So, what'd ya do for New Year's, Kathy?

Well, I didn't sit around in Baldwin and go to bed at 1am...that's for sure. I was invited to a BIG party in Albany thrown by Carolyn (She Who Lived Across the Street From Joslyn). So, I packed my bags, called a hotel, tossed Dan in my car and we drove off to Albany with a cell phone, a map, and directions. Bad directions, as it turns out...it took a LONG time to get there. But we did get there.

Sounds like we packed light, right? I didn't mention my old prom dress, his suit, four pounds of makeup, and a lot of other stuff. Y'see it was a fancy party...with masks and nice clothes. Joslyn borrowed my blue prom dress...the one from my prom. Other than being a little snug at first, it fit her very well. That's a little suprising because if you stand Joslyn and I beside each other she's Barbie and I'm Skipper, Barbie's underdeveloped 12-year-old sister. Once my mother let out the few inches she had taken the dress in for me, it fit Jos perfectly. I wore the white one from another prom I went to when I was 15, which fit better than I had when I was 15 since I've put on almost 30 pounds since then. We made our masks at Joslyn's house about a week before the party. I brought some red glittery hair gel and we put that in Dan's goatee. I went nuts with blue eye makeup and it actually looked pretty cool.

Me: Hey Dan, does this eye makeup look dumb?
Him: Not yet...keep trying.

All put together, we looked HOT.

Before we left for the party we turned on the TV and watched the "ball drop" in England. All went well over there and Dan and I decided that since Britain hadn't been returned to the stone age, the USA would come out fine too. Then we were prepared to party.

So this pic has everyone but me...from bottom left clockwise: Dan, Brian, Kevin, Jos, Ray, and Sandra. Well, that's not EVERYONE, but that's most of the people I've mentioned in this journal. My crowd. Everyone got all dressed up, and we all danced and drank and had a generally great time. There was plenty to drink, and not quite enough to eat, but we managed just fine. Dan and I were hungry but not too hungry since we'd eaten before coming. I think it was a very good plan, since everyone else was practically eating the wallpaper. Dan asked me to mix him a drink at one point. When I asked what he wanted he said "Surprise me". Bad idea. I have no intuitive drink mixing skills. I can follow a recipe well, but don't ask me to "Surprise" you.

Boy, was he surprised. But he got pretty drunk off it. The drink was almost all vodka...with a dash of OJ and some other poorly thought out ingredients.

Here's Dan and I after that drink. I touched up the picture a little but he was RED. He's a cute drunk, isn't he? Check out the ears...that's what happens when he gets drunk. Aw...making fishy faces...

Okay, I'll stop. You get a good look at my crazy eye makeup there though. By that point I think the red stuff in Dan's beard was all over me and anyone else he touched. While it did look cool at the beginning of the night, I think it was messier than either of us expected it to be. Acceptable risk? Sure, maybe on my six year old prom dress, but on his suit? Right...

But I think most of the red stuff was on me, not my dress or his suit, so no big deal anyway. I don't require dry cleaning. ;)

And there we all are at the end of the night, with our champagne slushies...someone put the champagne in the freezer and didn't realize it would FREEZE until almost 11, so it was very very cold. It was kind of funny to see Dan pop open the bottle and not have foam pour out. We were curious a few seconds, then a tube of frozen champagne oozed out of the bottle. All together, it was pretty funny...but we really could have done without the champagne I brought.

I know nothing about champagne, but when I went to the store there were two kinds: really cheap and really expensive. I couldn't find a $15 bottle of champagne...so I bought two bottles of $5 champagne. They had little newspaper reviews next to them and I picked a 'very good' $5 champagne.

They should have said "Very good...for $5". It was paint thinner. Yuck. But we passed the bottle around "This is terrible! Try some!" Quite a few people tried it...and agreed.

Dan and I left around 2. We couldn't get a cab so we got a ride from Jos and Kevin. The hotel room was chilly but we washed up and crawled into bed to snuggle some warmth back into ourselves. We whined a little bit about my poor toes getting stomped and my poor nose getting bashed in the car, but after several dozen glasses of water we fell asleep.

Happy New Year everyone! The Y2K Anti-Crisis was fun, wasn't it?