I am tidying up the debris left behind by a whirlwind visit from my daughter and her family – SO sad to bid my young grandchildren farewell this morning not knowing when we will see them again! Good wishes for a hope filled year to come.
So nice you got a small visit with your family. We are in lockdown for a month now with no visiting outside your immediate household, as COVID stats are skyrocketing. Wishing you a Happy New Year! I’m thinking positive that this year will be much better.
Happy New Year Joni – I am writing this comment to tell you to reserve “Mad Men” … I decided to watch two more episodes yesterday, then catch up in WP … however, I got so engrossed in the story that i watched the rest of the season (5 episodes). I need to go thru some photos this morning as I’m not even going out in this black ice … not even to run the car as it looks treacherous out. Then here to catch up and write my Monday post. I now understand why binge watching is so popular. I finished the final episode and wanted to go right into season #2 … I have not felt like that about TV in 15 years+ if not longer when my mom/I had all our favorite dramas and Special Victims Unit/Law and Order series we never missed and still rented movies. I’m off to do photos … I still have a messy house and will have to figure out next week how to incorporate a few episodes of “Mad Men”, blogging, hopefully walking AND housework into my weekend schedule. I can’t watch TV during the week … I’ll never catch up/keep up in WordPress. Feel free to delete this when you are back online.l
That’s exactly my fear with binge-watching…..it’s too convenient to have all those episodes so readily available. Mom and I are watching an older PBS series called Foyle’s War – a detective series set in England in WW2 – and we watched two episodes yesterday on New Years after supper, but the episodes are 100 minutes each – so that was from 6-9:30! It’s an okay show, but I don’t know if I want to see all nine seasons? I wish I could just set up Netflix for her place, but she doesn’t have internet and wouldn’t use it on her own as she doesn’t use the DVD on her own now as you have to flip back and forth between cable and DVD with two different remotes with small buttons. Mostly she just watches the same tv channels…..and paints. Cheapest internet here is $90/month. We started a jigsaw puzzle yesterday – someone had gifted her a puzzle with one of her paintings on it. There’s a website where you can upload a photo and they will make a puzzle out of it. I hadn’t worked on a puzzle in years and it was kind of fun. Along with WP, reading and blogging, and the art course, I’m not sure how to fit it all in. Plus I want to get back to my other writing project next week- the one I abandoned last May and see if I can finish it which will take a month or so….then my house needs cleaning and dusting and mom wants her closets cleaned out and there’s the whole stack of books waiting for bedtime reading.
Well I am here and going to Reader first as coming to the Comments section has been going into a deep dark hole and never emerging for hours! So I am going backward, but I am three days behind in Reader and feel badly. Those are long episodes for the detective series … these Mad Men episodes it says are around 43.00 minutes but I think that includes the commercials. I have become so engrossed in watching that I swear I lose track of time. Today I didn’t go out at all because I wanted to sort thru some photos … these were just the photos taken the last 2-3 weeks at the Park and did one set of photos from a trip in early December. I still have some more treks to go thru but it was getting late. We had icy conditions and could have gone out to run the car, but decided to stay inside and get the photos done, now here. Yours is the only message I’m answering and one I see about When Harry Met Sally. My mom loved jigsaw puzzles and did them all the time, plus was an avid reader – that is why there are books downstairs that she finished and I never got to and when we got a book from the library, we reserved them back-to-back. She would get done with hers sooner and I had more time to read them. The TV viewing will make it impossible to read too … it will become an “either/or” but while I have Amazon and will likely continue it since if I had cable I’d have to pay for it, so will continue for at least another year when it expires in the Fall. There are puzzles under my mom’s bed … lots under the bed and some downstairs, all which I figured I could do when retired … when the heck do I think I’m going to get everything done? I bought my mom some puzzles from a few puzzle sites online and they will be fun, but difficult. Most are 1,000 pieces. I know one thing – like you, I will not be bored when retired. But I keep saying “I’ll do this or that when I’m retired” … I must think I have endless hours. Well, no work-work to deal with but still … it does not sound like you have alot of spare time. I will write my post for Monday and Wordless Wednesday tomorrow … no more than 2X a week. Don’t know whether I’ll say anything – I think not. I told a few people I was cutting down as it’s become too much to keep up. I hope I can get caught up before I go to bed tonight.
Don’t feel bad re being behind….I’m 3 days behind in Reader too, but am going to finish a book tonight instead. Today we watched Rebecca – the PBS Masterpiece 2 part series but it was 3hrs – I had read it in high school but couldn’t remember the plot – and another Foyle’s war and that was 5 hours of TV! Got nothing else done.
Ha ha – I caught up on Christmas night and one other night, behind again. I went and watched two more episodes yesterday, wrote a long post for today, then read Comments. [Just thought of you – went to catch up on news on Twitter and this is the reasoning behind the pharmacist leaving the vaccine out of cold storage: “A Wisconsin pharmacist told police he tried to ruin hundreds of doses of coronavirus vaccine because he believed the shots would mutate people’s DNA.”] [Also, I’ve been following the news about how the FDA thinks cutting the dose of the vaccine in half for 18-55 year olds would give extra vaccine, get it administered more quickly. Not liking that – either does an infectious disease specialists, who fears that people may get their one shot, but not the follow-up shot due to lack of vaccine available. Quite honestly, the way the whole vaccine rollout is being handled over here, even with #1 and #2 vaccines in my arm, I will not feel safe – sometimes they seem to indicate that that the AstraZeneca vaccine may be a tad short in efficacy and I can only hope they are not in such a rush to produce, they cut corners. I don’t see me feeling confident and taking precautions like I always have done in Winter flu season.] [Trump whines that Dr. Fauci gets more quality media time than he does re: the vaccine.] I have no more words and it is only the 4th day of the New Year.]
That pharmacist must be a crackpot?! I don’t like the cutting the dose in half either. The data studied was 2 full doses, so they should go with the data. If you cut it in half and don’t achieve immunity, those people will think they are protected when they’re not, and may get sick and spread it, adding to the problem. The Astra-Zeneca one did not have as high an efficacy rate as the other two, but is cheaper to produce and does not require freezing. I think the main problem for the slow rollout is not enough people to give the needles, not lack of production. It’s the same here – it’s sitting waiting in storage for distribution. A big company like these would not rush out inferior product.
That’s good to know they would not rush out inferior product – I worried about that, but don’t like the idea of the half-doses, although it does not affect us, just 18-55 year-olds. I will not feel safe no matter how they roll out the vaccines … I think there will be issues and slip-ups to be honest … I will take precautions like now. The infectious disease doctor, like you, was adamant that the vaccine be given in the manner intended, not 1/2 dose or just 1 dose.
I guess I won’t get to Reader tonight either….I think I’m 4 or 5 days behind now….I hope not too many people posted over New Years…..will try and get caught up tomorrow, and may gmail you if I can find the COVID article.
Thanks – I am not going to make it there either, nor finish up in Comments. So much for my NY’s resolution of going to bed at 10:00 nightly. I found more people posted for New Year’s than Christmas. Good luck!
PS. I forgot to say Happy New Year to you too! We watched When Harry Met Sally on NYEve….it’s really dated but I like to watch the 80’s fashions and hairstyles – clothes were so much more stylish then. Such an unsuited couple – they should do a sequel 30 years later! No walking here today either, other than to the mail box for bills – the street still looks icey although there should be sun later.
Thank you Joni – did you enjoy the plum pudding? We rented that movie and liked it. They should do a sequel – it would be fun. Yes, the clothes – wasn’t that the era of the big shoulder pads? That one style comes to mind right off the bat. In watching “Mad Men” I see the styles and watching the main character’s wife, always dressed in stylish flared shirtwaist dress, or a sundress, or capris and a top … but even with a heat wave and no A/C, looking perky. Going out in a nice coat, dress gloves, nice scarf at the neck … I miss those days. I doubt I will be back at the Park til Tuesday – we are supposed to have snow tomorrow afternoon again, and even if it doesn’t happen, I’m sure the streets will not be plowed in the neighborhood. We had freezing rain for hours yesterday. Now, I am off to Reader … starting I think at 12/30.
Plum Pudding was okay, but I made my own sauce, not the one that came with it which was some white sweet icing stuff in a bag. We got off lucky with some snow which has mostly melted although I counted 5 snowmen on my walk today!
I remember you said you did that. We had a friend of the family used to come for dinner every Tuesday for a while. He would bring treats though my mom said it was not necessary. He always brought plum pudding around the holidays, or chocolates. He was Australian – don’t know if that was an Aussie thing like a Brit thing to enjoy at the holidays.
[Now I am here to read and comment … still three days behind.] I like the bells and the big dish awaiting popcorn to go with a movie and some sparkling apple cranberry cider too. This is the first year I did not toast the new year with eggnog. I always get a quart of the custard-style, just plain, not spiked, to divide between Christmas Eve, Christmas and New Year’s Eve, (the latter to polish off along with the end of the Christmas cookies). So New Year’s Eve was a little off like everything else. I have never heard that song by the Carpenters and I always liked them, especially Karen’s sweet voice on all the Christmas songs. No one holds a candle to that voice … certainly not Mariah Carey’s song which gets so many accolades, which I find loud and screamy.
The bells are just plastic ones from the dollar store so I don’t mind if they hang outdoors and sometimes fall off but the poor birds try and peck at the fake berries thinking they’re real! The big popcorn bowl was a thrift store find last year $4 – I bought it as I remembered gifting the exact same bowl to a colleague for a wedding shower years ago. I filled it with boxes of popcorn and a bottle of champagne. I think I paid $20 for it at the time. Sometimes I go thrifting for blue and white dishes. I loved Karen’s voice and have a few of her Christmas songs on my playlist. Mariah Carey was on the New Years Eve Times Square show, hanging out of her dress as usual!
Well, they looked great Joni – very festive. I need to do something in and out of the house for Christmas next year – people are into stealing nice decorations or punching holes in inflatables and people were buying some type of revolving wheel which gave a lightshow that looked like tiny stars a few years ago. People swiped them as well. I had a wreath on the door – that was it. The popcorn bowl made for a great pic in the blog post. I heard on the news that Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas …” song was just as popular now as when it first came out – I dislike it as much now as when it first came out! She’s a little long in the tooth to be dressing like that (not that I think it is nice for younger either). She’s pretty impressed with her looks!
From the look of it you had a wonderful New Year’s Eve. I especially am taken with the sparkling apple cranberry cider. We did zero in the way of celebrating the occasion. Just watched some TV [Dr. Who] and went to bed early. Such boring old people, are we!
I watched When Harry Met Sally which always seems to be on NYEve….a horribly dated movie….they were so unsuited for each other they should make a sequel to see if it lasted? However I did enjoy the 80’s clothes and hairstyles…clothes were much more stylish back then.
I think they show it every NYEve as there are a couple of NYears party scenes in it. They were totally unsuited, argued all the time about everything including small things, had no values in common (he saw nothing wrong with sleeping with a date he disliked and was never going to see again) and he said you could never be friends with a woman. Her fussy little quirks like ordering in a restaurant annoyed and irritated him. Then she’s 32 and gorgeous and worried about being 40 and unmarried? I should blog about this sometime….speculate about how it really turned out. I guess those were different times. It’s like watching Casablanca, a movie I generally like, except for the line where Elsa says “Rick you decide…..”
I agree with you that they were a bad match. I’d forgotten about him, but remember vividly her fussiness. I haven’t seen Casablanca in a long time and am sure I’d feel differently about it as a wise older woman than I did as a younger romantic one.
New Year’s Eve was wonderfully quiet, with Marianne and I watching old holiday movies on TCM, noshing on snacks and sharing a bottle of Asti Spumanti. And to bed before midnight!
thehomeplaceweb 
💗💗💗happy new year!
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Happy New Year LA! I guess you won’t be celebrating in Times Square!
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No. My living room….😉
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How much more wonderful music from Karen Carpenter would we have if she were still around today? What a voice…
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I always liked her Christmas songs too…..such pure and powerful voice.
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Love the Carpenters. Happy new year.
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Happy New Year Kim!
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I am tidying up the debris left behind by a whirlwind visit from my daughter and her family – SO sad to bid my young grandchildren farewell this morning not knowing when we will see them again! Good wishes for a hope filled year to come.
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So nice you got a small visit with your family. We are in lockdown for a month now with no visiting outside your immediate household, as COVID stats are skyrocketing. Wishing you a Happy New Year! I’m thinking positive that this year will be much better.
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Happy New Year Joni – I am writing this comment to tell you to reserve “Mad Men” … I decided to watch two more episodes yesterday, then catch up in WP … however, I got so engrossed in the story that i watched the rest of the season (5 episodes). I need to go thru some photos this morning as I’m not even going out in this black ice … not even to run the car as it looks treacherous out. Then here to catch up and write my Monday post. I now understand why binge watching is so popular. I finished the final episode and wanted to go right into season #2 … I have not felt like that about TV in 15 years+ if not longer when my mom/I had all our favorite dramas and Special Victims Unit/Law and Order series we never missed and still rented movies. I’m off to do photos … I still have a messy house and will have to figure out next week how to incorporate a few episodes of “Mad Men”, blogging, hopefully walking AND housework into my weekend schedule. I can’t watch TV during the week … I’ll never catch up/keep up in WordPress. Feel free to delete this when you are back online.l
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That’s exactly my fear with binge-watching…..it’s too convenient to have all those episodes so readily available. Mom and I are watching an older PBS series called Foyle’s War – a detective series set in England in WW2 – and we watched two episodes yesterday on New Years after supper, but the episodes are 100 minutes each – so that was from 6-9:30! It’s an okay show, but I don’t know if I want to see all nine seasons? I wish I could just set up Netflix for her place, but she doesn’t have internet and wouldn’t use it on her own as she doesn’t use the DVD on her own now as you have to flip back and forth between cable and DVD with two different remotes with small buttons. Mostly she just watches the same tv channels…..and paints. Cheapest internet here is $90/month. We started a jigsaw puzzle yesterday – someone had gifted her a puzzle with one of her paintings on it. There’s a website where you can upload a photo and they will make a puzzle out of it. I hadn’t worked on a puzzle in years and it was kind of fun. Along with WP, reading and blogging, and the art course, I’m not sure how to fit it all in. Plus I want to get back to my other writing project next week- the one I abandoned last May and see if I can finish it which will take a month or so….then my house needs cleaning and dusting and mom wants her closets cleaned out and there’s the whole stack of books waiting for bedtime reading.
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Well I am here and going to Reader first as coming to the Comments section has been going into a deep dark hole and never emerging for hours! So I am going backward, but I am three days behind in Reader and feel badly. Those are long episodes for the detective series … these Mad Men episodes it says are around 43.00 minutes but I think that includes the commercials. I have become so engrossed in watching that I swear I lose track of time. Today I didn’t go out at all because I wanted to sort thru some photos … these were just the photos taken the last 2-3 weeks at the Park and did one set of photos from a trip in early December. I still have some more treks to go thru but it was getting late. We had icy conditions and could have gone out to run the car, but decided to stay inside and get the photos done, now here. Yours is the only message I’m answering and one I see about When Harry Met Sally. My mom loved jigsaw puzzles and did them all the time, plus was an avid reader – that is why there are books downstairs that she finished and I never got to and when we got a book from the library, we reserved them back-to-back. She would get done with hers sooner and I had more time to read them. The TV viewing will make it impossible to read too … it will become an “either/or” but while I have Amazon and will likely continue it since if I had cable I’d have to pay for it, so will continue for at least another year when it expires in the Fall. There are puzzles under my mom’s bed … lots under the bed and some downstairs, all which I figured I could do when retired … when the heck do I think I’m going to get everything done? I bought my mom some puzzles from a few puzzle sites online and they will be fun, but difficult. Most are 1,000 pieces. I know one thing – like you, I will not be bored when retired. But I keep saying “I’ll do this or that when I’m retired” … I must think I have endless hours. Well, no work-work to deal with but still … it does not sound like you have alot of spare time. I will write my post for Monday and Wordless Wednesday tomorrow … no more than 2X a week. Don’t know whether I’ll say anything – I think not. I told a few people I was cutting down as it’s become too much to keep up. I hope I can get caught up before I go to bed tonight.
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Don’t feel bad re being behind….I’m 3 days behind in Reader too, but am going to finish a book tonight instead. Today we watched Rebecca – the PBS Masterpiece 2 part series but it was 3hrs – I had read it in high school but couldn’t remember the plot – and another Foyle’s war and that was 5 hours of TV! Got nothing else done.
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Ha ha – I caught up on Christmas night and one other night, behind again. I went and watched two more episodes yesterday, wrote a long post for today, then read Comments. [Just thought of you – went to catch up on news on Twitter and this is the reasoning behind the pharmacist leaving the vaccine out of cold storage: “A Wisconsin pharmacist told police he tried to ruin hundreds of doses of coronavirus vaccine because he believed the shots would mutate people’s DNA.”] [Also, I’ve been following the news about how the FDA thinks cutting the dose of the vaccine in half for 18-55 year olds would give extra vaccine, get it administered more quickly. Not liking that – either does an infectious disease specialists, who fears that people may get their one shot, but not the follow-up shot due to lack of vaccine available. Quite honestly, the way the whole vaccine rollout is being handled over here, even with #1 and #2 vaccines in my arm, I will not feel safe – sometimes they seem to indicate that that the AstraZeneca vaccine may be a tad short in efficacy and I can only hope they are not in such a rush to produce, they cut corners. I don’t see me feeling confident and taking precautions like I always have done in Winter flu season.] [Trump whines that Dr. Fauci gets more quality media time than he does re: the vaccine.] I have no more words and it is only the 4th day of the New Year.]
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That pharmacist must be a crackpot?! I don’t like the cutting the dose in half either. The data studied was 2 full doses, so they should go with the data. If you cut it in half and don’t achieve immunity, those people will think they are protected when they’re not, and may get sick and spread it, adding to the problem. The Astra-Zeneca one did not have as high an efficacy rate as the other two, but is cheaper to produce and does not require freezing. I think the main problem for the slow rollout is not enough people to give the needles, not lack of production. It’s the same here – it’s sitting waiting in storage for distribution. A big company like these would not rush out inferior product.
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That’s good to know they would not rush out inferior product – I worried about that, but don’t like the idea of the half-doses, although it does not affect us, just 18-55 year-olds. I will not feel safe no matter how they roll out the vaccines … I think there will be issues and slip-ups to be honest … I will take precautions like now. The infectious disease doctor, like you, was adamant that the vaccine be given in the manner intended, not 1/2 dose or just 1 dose.
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I guess I won’t get to Reader tonight either….I think I’m 4 or 5 days behind now….I hope not too many people posted over New Years…..will try and get caught up tomorrow, and may gmail you if I can find the COVID article.
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Thanks – I am not going to make it there either, nor finish up in Comments. So much for my NY’s resolution of going to bed at 10:00 nightly. I found more people posted for New Year’s than Christmas. Good luck!
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PS. I forgot to say Happy New Year to you too! We watched When Harry Met Sally on NYEve….it’s really dated but I like to watch the 80’s fashions and hairstyles – clothes were so much more stylish then. Such an unsuited couple – they should do a sequel 30 years later! No walking here today either, other than to the mail box for bills – the street still looks icey although there should be sun later.
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Thank you Joni – did you enjoy the plum pudding? We rented that movie and liked it. They should do a sequel – it would be fun. Yes, the clothes – wasn’t that the era of the big shoulder pads? That one style comes to mind right off the bat. In watching “Mad Men” I see the styles and watching the main character’s wife, always dressed in stylish flared shirtwaist dress, or a sundress, or capris and a top … but even with a heat wave and no A/C, looking perky. Going out in a nice coat, dress gloves, nice scarf at the neck … I miss those days. I doubt I will be back at the Park til Tuesday – we are supposed to have snow tomorrow afternoon again, and even if it doesn’t happen, I’m sure the streets will not be plowed in the neighborhood. We had freezing rain for hours yesterday. Now, I am off to Reader … starting I think at 12/30.
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Plum Pudding was okay, but I made my own sauce, not the one that came with it which was some white sweet icing stuff in a bag. We got off lucky with some snow which has mostly melted although I counted 5 snowmen on my walk today!
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I remember you said you did that. We had a friend of the family used to come for dinner every Tuesday for a while. He would bring treats though my mom said it was not necessary. He always brought plum pudding around the holidays, or chocolates. He was Australian – don’t know if that was an Aussie thing like a Brit thing to enjoy at the holidays.
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[Now I am here to read and comment … still three days behind.] I like the bells and the big dish awaiting popcorn to go with a movie and some sparkling apple cranberry cider too. This is the first year I did not toast the new year with eggnog. I always get a quart of the custard-style, just plain, not spiked, to divide between Christmas Eve, Christmas and New Year’s Eve, (the latter to polish off along with the end of the Christmas cookies). So New Year’s Eve was a little off like everything else. I have never heard that song by the Carpenters and I always liked them, especially Karen’s sweet voice on all the Christmas songs. No one holds a candle to that voice … certainly not Mariah Carey’s song which gets so many accolades, which I find loud and screamy.
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The bells are just plastic ones from the dollar store so I don’t mind if they hang outdoors and sometimes fall off but the poor birds try and peck at the fake berries thinking they’re real! The big popcorn bowl was a thrift store find last year $4 – I bought it as I remembered gifting the exact same bowl to a colleague for a wedding shower years ago. I filled it with boxes of popcorn and a bottle of champagne. I think I paid $20 for it at the time. Sometimes I go thrifting for blue and white dishes. I loved Karen’s voice and have a few of her Christmas songs on my playlist. Mariah Carey was on the New Years Eve Times Square show, hanging out of her dress as usual!
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Well, they looked great Joni – very festive. I need to do something in and out of the house for Christmas next year – people are into stealing nice decorations or punching holes in inflatables and people were buying some type of revolving wheel which gave a lightshow that looked like tiny stars a few years ago. People swiped them as well. I had a wreath on the door – that was it. The popcorn bowl made for a great pic in the blog post. I heard on the news that Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas …” song was just as popular now as when it first came out – I dislike it as much now as when it first came out! She’s a little long in the tooth to be dressing like that (not that I think it is nice for younger either). She’s pretty impressed with her looks!
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Clever post, Happy New Year Joni!
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Thanks Diane! Same to you!
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From the look of it you had a wonderful New Year’s Eve. I especially am taken with the sparkling apple cranberry cider. We did zero in the way of celebrating the occasion. Just watched some TV [Dr. Who] and went to bed early. Such boring old people, are we!
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I watched When Harry Met Sally which always seems to be on NYEve….a horribly dated movie….they were so unsuited for each other they should make a sequel to see if it lasted? However I did enjoy the 80’s clothes and hairstyles…clothes were much more stylish back then.
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I haven’t seen that movie in years! Loved it when it came out, but I’m sure you’re right that now I’d roll my eyes at some of it.
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I think they show it every NYEve as there are a couple of NYears party scenes in it. They were totally unsuited, argued all the time about everything including small things, had no values in common (he saw nothing wrong with sleeping with a date he disliked and was never going to see again) and he said you could never be friends with a woman. Her fussy little quirks like ordering in a restaurant annoyed and irritated him. Then she’s 32 and gorgeous and worried about being 40 and unmarried? I should blog about this sometime….speculate about how it really turned out. I guess those were different times. It’s like watching Casablanca, a movie I generally like, except for the line where Elsa says “Rick you decide…..”
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I agree with you that they were a bad match. I’d forgotten about him, but remember vividly her fussiness. I haven’t seen Casablanca in a long time and am sure I’d feel differently about it as a wise older woman than I did as a younger romantic one.
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New Year’s Eve was wonderfully quiet, with Marianne and I watching old holiday movies on TCM, noshing on snacks and sharing a bottle of Asti Spumanti. And to bed before midnight!
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When Harry Met Sally – because it’s always on NYEve – but it’s so out-dated. But Asti Spumanti! That is an oldie but goodie.
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