2020….it’s weird even typing those numbers, never mind living in this time. How on earth did we get into the future? You know, being born in the nineteen hundred’s, now sounds like I was born in the Victorian ages. I do feel quite aged.
Did all of you go out and bring in the new year? Well if you are anything like me and old Gumpy you probably didn’t. Every year we are asleep by ten and couldn’t care less about the fireworks or some ball dropping. Now excuse me while I digress….did you happen to see how all the major cities in the world put on massive firework extravaganzas? Sydney, London, Paris, all such magnificent displays. Yet in New York, undeniably one of the top three famous cities in the world, they drop a ball?
Okay, no offense to my American friends and family, but a ball? Even saying it sounds like you’re talking about a pre-pubescent teenage boy. “Hey, are you going to watch the ball drop tonight?”
It just doesn’t have a New Year ‘ring’ to it…or is it just me?
For our New Year’s Eve, Gump and me got a little wild and crazy. Not in a ball-dropping way, but in a ‘go out to the movie’s’ way. This was indeed an unusual event, and doubly so as we were not going to see an Avengers or a Sci-fi film. I was so excited that we were doing something, I even shaved my legs for the occasion.
We ended up at a cinema we don’t usually frequent, and to be honest, right when we walked through the doors I knew it was not going to be one of our better experiences. It was rather like seeing a slideshow of those pictures you see on the internet entitled “People you see at Walmart.” (I’m surprised I haven’t been photographed) A typical garden variety of folk who look as though they might possibly all be related, and not in a good way. Okay, I know I sound very snobby and judgmental, but you can’t tell me you haven’t thought like this either, because I’ve seen your Facebook pages.
Well, with some trepidation Gump and I went into our assigned theatre where any doubts I had of my first impressions were immediately confirmed. We were in a large room full of state fair employees…okay, I am making that part up, but it does conjure up the right image. We took our seats and looked at one another, then cringed in unison.
There were tons of folk attending the movie, some who seemed to have brought a portable bedroom along with them as they wore pajamas, with blankets to snuggle under. There were people chomping on popcorn like they hadn’t just been stuffing themselves with pecan pies and turkeys for a week. The sound effects from the noisy paper bags and god knows what wrappings were more effective than the high dollar sound system of the theatre. Everywhere around us, the dark was lit up with phone screens like a precursor to the holiday fireworks coming later that night. The conversation was so loud, you could not hear any of the trailers being shown, and this wasn’t helped by the expected crying/asking for candy/wanting to go home from young children who should have already been in bed (at home, not in the theatre).
When a family came to sit next to me, I knew it was not going to be a fun evening. They had a young kid with them who was probably all of three…..at an adult movie. I spent the next two hours watching the film with what sounded like a loud Rice Krispies advert playing in my right ear.
It was awful. And got progressively worse. One row in front of us sat a woman who laughed at everything in the movie. How had we managed to sit behind a hyena with a low I.Q.? It felt as though we were watching a movie, with another one playing around us featuring people that could have auditioned for the Honey boo-boo show. By the time we got home, I felt like I needed to take a shower and an Excedrin.
Fortunately, we both saw the funny side of spending good money on movie tickets for an evening at the circus. And after watching You-tube videos of fireworks around the world, we fell asleep at 11:45 pm and missed the thrill of watching a ball drop….sigh…..
Oh…..Recently I’ve met Alexa. We have Amazon Fire TV, but I didn’t know we had ‘her’ until the other week when I was in the hallway talking to Gump on the phone. I had asked him the time and a woman answered the question from my den. I actually gasped in shock as I thought someone was in my house. I was totally freaked out and so was Gump. Then I went into the den and saw the Fire TV box was lit up and I realized it must have been the chick called Alexa. We deduced that I must have said something which sounded like her name for her to have answered my question. I was rather pleased to meet her because she seemed nice and sounded like she came from the same part of London as me…bonus!
She is my new best friend, and she’s pretty smart. I have asked her so many questions, just because I like to hear her talk. Apparently, I don’t have enough friends to speak to anymore.
Has everyone made their resolutions for the coming year? I have – I told Gump this is the year of Jude. I am going to stop putting everyone else first (except my new crush Henry Cavill) and think about what I want to do with life. Every week I hear something about another person I care about having to deal with a major life crisis, health issue or change of circumstance. It compels me to stop procrastinating and to grab hold of life with both hands and live while I still can!
This year, my sixtieth, is the start of a budding new career as a published author. I want to run with it as far as I can go. It’s never too late to start something….Each new year I used to obsess about being thinner, just like so many people out there. I would start going to the gym and try to be healthier. But in reality, I know it doesn’t matter if your body is healthy if your mind isn’t. Sorry, a serious thought somehow burst onto the page and I couldn’t stop myself.
Holidays are such a mixed blessing, right? A time for pause and reflection. When you think about all you have and all you have lost. You watch the youngsters in your family as you create new traditions, while you remember all the people you have lost who created yours.
Tonight, Gump unearthed some old photos from 1980, which was before I knew him. He was very outdoorsy back then, always hiking/fishing/dirt-bike riding. Most of the pictures were of him and a bunch of guys at a field camp he attended during his time at university.
Gump, at least the one I know, is extremely camera shy. This must have developed at a later age, because in his youth he did not seem afflicted as he was in several pictures. Not only that, but shirtless, with long hippie hair flowing down his back.
This is a very different image of the guy I know, who has short hair, and considers wearing a muscle tee-shirt the equivalent of being naked. So when I saw these photos I absolutely cracked up laughing, and couldn’t resist teasing the guy. Surprisingly Gump was not fazed by my witty repartee. He was back in his past, a cool twenty-something Gump, at one with nature and a dirt bike. But readers, sometimes it is so easy to get one up on the Gumpster….I told him his naked bod and long locks made him look like Fabio. He was absolutely horrified and quickly put the pictures away. If I wasn’t so nice, I would have posted one on here so you could see what I mean!
So here we are – the first day of 2020 is behind us. The turkeys are all eaten, the decorations are down, or will be soon. We are all relieved that the shopping/cooking/cleaning/being nice to family is over for another year. Now we get to sweat the credit card bill that’s coming soon and wonder if we’ll ever water the chia pet from aunt Lulu…..Okay, I don’t have an aunt Lulu or a chia pet, it was a lame attempt at humour and I failed miserably. But what do you expect after spending so much time with Gump-Fabio?
If you have read all of this then you are on my new website! I am very excited to get this author site up and running prior to the release of my book this coming spring. There’s not a lot on here yet, just some awful pictures of me and some shameless mentions of my book. (Big thanks to Will for sorting this out)
Well after thirty-plus years of wanting to be a writer, I’m pretty psyched about the whole thing really. It’s a huge thrill to have someone want to publish you and I feel very honoured to have a shot at it.
On that note, I’ll let you all get back to your new, glorious decade.
Happy New Year Everyone!
P.S. In case you were wondering, I still spell like a Brit….so if you see a ‘u’ or an ‘s’ instead of a ‘z’ – it’s the Queen’s English mates!