Ringing in the New Year

For the first time, I was the designated driver for New Year's Eve.

At the beginning of December, Benny and I were a little nervous about NYE. We kept asking people (his Navy co-workers, my co-workers) what they were doing for the holiday and people just shrugged. "Nothing," was the usual response.

Most were surprised that I wanted to go out on Dec. 31. The public assumption is that all women who are 8 months pregnant should be home with their feet up. Ladies in my "condition" shouldn't be out with drunks, sipping ginger ale and wearing a Happy New Year hat. Obviously these people don't know me. I wanted desperately to go out to a party. This is my last NYE of freedom, without a baby sitter or an early morning wake-up call on Jan. 1.

Luckily the Navy pilots came through. Two couples invited us to attend the New Year's Eve Celebration at the Officer's Club with them. The event had dancing, drinking, a countdown at midnight with free champagne and (here is the best part) a breakfast buffet starting at 12:30 a.m. To a prego lady, this is the ideal way to ring in 2009.



We showed up at the pre-party dressed to the nines. We had strict wardrobe instructions from one pilot, specifically suits and dresses. I was happy to oblige and happy to see Benny wear the suit he bought in Wales more than 5 years ago. I've never seen Benny wear this suit, but it looked good.

For the pre-party we brought our plum sake to share. Remember when I started that moonshine in June. Well it was planned to be ready for Jan. 1, in prefect timing with the Okinawa tradition. The group was skeptical at first, but with some coaxing about my brewing abilities, they each grabbed a glass.

And it turned out good. The smell was fantastic to my prego super sniffer and everyone said they liked it. It was gone in no time. One brave soul even ate the fruit sitting at the bottom of the jar, which is suppose to be good luck for the next year. Usually it is given to the children.





After this pre-show, I drove the group in a Japanese space-age van (I need to get a photo of this vehicle) to a Navy civilian worker's house for party No. 2. Here there was brownies for me and scotch for Benny. Again, perfect.

Then at 10:30 p.m., I gathered up the group for our final destination: the Officer's Club. The atmosphere was drunken chaos when we arrived, but I was the only one who noticed. Benny and I immediately hit the dance club and didn't stop twirling and dipping until the breakfast buffet opened. After a plate of eggs and sausage, we headed home.



The next morning, Benny got up early to go golfing with some Navy guys while I slept in. At lunch we watched New York City celebrate 2009. So actually we had two NYEs this year. Now there's a first.