The Eve of the New Year on the left edge of the

continent. As soon as the sun fell over the West Hills today, the temperature started to drop. The air turned chill and crisp. The sky began to clear and the prospect of a cold bright New Year morning seemed likely. Today was slow, desultory in fact. I had trouble feeling that the checklist of items written on the back of a used envelope at my desk were of any importance. I spent sometime writing thank yous to people who'd sent sympathy cards when Dad died, and I was pleased to have made some progress there, but otherwise the day seemed aimless. Mar has a cold and was curled up in bed with the cats, snoozing and reading, so the prospect of going out tonight was slim. I didn't regret that truly. We have been to so many social activities in recent days that I am content to stay within our cheerful house. Midafternoon, Mar's cousin in Germany pinged in via IM. It was just before midnight there and he was getting ready to go out and watch the Feuerwerke at midnight. His wife too was suffering a cold and was sleeping. Odd to be commiserating over commonalities across such a distance. I suppose that is the old person in my, still marveling that we have progressed past the telegraph. I did venture out briefly. The mundane realization that we were nearly out of toilet tissue sent me off to the store where crazed hordes of people were trying to buy items of celebration and necessity. I also dropped the thank you cards in the mail and swung by Mar's mom's house to get the 'New Year's bread' without which the beginning of our year might be seriously compromised.

Now it is dark. Occasional bursts of fireworks rattle distantly. I'm sure there will be more later. Mar and I discuss warming up some soup, curling up in front of the fire, watching something on the dvd. And I am content. This teetering on the edge of a year, looking back in time and peering forward, is chancy. But I am willing. My partner smiles despite her temperature and aches. The cats stretch after having lazed all day on the bed. The new day speeds toward us in a curved blaze across the globe. Friends and loved ones make their own ways through the evening or sleep already as the tide of night has flowed past them. I whisper, almost in a silence, a prayer of thanksgiving. Thank you, God, for it all. And for the million things more I can't recount or remember at the moment. Thank you.