New Year's Eve- rated PG for language

Michael was put out that Holy Cross was having an alcohol-free New Year's Party.

He said, New Year's is all about the alcohol. Having New Year's without the alcohol is like having Christmas, but without Christmas trees, and without any mention of Jesus!

I asked him to exlain.

You see, way back in Ancient Egypt, where the first New Year's celebration took place, Secca, the Lion-headed Goddess, who was always full of rage, decided that she wanted to consume the world. Thoth (we think- it might have been Isis) didn't think that was such a good idea, so he (or she) made beer- the first beer- and gave it to Secca, who really really liked it. Secca liked it so much, in fact, that she drank until she was so drunk she forgot all about her plan to consume the world.

And now Holy Cross is trying to take away the true meaning of New Year's!

Anyway, I decided that, damn it, we're in Chicago, and I want to go to a big Chicago party with fireworks! We didn't know where we could find one, but a few people uncertainly suggested Navy Pier, and that sounded good to me, so that's where we went.

We took the train into the Loop in search of food. Our goal was to find some Chinese take-out, but we couldn't. The only restaurants open were fine restaurants, and we didn't have enough time or money to go to those. We finally found a Subway that was open, and got a sandwich. Carry-out only, so we sat at a bus stop across from a bank being guarded by cops with machine guns and ate there. The cops with machine guns were friendly. We waved at each other and called a few words back and forth.

Then we took a bus to Navy Pier.

Now, here's a cool thing about public transportation in Chicago. All CTA rides (trains and buses) were free last night. And all the bus drivers we came in contact with were exceedingly friendly. It was really neat.

We strolled into Navy Pier with about 30 minutes left before midnight. Now, in keeping with the true meaning of the holiday, we had to find some beer. We wound up moseying into um, I think it was called Billy Goat Tavern. We pushed our way to the bar, where three bartenders were hurriedly running back and forth. We waited about ten minutes before we wound up talking with a waitress with a thick German accent. She said she had been waiting for 20 minutes already, and that that was incredible, and not good at all. Finally, one of the bartenders took her order, but got it wrong. he tried to get her to keep the lagers, when she had order light beer. she kept saying no. So we offered to buy two of the lagers, and two ladies offered to buy the other two. Michael and I stood there with our lagers for another ten minutes, money in outstretched hand, trying to pay the bartenders for our holiday beer. It was getting near midnight, and they were still ignoring us, so we left, with the lagers, and found us a spot on the lakefront.

"To Secca!" I yelled. We toasted and drank.

"To Thoth, or Isis, or whoever-it-was!" I yelled. We toasted and drank.

"And to a damn good year!" I yelled. We toasted and drank.

The crowd was huge and happy, and music was blasting. The lights of the city on a clear night were sparkling off the water. I had free beer in one hand, and my very lovely husband in the other. And we were in Chicago, and damn did it feel nice.

Michael doesn't like beer, so he poured half of his into my cup. I'm not much of a drinker nowadays, so I couldn't finish that beer and a half. I wasn't drunk, but stood in awe anyway, as huge explosions of light ripped across the night sky. With all of our amazing modern technology, it is an invention from Ancient China that still gets me to jump up and down like a kid, wide-eyed with awe and fascination.

Afterwards, some people in the crowd lit up sparklers. I still don't like those much.

The crowd surged back toward the city. I found that there were random places that you couldn't walk through without yelling. Everyone yelled. Then a few more steps, and everyone was quiet again. At the entrance of Navy Pier, the crowd shoved together in a bottle-neck, rubbing up against each other, slowly moving forward. I mentioned to Michael that that was the gentlest mosh pit I had ever been in. He said that, not exactly in those words, he had been thinking the same thing.

Everyone in Chicago is a different color, and they speak different languages. I love the diversity here. It's comfortable to me. We walked a good mile through a part of town that I had never walked through before, and saw a skyscraper that looked like a castle. The crowd was still swelling around us, slowly breaking off into smaller pieces. When we reached the train, we saw a guy too drunk for his own good, and we were glad that he had people who cared about him with him- he was trying to go over the edge onto the tracks. They were restraining him bodily.

We hopped off the train and walked about a mile through our own Mexican Little Italy neighborhood, which is also a neat area. Once home, i climbed into bed, sleepy and content.

Here's to a the end of a damn good year.