Fun, Sexy New Year

Hi, all!

I've been spending a lot of time with my new bestie, the Amazon Kindle, so I feel like I've been neglecting the Internets. Good thing for my intellect, bad for the blog. I did want to write a post to wish you all a healthy, happy New Year. You can start by detoxing with Gwyneth. But remember:

If your bowel movements get sluggish, you can accelerate things by drinking half a cup of castor oil or using a mild herbal laxative. Bowel elimination is paramount for correct detoxification.

That's more information than I need to have about a former Oscar winner.

I also wanted to tell you about the amazing thing that happened to me on New Year's Eve. I. Had. Fun.

I am a big Scrooge McDuck about any holiday whose sole purpose is to give amateurs the excuse to drink copiously or hit unsuspecting victims with shaving cream and eggs or to nearly set my garage on fire with their illegal fireworks. My top 5 most despised holidays are New Year's Eve, Halloween, St. Patrick's Day, 4th of July, and frakkin' Pulaski Day. If I lived anywhere else, I'd probably include Fat Tuesday in the list, but here in Chicago we care more about consuming lethal doses of paczkis than lethal does of alcohol on that particular day. And who doesn't like doughnuts?

This New Year's Eve, I had the best excuse to stay in -- the infant. The husband and I decided we were going to stay in and order a Lobstergram. We were not going to actively pursue merriment outside the confines of our home. Word got out about this, and a few of our friends thought it sounded like fun and we invited them over. We decided instead of ordering Lobsters, we'd go to that great seafood haven, Costco, and see what we could find.

I stayed at home while the shopping occurred. If they came home with nothing, at least I'd have asparagus and molton chocolate cake for them to eat. If the cake didn't turn out, I'd have ice cream. At around five o'clock, my sister-in-law showed up at my door with boxes of food -- frozen seafood appetizers, shrimp, scallops, crab legs, and beef tenderloin. Thus we started our Iron Chef kamakaze cooking. Everyone helped out with the food. I was most impressed with my brother's garlic shrimp. The whole cooking process took us to about 7:00. We ate, then played Celebrities (lots of Chicago politicians included in the mix). After that, it was about 11:00. We watched two local news personalities flirt their way, inappropriately, into the New Year. Then we had some champagne, sent some gratuitous text messages, and settled in for some Karaoke Revolution.

The evening was fun, exciting (the secret ingredient is -- surf and turf!), and spent with good friends (and the cake was delicious, if I do say so myself).

Here's to an equally fun and exciting New Year for all y'all!