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| L to R: Maybe, Perhaps, Ken, wife's cousin, Ms. Shi and husband, and Leona |
On December 22, 2018 I
didn’t weigh myself or take my blood pressure. What would be the point? The evening before I'd had two
glasses of tequila with homemade TGI Friday style green beans, a bottle of
wine, and cheese with my wife while we watched “Home Alone”. I was so drunk I fell asleep around ten o'clock and left her to clean the litter boxes and do the dishes. It would kick off a week of partying leading up to our New Year's Eve shebang.
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| Wall of ancient album covers at TGI Friday |
The partying picked up a few days later when I left with my wife in Ms. Shi’s car to have dinner at TGI Friday
with Mr. Mao, the third of our new Renoir Community Board triumvirate; they'd been elected earlier that week, my wife the new manager. Ms. Shi would’t be drinking so she drove. I would be practicing Mandarin with them, drunk.
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Tree in our lobby we donated
and decorated |
We went to Costco that Friday morning for
things for our New Year's Eve party. I guessed around
twenty people were coming but my wife's father, brother with wife and children, George, Shaun and wife, Vinay and Joyal probably wouldn't show; I didn't expect them to. I had invited no one else. All the guests would be my wife's friends and family. It would be fun as always; We would make it so. We were not sure how many people would come but I knew most wouldn't be speaking English.
My wife told me why her brother wasn’t coming to our New Year’s Eve party. We were feeling bad for him because we though he didn’t feel well. It turned out he would be bringing his mother-in-law with his wife for three days in Chiayi. It would be the first New Year he wasn’t with us. His sister was taking the high road; there would be other relatives and friends coming.
There would be no pinball
machine or pool table to play on, though I saw a cute tabletop mini table at
Decathlon near Costco for $150; balls, rack, brush, and two cues
included. My wife brushed it off though and I didn't demand it. I guess I really didn't want it. It was too late for the AC/DC pinball machine I had passed up a few years ago, and
it was too expensive, anyway, but the mini pool table would be fun. The guests New Year's Eve would love it! I couldn't get it out of my mind.
Riding home from a language exchange, on
Wen-Xin Road near Nobel Bookstore, Sam, the expat who made our cheddar chicken buffalo wing dip, Irish whiskey, and egg nog the last few New Year Eves, stopped besides my bicycle on his
motorcycle and said
hello. We shook hands before the light changed and I wished him happy holidays telling him I wasn't having as many people over this time and had gotten vanilla Bailey’s Cream instead of his concoction.
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| L to R: Ms. Shi, Hank, friends son, his mom,Perhaps, Maybe,wife's cousin, Leona, and cousin's son, Ken. |
We spent the evening in three areas of our condo: the living room for television watchers, the dining room for talkers and foodies, and, yes, the indoor patio for hard rock music and mini-pool! It was hilarious watching each other play because the floor was on a slight incline for rain runoff before it was enclosed. I had to get some fabric to raise one side of the picnic table that the pool surface rested on and used a level to straighten it, but it didn't matter since we were all tipsy and no one was keeping score, anyway.
At midnight, everyone moved to the living room where we watched the countdown on TV showing Taipei 101 skyscraper lit up with LED lights this year (fireworks banned) and televised concert parties from around the island. I popped the cork on the champagne, made toasts, and then, on hearing firecrackers, moved to our covered patio to watch the local fireworks being lit by people on the east side of Beitun near the river at Xiangshun Road.
By one o'clock, everyone had gone home, happy and optimistic. Thus began 2019. We had a nice
party that evening: Ms. Shi, her husband and son, Hank, my wife's nephew, Yun-Shen, her cousin with son, Ken, two of her cousin's friends, Maybe and Perhaps, Mr. Ma, who stopped
by to say hello and bring roasted chicken, and one of my wife’s friends who, with son, she was glad decided to come and stay for the countdown; eleven guests in
all.
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| Selection of trees we chose from |
The folk who came the year before but didn't come
this year didn't affect the festivities. My wife's brother's family (except for
Yun-Shen) was a first time no-show; he chose to go to his scond home in Chiayi with
his wife and mother-in-law leaving his father and children home alone. I was joking saying
he wouldn't be invited next year, but I hope his liver transplant is a success
and he comes back healthy. Annual guests, Jenny, who was busy working in Tainan couldn't make it and Huai-Ya, with family, decided not to come at the last minute. The few expats I invited didn’t come, either.
The food was delicious. This year I only made deviled eggs
and had the spinach latkes I'd recently made. The rest was store bought; the large
cocktail shrimp platter and TGI Friday pork ribs, etc. Her cousin's son made shrimp tamales and a delicious pomelo liquor. We consumed one of two
pizza Ms. Shi brought, and one of two bottles of sparkling wines. We
had one box of TGI Friday ribs and other foods left because of the smaller than anticipated party.
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| Happy at the pool table |
I was glad I went back to get that mini pool table that I'd spotted the week before; it was delightful. We
could get some authentic shots, though nothing longer than four feet. It is good for practice though the balls are miniature. I played games
with almost everyone at the party but my wife who did not go back to even look. Three times I'd gone for the pool table: Friday I had driven to Costco when we stopped in at Decathlon and I saw the table, Saturday to buy it, and Sunday to
get the felt cue tips that weren’t included. No problem; it was a nice day Sunday walking
around the store with George and catching up on things.
It was January second; I was starving myself that day after topping 100 kg
before the New Year. I was stabilizing my weight and going down. I had oatmeal
for breakfast and nothing afterwards but tea with a teaspoon of sugar. I hoped I was having sushi for lunch in a place. My wife recommended if I drove her to the Westside for a hair or facial treatment; one
or the other.
Afterwards, my wife gave me a kiss, in
private. I was going to say something back about the pool table but decided
not to. I have to go against her designs for me sometimes. The pool table is
delightful. She should be happy for me.
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| Happy New Year! Get home safely. |
Call me Da-Wei. I was reminded there are very few people you can rely upon and embarked on a trip to the Taipei Book Expo on my own. I was rewarded with the first book I focused on: Moby Dick, illustrated; a ten-pounder that lightened my load instead of weighing me down. I walked on but realized that if I didn't get that Moby it may be gone on the return. I thought it would be $200 or more but it was $27; a one-of-a-kind, just published. Perfect to sit and read in the covered patio on a rainy day. I went back but refused the cloth tote bag with a nifty phrase about socialism and a Karl Marx likeness for a brown paper bag with handles. I had enough of Marx for fashion and walked off to see what other English language books there were; not as many as last year.
There were too many stalls with languages no one
in Taiwan read but I guess some publishers needed to digest funds. Taipei Writing Group weren't there this year; I guess they had no funds to digest and no
collective output to show. Walking briskly by the Hare Krishna and Bhutan
stalls I came around to a bookseller with Wordsworth and Collins Classics pocket books, 99 each;
5 for 450. I was hoping I wouldn't see a Moby and I didn't. But I did see a
few Thomas Hardy novels, bought four of them (one a duplicate) and one Jack London White Fang. 
