In early December, M (12) suggested we have a quarantined New Year’s party. Movies! Fancy Snacks! “All the junk food, soda, fancy drinks we can eat and even A (7) could stay up until midnight for the first time and tell 2020 to F off!” We agreed that was an excellent idea and I started planning a menu and thinking about some fun new movies to introduce to A.
2020 decided to send me a parting gift on Christmas Eve. As I went to get my cake carrier from the garage, I fell down the garage steps and broke my ankle. I spent the evening in the ER. I’ve never broken a bone before; this is a wholly new experience for me. It’s awful. I was in a splint for three days and am now in an aircast, and spend an inordinate amount of time fiddling with it. The pain is random, so I’m constantly inflating and deflating the cast, repositioning my leg and foot, monitoring medication. I’m on new migraine medications too, which are thankfully working. My family and friends have been wonderfully helpful as well, but I cannot walk at all and aside from rolling around in a desk chair, I am immobile. Farewell fancy snacks.
We bought a few bags of chips, pretzels, and some sodas, and I propped my leg up on my chair and some pillows. My husband made soba for dinner (traditional New Year’s dinner in Japan) and tempura, which was delicious, and we settled down to watch movies with the girls. A loved Kung Fu Hustle and we watched Soul which was okay. We then tried to find the Ball Drop.
We no longer have live TV, so had had to rely on our Roku. ABC was streaming a 2020 “photo slideshow” which was natural disaster photos, people dying of COVID, and Trump yelling. Nice! Next to it was a stream of images of the NYC Ball and Times Square, and a countdown, which would occasionally cut over to people in Times Square, so we were assuming that would be the Ball Drop eventually. A was getting very tired and agitated.
Suddenly it cut to Times Square. At last! The Countdown! They started to count down with a man on the platform, which seemed strange, but hey, it’s 2020 and Times Square was empty anyway, and so we counted down with them. Three, two, one…and it cut to a King Soopers commercial. A, hugging her baby doll, looked over and said, “So…where’s this ball you keep talking about?”
We skimmed all over and realized that they streamed it when in fell in NYC and simply weren’t showing it anymore, despite showing images of it. A, looking like a storm cloud, muttered, “You made me stay up for this; I want to see the damn ball!” So, off to Youtube. We did find a a video of the Ball Drop, but due to “music copyright issues,” there was no audio. The only audible part of the video was the countdown, so we counted down dutifully, only to have the video cut away to the to empty square and the cheering commentator when the ball dropped, and the audio sliced off when Sinatra started singing “New York New York” because, ya know, Ol’ Blue Eyes is copyrighted. The neighbor kids blew whistles next door as A got off the couch and went upstairs.
As we tucked A into bed, we showed her a ball drop from 2014 so she could finally see one and she said, “Well, at least I got pretzels.”
And with that, Happy New Year. 2020 is finally over. I hope, wherever you are, at least you got pretzels.
Edge Pieces 