Happy New Year

We rang in 2007 by going with our introvert instincts.

We bailed on attending Jake's Xmas-in-Tbilisi party. Chris is slightly under the weather, and besides, we don't know Jake all that well. And,we reasoned, we'd want to bail uncomfortably early anyway, so why haul ass across town just to drink champagne with strangers at midnight? Better to lounge on our own old balcony, split the Bagrationi bubbly two ways, and skip the introductions and apologies phase of the evening.

We did leave the house, though. I had been working, with ever-decreasing enthusiasm, on my application essays for Columbia. Once I was ready to abandon the endeavor for the evening, we headed out on an exploratory amble up the Mtkvari river over to "Europe Square." There, the masses were congregating with their fireworks. It was fun to wander through the crowd at first, but soon the constant too-proximate BANG! BANGBANGBANG! CRACK KSHHH! of new year's explosives—both underfoot and overhead—got on my nerves, and we left.

We walked up to Tavisuplebis Moedani (aka Freedom Square, nee Lenin Square), where there was an even bigger thronging throng of new year's celabrents, and an even more-constant rattle of random BANG!s and CRACK!KSHH!s. As the midnight hour approached, we headed back to our apartment to watch the Tavisuplebis Moedani festivities on TV from the less precussive environs of our apartment.

Chris, with his dashing good looks and curvy feet, was our first-footer for the year. He darted out the door at 11:55:30 PM and reentered at 12:00:30 bearing good tidings and Tabasco sauce, a wrist-watch, salt and a good pen. Then we went out on the balcony, where drank our bottle of champagne while watching the city fireworks display blossom over the roofs of Old Tbilisi.

Then we watched some more TV and went happily to bed.

Now it's January 1st. I'm finishing up my Columbia application, and may be able to send off my Indiana applications as well.

Happy New Year!