Well, this open house backgammon party was the first of its kind as it was held over two days. It started Monday December 31 at 6:00pm and went until the ball droped at midnight, and then continued on from 11:00am Tuesday New Years Day until 11pm! This was my 35th backgammon event since moving into the Garrison!
New Years Eve
Though I am not keen on New Years Eve parties, it's a great excuse to get together, play some backgammon, have a movie marathon of some sort, and eat pizza with wild abandon, and then watch Dick Clark bring it in. And six of us did our best to do all of that.
I ordered the pizza at 7:00pm in the midst of some hot backgammon games going on. We were ready for it when it arrived a little after 8:00pm - busy because it's New Years. But that's okay because we had some chips and dip to keep us busy.
I had started the evening with The Matrix - Revolution, the third in the series, around 5:30 to get things started. Pretty good movie and distracting for the games when the others got there and started going at it, but not the bad talk. And Marissa was running pretty hot through out them. Then we did U.S. Marshals in the background as we played more backgammon, but stopped with the games after that movie to watch the movie of the night, the new release The Kingdom.
That finished up right around 11:30pm, and so we watched ABC and Dick Clark bring in the New Year - the 100th time the ball in Times Square had been dropped in celebration. I was in bed by 1:00am.
New Years Day
I slept in until 9:30am New Years Day and at 11:00am put on the Tournament of Roses Parade (always do that). Alittle after noon, Steve showed up and we decided to have subs for lunch. By the time he got back it was after 1:00pm and I had the Michigan - Florida game on. I actually only watch football Thanksgiving, New Years, and Super Bowl - and then it's either just the first 15 minutes or left on as background while I read or something.
Steve's not a big college ball fan, so we decided to get on with the first movie of the day, Daredevil, and followed that with its sort of sequell, Elektra.
At 3:30, about half way through, I headed off to the kitchen to start cooking. I had bought a nine pound honey ham on the bone and was going to fix that with a sauce and glaze from a reciepe in James Haller's book from the Blue Strawberry restaurant. But most of the heavy lifting would be the preparation of the Asiago and Sage Scalloped Potatoes that would go with it.
Never having done scalloped potatoes before, wouldn't you know it but about half way through thin slicing the potatoes, I really sliced my finger badly. It was so deep, I soaked two paper towels and had to have Steve finish the cutting or I would have bled to death.
Just after Steve had finished the potatoes, Marissa and Gary arrived, and she dragged me into the bathroom, pulled off the paper towel wrap, and applied one of her larger band aids to the wounded area. Nice work, Ris! When I got back in the kitchen, the movie was done so I dropped the first Lord of The Rings movie in. But the beginning is so slow, so I spun it forward to the action and we watched just the last hour or so of it.
Colin and Adrienne arrived just as that was ending, and joined in the call to put on the third movie of the Lord of The Rings series as it had much more action. They were Marissa's movies, and she hadn't been able to find the second one, so I put the third one in. We fast forwarded through the first hour or so to get to the battle scenes that everyone was calling for. Great stuff.
I finally got the dinner finished and ready to go by about 6:15. While we ate, we finished off the movie.
By that time. it was running about 8:00pm and knowing that everyone had to get up for work in the morning I put on the movie of the evening, Transformers, which Rick had given to me for Christmas — as I bribe to let him live another year. Colin and Adrienne hadn't seen it before, so with the surround sound up pretty good, we ran out the rest of the night pretty good. Before starting the movie, Steve and I decided that since it was New Year's Day, we should open the other bottle of Champaign and have that as well. Though I made him take it outside to open as he wanted to shake it up and let it fly and I didn't want my bandaged finger to get wet - I suspect that alcohol on an open wound like that would smart some...
Well, by the end of the movie around 9:30, we had put a pretty good dent in that bottle of Champaign. But it was only 9:30 and there I was with time on my hands, I didn't have to get up in the morning, and there was Champaign left in the bottle on New Year's Day. What's a poor boy to do? Solution: I poured one more glass of Champaign, stretched out on the sofa, and watched Laura Croft - Tomb Raider - a marvelous end to a great two day holiday celebration!
