New Year's

'Well, she should just have a glass of wine to warm up, but she won't do that!'

This is what my mom said aloud to no one in particular after I mentioned that I was a bit cold at a small New Year's dinner function at a family friend's house last night. The above sort of complaint-rant would have been fine, if I hadn't quit drinking last December. It's not that I won't have a drink, like some obstinate child. It's that I feel I currently should not drink. I didn't make a big show of stopping drinking, but did mention having quit at a party--where all these New Year's revelers also were-- I had given at my place this past August. The guests were well-stocked with beer and wine, but I wasn't partaking. The question 'why aren't you drinking?' came up a few times, so I answered.

Just before midnight it seemed to be thought that not drinking didn't include a toast with Sekt & someone tried to pour me a glass. 'Just a little bit is okay to ring in 2017, right?' 'Oh, no thank you.' One of the party hosts also doesn't drink, so we two toasted with juice. -quite nice.

I wasn't too phased with what mom had said although it bugged a bit. And I imagine that many who don't drink are faced with the whole 'won't you have a little glass of champagne?' on Dec. 31st. What did annoy, to be honest, was my mom's Trump-voting husband's commentary. He'd managed to squeeze in a few pro-Trump/pro-Russia opinions over the dinner table that no one cared to hear. He also apparently thinks that any car sticker identifying him as having been in the Navy in the 60s would make him a target for 'terrorists'. Such ID got him 'out of more speeding tickets' than he could count, but now it could kill him. All mom could do in response was to verbally jab at her husband in a really ineffectual way that wound up making everything feel just a bit worse. After he'd managed to gamble away their savings on a stupid house-flip scheme back in 2009, thus relegating them to renting in one of the most economically depressed areas in No. California far away from friends and family, I'd begun disliking him a great deal. I think that dislike has now spilled over into hate.

Oh, and the neo-Nazi brat that raged at my German group for not being right extremist a-holes like he is sent a mail to all the German club organizers on New Year's stating 'Das Reich kommt wieder'. From what I recall, he lives with his grandma. -wonder if she knows what's percolating in that head of his.

So how was your New Year's? Better than mine, I hope!