A New Years Party

One of the hard parts of travelling is that you have to return to the real world eventually, and that sometimes interferes with finishing out your entries about your trip. That’s kinda sad, sometimes, because some of the best things often happen unexpectedly on the last day of an adventure.

So it was with our trip to New York. We were invited to a tradition that our friend Beth’s mom had done for years and which Beth and her significant other Steve decided to renew – the New Year’s Day Party.

As might be imagined, these are not usually a brunch. In this case, we were to travel to Brooklyn on the subway and arrive sometime after 3:00 in the afternoon.

Given that in years past we were barely able to pull it together by mid-afternoon on January 1, this worked out fairly well.

It’s not that we overindulged the night before. It’s a lot more fun to watch the partiers making fools of themselves than being one of them, and ralphing into the shrubbery curbside is a whole lot less fun at 50ish than it was at 20ish (although I can’t imagine it would be a lot of fun then, either. Plus, recovery takes longer when you’ve grown up).

There was almost a crisis that would have cancelled the party. Beth and Steve live in a beautiful early-1900 apartment building that is right across the street from the Brooklyn Museum of Art, which is an incredible building in itself. I’d always heard about it but haven’t ever gone there – it’s on the list for the next trip.

The problem, as anyone who lives in an historic building knows, is that things break.

In this case, it was the only elevator in their six story building.

Did I mention that they were on the 6th floor?

Aside from the caterer having to tote all the goodies up all those stairs, that’s tough on the guests, too. They toyed with cancelling the party because of it, and then “The Miracle of New Year’s Eve” happened – the elevator was fixed the day before. The party would go on.

Except that after we made the trip out, there was a sign on the door – resuscitation was only temporary, and the elevator was once again out of service. While climbing the stairs, though, we got to see how truly beautiful the building was.

When you're standing and gasping for air, you notice the little touches that might have otherwise been overlooked.  Or it might have been a hallucination caused by a lack of oxygen, I'm not sure.  Either way, it was pretty.

Tile floors. Ornate touches everywhere. Those buildings have character that simply doesn’t exist in new architecture.

The party was great. We got to meet lots of their extended family and friends, chatted about the events of the world and learned that in many ways people are a lot alike no matter where they live. People in the same age groups have the same complaints and joys. We mixed, we mingled, we drank INCREDIBLE eggnog that Steve had made and we ate ourselves silly.

Then a miracle happened again. Just when we were girding our loins to waddle back down the stairs, someone announced that the elevator was working again.

It was a great party and a great end to our trip. We made it back in time to finish packing before going to bed in anticipation of our 6:00 a.m. pickup to go to the airport.

January 2 ended the trip. We were back in Hickory by noon doing the laundry and preparing to head back to work the next day. Although January 3 was technically a holiday, you can’t be gone that long without some repercussions.

Email would be answered. Phone calls returned. Paper addressed, and once again all would be right with the world.