New Year’s Eve...1926?
Last night I spent New Year’s Eve at Janet and Robert’s house, and we went back in time, as we usually do. It was Janet & Robert, Claudia & David, Mikal & Paul, and me. We all were dressed to the nines in our vintage attire, naturally. Janet and Robert’s house was built in the 1920’s and is decorated in period style, complete with the original wallpaper in the dining room, hardwood floors, and dark wood around doors and windows. It's a perfect house for them to live in. I was adoring just looking around at every fascinating detail, from the moulding to the old black-and-white photos to the old instruments to the antique furniture.
We had a photo shoot in the studio in the backyard, which I loved. They had done couples shots earlier, inspired by the old postcards in Janet’s collection. We mugged cute, funny, serious, artsy, with & without props. It was so fun to both model for the pictures and see them when they were done on the computer. I’m a ham-in-training. I aspire to be an insufferable ham, one day...
Here's a few with Claudia and me, and then Claudia, Mikal and me.
After the shoot, we had dinner, celebrating in the Jewish way--knishes, latkes, vegetarian matzoh ball soup, and bimuelos (kind of like a fritter). All the dishes were new (to me) and so unbelievably fantastic! We watched “Stardust Memories”, a Woody Allen movie I’d never seen before, while we ate. I loved the jazz music that peppered the score. At midnight we rang in 2007 with a toast of champagne and cherry-flavored liqueur, then followed Claudia’s family tradition of going out in the street and banging pots and pans, shouting “Happy New Year!”, trading lentils and coins (and keeping some in our pockets), and eating pickled herring and matzoh. And after that, cheesecake with apples and honey. David played the old-fashioned organ (that you have to push the pedals for it to play--cool!) for a bit--it sounded totally carnival-esque, and I'd like to have him do it again and record it someday. Then we played parlor games: writing down five questions and partial answers, then passing them around so others could answer without looking at the questions, kind of like Mad Libs; then a homemade version of Balderdash, where we found words in the dictionary and tried to come up with official-sounding definitions to add to the true definition, guessing which one was the right one. Hilarity naturally ensued: when "where did you lose your virginity" was "behind the pudding, one the top shelf of the refrigerator", we all kinda lost it.
It was a warm, lovely way to spend a New Year’s Eve, with new friends I’ve gotten close to over the past year, and with whom I plan to get even closer to in the coming year. I hope all of you had just as wonderful a time last night!
Happy 2007, all!!
We had a photo shoot in the studio in the backyard, which I loved. They had done couples shots earlier, inspired by the old postcards in Janet’s collection. We mugged cute, funny, serious, artsy, with & without props. It was so fun to both model for the pictures and see them when they were done on the computer. I’m a ham-in-training. I aspire to be an insufferable ham, one day...
Here's a few with Claudia and me, and then Claudia, Mikal and me.
After the shoot, we had dinner, celebrating in the Jewish way--knishes, latkes, vegetarian matzoh ball soup, and bimuelos (kind of like a fritter). All the dishes were new (to me) and so unbelievably fantastic! We watched “Stardust Memories”, a Woody Allen movie I’d never seen before, while we ate. I loved the jazz music that peppered the score. At midnight we rang in 2007 with a toast of champagne and cherry-flavored liqueur, then followed Claudia’s family tradition of going out in the street and banging pots and pans, shouting “Happy New Year!”, trading lentils and coins (and keeping some in our pockets), and eating pickled herring and matzoh. And after that, cheesecake with apples and honey. David played the old-fashioned organ (that you have to push the pedals for it to play--cool!) for a bit--it sounded totally carnival-esque, and I'd like to have him do it again and record it someday. Then we played parlor games: writing down five questions and partial answers, then passing them around so others could answer without looking at the questions, kind of like Mad Libs; then a homemade version of Balderdash, where we found words in the dictionary and tried to come up with official-sounding definitions to add to the true definition, guessing which one was the right one. Hilarity naturally ensued: when "where did you lose your virginity" was "behind the pudding, one the top shelf of the refrigerator", we all kinda lost it.
It was a warm, lovely way to spend a New Year’s Eve, with new friends I’ve gotten close to over the past year, and with whom I plan to get even closer to in the coming year. I hope all of you had just as wonderful a time last night!
Happy 2007, all!!
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