The Year of the Ox

the holidays have come & gone, but Inauguration Day, the LOST season premiere, my 38th B-Day, and Chinese New Year (Barack Obama is an "Ox", i'm a "Dog") are all just around the corner.

to get anyone reading this caught up; since my last entry i've:
- become a 2 remote household (something i've always hated and sworn i'd never do). i now have one remote to turn the TV on & off and a different remote to change the station.
- had a nightmare that GW Bush did away with World AIDS Day
- cleaned my refrigerator for the first time since i moved in, in 2002
- ordered Chinese food for delivery (i have take-out phobia and always make someone else do it for me).

i was reminiscing about past New Year's Eves, and the first thing i thought of was the burnt fish sticks.

(the second thing i thought of was Marq's Purim Party, but Purim's in March so i must have had it mixed up with Easter- although i could have sworn this was when she taught me the words to "Mele Kalikimaka"...?)

back to the fish sticks.
i was living in Latham (and owned a car) and Heath was in town from California so i decided to have a New Year's party. EVERYONE i invited (about 8 people) cancelled at the VERY last minute.
rather than force Heath to sit in my house and eat 5 people's share of dip, we went out for drinks.
at Wrinkle Room i started tying helium filled balloons to various parts of Heath's outfit until he resembled a puppet. i tied one to his zipper, to counteract it's ability to unzip itself.
everything was sort of OK- until he walked in.
one of my invited no-show party guests (who had begged off due to illness) - Chris Pulcher (an ex i was still kind of seeing).
i sauntered up to him with some sarcastic comment.
he made fun of my retro winter coat with it's humongous fur collar.
i started punching him in the face and the bouncers kicked him out.
(i haven't seen him since)

i don't remember the rest of the night.
i know that Heath and i got back to my apartment in the wee morning hours completely wasted (yes, i somehow drove, but save your moralizing for someone who hurt someone before learning their lesson).
we were both starving, so i put an entire box of fish sticks in the oven.

we woke up in the living room much later that morning.

all that were left of the fish sticks (which i believe had been cooking for about 6 1/2 hours) were blackened ashy husks.

so we went out to breakfast...