Just Another Auld Lang Syne

I have to say, I am a wee bit disappointed.

It's New Year's Eve and my hubby and I are staying in. The kids asleep in their beds with visions of noisemakers and 2009 glasses in their heads. And I am okay with that.

At 9pm we flip on the TV to see the New Yorker's enjoying their countdown and give a perfunctory kiss to each other as a nod to the "us that used to live in the eastern time zone". The ball drops, the confetti falls, the cold revelers in their Nivea Hats (I guess GM couldn't afford to pass out hats this year?) fall into each others' arms singing Auld Lang Syne. Very nice, but it's only 9pm for us, so we settle in for a nice evening together.

Michael makes the coffee. I make some chicken soup. I have been sick ALL DAY and am glad I don't have to show up at any kind of party. We put on a good movie (we got Netflix!) and snuggled up in bed together.

The movie was good, but even so, Michael has trouble staying awake past 10:30 even with coffee, and I, who normally stays up late, am now feeling seasick and on the verge of comatose. The movie ends at about quarter till New Year, so we flip over to the TV channels trying to figure out where best to get our countdown. And channel after channel is "Carson Daly in NEW YORK!" or "Dick Clark's Rockin' Who-Ha Live from NEW YORK!" or "Bill and Hillary smoochin' at midnight Live from NEW YORK!"

I mean, come on, People! We are California! We have HOLLYWOOD! Can we not lead our own countdown? Can we not celebrate with people who are still awake??

Finally, we find some lame local San Diego channel that is broadcasting live from the Mirage Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, where Evel's son Robbie Knievel is preparing to jump his motorcycle over the fake volcano in their front yard. Okay, so we decided to get cool with this as they were in the Pacific time zone, and because they were broadcasting computer created images of all the ways this could go horribly wrong.

We would celebrate with the Las Vegans.

But then, at 30 seconds left to go, the announcer in his spiffy rented tux announces that we are sending it over to Eddie in NEW YORK who will take us into the countdown!! Cut to three hours earlier where Eddie is being told to record this moment like the guy in Las Vegas just passed the feed over to him a moment ago. He thanks Las Vegas Announcer Guy and shows us the ball dropping and we see the ocean of Nivea hats and the same Auld Lang Syne plays as Bill kisses Hillary like they were in the side hall of the Oval Office! Geeeez!!!

Okay, so we don't have a lit up LED ball, and we don't have a Times Square. But we are California! Its actually WARM at midnight!! Can we not gather a few thousand folks, have a good party, and do our own freakin' countdown at midnight? Was there nothing worth broadcasting in all of this vast state? Do they not realize that we have seen this midnight moment three times tonight already?

We gave each other our true New Year's Eve kisses. We were there for each other.

And then Robbie Knievel does his jump over the fiberglass volcano and lands with a perfect flourish, not even giving us the satisfaction of one of the catastrophic scenarios laid out earlier in the program.

And then we turn off the lights, and roll over and go to sleep.