Home is the safest and most comfortable place for me on New Year’s Eve. I’m watching and listening to the New York Philharmonic play “The Nutcracker Suite” on PBS, Live from Lincoln Center. Alice Brown is doped up and hiding under a blanket on DH’s lap. At least she is not trembling from the boom-booms, pops, whistles and crackles of the fireworks that started on Christmas Eve and are building up to a crescendo tonight. Less than a couple more hours until 2011!
Kathryn's bouquet from her garden—yellow lehua, a vanda orchid, and hibiscus
I had a lovely day with three girlfriends who live here in Kaaawa. Dorothy, Kathryn, and I have birthdays around the same time, and Andrea has tried to get us all to celebrate together year after year. We live less than a mile from each other, one would think it would be easy. Not so with our busy lives.
I took a chance today and invited everyone over for lunch, conversation, and a round of board Scrabble. When our kids were young we used to play almost every Sunday at the beach. Well, they made time and came over! Dorothy brought champagne, Andrea brought pomegranate juice, and Kathryn brought her fried chicken, a lovely bouquet of flowers from her garden, and her Angel Cards.
I fixed a salad vinaigrette of Manoa lettuce, watercress, fennel, orange, and dried cranberries; turkey sandwiches, and my favorite lemon cheesecake. We played one game, drank up the champagne, then everybody left to do their New Year’s Eve thing.
Our thing was to spend a gift certificate for dinner at Haleiwa Joe’s with the rest of Miss Marvelous’s family (Mom, Dad, and Tutu) and my first college roommate Becky and her niece Katie, in town from New York. Becky gave me a box of Sparklers.
Alice Brown’s happiness at seeing DH and I arrive home must have temporarily overrode the benefits of the tranquilizer we gave her before we left, for she greeted us jumping up and wagging her tail as usual — so joyful!
I closed the windows, not wanting the smoke from the firecrackers to trigger my asthma. I opened a box of Island Princess Mele Macs and sat down to reflect on the end of the year and a decade. I’m so interested in seeing what we will all create in 2011! The Angel Card I pulled was “expansiveness.” I like that notion.
Well, I think I’ll take my Sparkler’s and champagne down the road and say Happy New Year to the neighbors. They were already burning the money as we drove back from dinner. (A ban on fireworks in the State of Hawaii takes effect on Jan. 2, so a lot of people are taking advantage of the last chance to burn them legally. Firecrackers will be regulated by permit.)
As the clock clicks toward midnight, I wish all of you every happiness, love, light, and gratitude! This is my last post for 2010. I hope you will continue to visit Rebekah’s Studio in the new year. All the same characters will be here, but we’ll have new experiences to share. I’d love to hear from you. ~ Rebekah
Rebekah’s Studio 
Leave a Reply