cold. So, I made the decision to have them come. There were no hugs or kisses and lots of hand washing. Now I’ll just hope I don’t get this thing. But it was worth the risk to me. I really wanted to spend New Year’s Day with my family.
Yesterday I received a Happy New Year’s message from friend Olivia. She sent a message to everyone in our dining-in group reminding us to make sure we had black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day for good luck in the new year. I always have sauerkraut with a dime hidden in it, a German tradition, but I was not aware of the black-eyed pea good luck charm. I researched it online and found that it is southern tradition that started with Black slaves. Black-eyed peas originated in West Africa. Black-eyed peas were also a part of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. I decided that I had to add that to my New Year’s Day repertoire. I served pork roast and sauerkraut (Heather got the dime this year.), Hoppin’ John which is a slightly spicey black-eyed pea dish, cooked kale instead of collard greens, and Ina Garten’s cheesy corn bread. Plus Olivia stopped by to drop off a bit of her curried black-eyed peas, a mix of her Indian heritage and the time she lived down south in Texas. And we finally got to pop Christmas crackers that were missing at our Christmas Day dinner. Life is good.
Despite getting colds, Heather and family had a good time in Maine and had two and half days on the slopes. We all agreed that this has been a wonderful holiday despite the rainy, sometimes dreary weather. It was overcast again today and warm. But colder weather is on the way.
