Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, f-list, lurkers and guests! I hope there have been no major desasters yet and you survived your respective celebrations and hangovers.

Amusingly enough, I had a hangover feeling despite not drinking anything more potent than apple juice, presumably from sleeping on a really soft (read: no support at all) mattress and in a room warmer than I'm accustomed to. More or less on a whim - because our usual New Year's Eve Party Crowd (tm) didn't contact us this year - we followed Jörg's best man's invitation to celebrate with his family. Downside: They live in the Swabian Jura, near Ulm. Four and a half hours of driving. Back in November when we drove to Jena, Felix slept for the entire way; but of course now he is older and needs entertainment and movement more often. We stopped at a motorway lay-by for nursing and a little motion (in the car - the weather was dreadful) where two rats were cheerfully annihilating the remains of earlier picknicks. After much singing (I eventually ran out of nursery rhymes and had to sing LARP songs etc.) he fell asleep again only to wake up when we passed Stuttgart and to grouch for the last hour of the drive. - On our way back we were smarter - we stopped halfway at Jörg's ex-colleague's (and Felix' godmother's) for a late lunch, so Felix had enough time to kick his legs, and to eye Heike's new baby daughter Mira suspiciously, etc., which made for a much more relaxed drive.

But it was a good idea to celebrate with another family. Felix was apparently fascinated by the concept of "people who are taller than I am and can do more than I can, but are not grown-ups", which he could observe nicely on the family's three sons (aged 4, 11 and 16). He watched everything wide-eyed and only slept very briefly after dinner - then he stayed awake until the new year. He was given a rattle and an old toy concrete lorry and played with them, quite self-absorbed - he has (finally) begun to be interested in toys, as long as they have moving parts and/or can be chewed on. Now he can keep himself entertained for about half an hour, but of course everything is more fun when I'm with him (or other grown-ups for that matter - he mostly doesn't yet make a difference between people, unless he's hungry or tired).
The party was a bit stressful - aside from four kids being present, two of them are mentally challenged, which made for quite a bit additional racket and chaos and attention - but on the plus side nobody was disturbed by disorderly eating, or drooling around, or other delights of young children at table. - Felix stole a piece of (soft-cooked) carrot and managed to grind it into a pulp between his (as-yet) teethless gums, then swallow most of it. (He has also been enjoying parsnips these past days - but he insists on wielding the spoon himself! My mother says that I did the same at that age.)
-- Anyway! We stayed up till midnight (that is, the grown-ups and Felix did; the kids went to bed but only after having been promised that we'd wake them before midnight!), then the two men and 11-year-old Johannes went outside to light some firecrackers in the rain while the other two boys were torn between being scared by the noise and excited about the lights; Felix didn't mind the cracking, but the hissing sound as the firecrackers took off startled him. When the fireworks were over (which didn't take long in that tiny village), we went outside and lit a number of sparklers - those were utterly fascinating. (I can't blame the baby - I still find them fascinating and I'm old and cynical and know how they work!) And then Felix and I went to bed and the others did the traditional lead-pouring divination game before likewise going to sleep.

By the time we returned home it was already dark and our tenants had cleaned up the traces of their wild party (and fireworks). We had some leftovers and watched a new episode of Sherlock on the big screen -- after the latest adjustments to our dish system, we can now receive a varietiy of satellites at the same time and without turning the dish ourselves (it is motorised!) and, accordingly, channels. We now know that there are about as many televangelist (also, telemullah, telerabbi and teleguru) as there are porn channels (including such valuable channels as "Hot Arab Babes" and "Iran Dating Line", I wish I were kidding you), and have seen such inexpendable shows as AlJazeera Children and "Nigerian Idol". It seems that television is horrible all over the world. But - positively - we can also see all BBC channels, and also some NHK and Arirang TV and other occasionally interesting stuff. So on the whole, it's all good. Ironically, we've had the motors for the dish standing around ever since we moved here, but never installed them until the stupid pine tree across the road grew so large that it obstructed the normal dish in bad weat--- I'm rambling, nobody cares about all this. Shut up, Lyra!

Anyway -- have a great 2012! May the best of your old be the worst of the new, etc. And maybe I'll manage to do something about the apocalyptic graphic novel bunny before it's 2013 and the joke is lost...