New Year

Every New Year’s Eve we gather with friends at Sam and Laurel’s house in Point Reyes Station. D and I cram the car with a ridiculous amount of food and clothing and then toss in the dog and his bed. We spend the first two hours on monotonous multi-lane highways, but as we approach the coastline and begin cruising along winding roads through the redwoods, the weight of the harvest lifts from my shoulders. Whatever’s waiting back home at the orchard can continue to wait. The sky is clearer. The air is crisper. Radio programs are reduced to static and my cell phone signal takes a slow-motion dive. Three… two… one… and finally, No Service. This is a good thing for a change.


The car door opens and the dog explodes from the cargo compartment. This is a familiar and happy place for him, too. From the driveway we step into the backyard, where we’ve seen songbirds, quail, deer, and even a bobcat. Redtail hawks and eagles perch in the grove of trees close by. To top it off, the grounds offer a front row seat to a spectacular overlook of the marshy headwaters of Tomales Bay.

By 1:00 the table was spread with appetizers, oysters were ready for shucking, and the wine was flowing. At that rate I could slip into a food coma well before dinnertime rolled around. But with my comrades as inspiration, I carried on like a good soldier. The group is an interesting and well-traveled one, and it’s never short on good stories. We’ve heard tales of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, meeting with Manuel Noriega, building an ice rink in Washington DC, leading tours in Australia, tracking rhinos in Kenya, living in a commune, living in a kibbutz, living under Fidel Castro’s rule. Before you know it, you’ve chatted and listened and eaten your way through the afternoon, and then it’s time for another meal.

After a hearty dinner that rounded me up, literally, to 3000 calories since breakfast, we toasted each other at the stroke of midnight. Midnight in New York, that is. We wanted the option of retiring early without embarrassing anyone. But Lydia, bless her heart, pumped up the Latin dance tunes and we salsad and merengued ourselves right into 2012 Pacific Standard Time. And I'm so glad we were able to ring in another year together. 

Happy new year, everyone.