2009 is here. Great. Forgive my lack of enthusiasm, but so far I’m unimpressed. I mean, what with Israel and Hamas back to their old tricks, India and Pakistan slowly lurching towards yet another war (although I suspect they will stop before the brink), and the general same old-ness of the news the last few days, I see the omens pointing to ’09 being little more than and extension of ’08. But isn’t that all each new year is, anyway?
It was a New Year delayed- first by the leap second, then by lzh not getting off work early enough for us to get up to the village on New Year’s Eve. Well, the actual chronological order of those two events was the reverse, but whatever. I long ago lost my enthusiasm for partying right through the New Year, so it was just a homemade hotpot then an early night.
We headed up to the village on the 1st, getting there not long after 1 pm. This trip we had absolutely no problems with transport. I was expecting the Badaling Expressway to be clogged with traffic, but there was nothing beyond the usual choke-point interchanges with the fourth and fifth ring roads and the Qinghe Tollgate. Amazing. Getting back was even better.
Unfortunately that evening was marred by a cousin-in-law’s man deciding to get obnoxiously drunk. It wasn’t just that he was an obnoxious drunk, but he had to be a right dick about getting drunk, too. He even decided to bite me, the bastard. But nevermind, eventually he got on the kang and slept it off and we got rid of them the next morning.
But we did get to play with their wee boy, who this time remembered us well enough to not freak out and run for mummy when he saw us.
Ah, well, the rest of the holiday was very uneventful. I got some exam marking done. I should be finishing that off now, but by my calculation I should manage to have it all done and out of the way tomorrow afternoon even if I take this morning off.
Enough rambling. Happy New Year!
