12-31-14-chicken-parm

While Victor and I were eating dinner tonight, we realized we were on our third official New Year’s Eve host.

When we were young, it was “Guy Lombardo, live from the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria.”  Those were definitely fun years. Pre-adolescent New Year’s were exciting. Staying up until midnight was something we just never were allowed to do, and when you’re a kid of 7 or 8, every new year was the start of something new. I remember thinking as a kid that in the year 2000 I would be the almost ancient age of 48. And here we are, about to usher in 2015. You do the math.

http://youtu.be/Q-ncPPArxEk

Here’s Guy bringing in 1977. I was living at Tahoe and have no idea what I did that New Year’s Eve – but I’m reasonably certain it included being at work at 5am on New Year’s Day at The Old Post Office in Carnelian Bay – probably ridiculously hung over – or still royally buzzed. I didn’t start at the Hyatt until June of ’77.

2015 really doesn’t seem possible – and it’s definitely not what we were told to expect. The promises of the past have not kept up with the reality of the present – and there are definitely days when I see no hope for the future. But… here we are, in spite of it all.

I have no idea when Guy Lombardo left New Year’s and Dick Clark took the reins. From the mid-’70s through the ’80s, I was in the hotel business – I was working. Most of the time it was a lot of fun – the Hyatt years, especially. The Hyatt Lake Tahoe days are a bit of a blur… I do remember the first year I was in management that some maroon threw a glass in the fireplace at the end of the casino. Within seconds, glasses were being tossed from everywhere – in the general direction of the fireplace. It was broken-glass-freaking-mess. The next year, the casino switched to plastic at 4pm – no glass or bottles at all.

The Hyatt in Cambridge saw us all in our tuxedos with a suite reserved for the managers overlooking the atrium. It was stocked with a full bar and hors d’oeuvres for days. We’d walk in and out of the parties, being a part of the festivities without having to be a part of the festivities. It was great fun. Our biggest challenge was making sure the employees didn’t get too drunk.

There have been a few parties in the past 25 years, but after working so many of them, neither of us have had much of a desire to go out. We spent Christmas 1999 in San Francisco and then flew back east for NYE Y2K – on New Year’s Eve. Victor’s mom played the sympathy card stating “I won’t be around for the next millennium…” [[Earth to Mom: NONE of us will be around for the next millennium!!]] We flew in a practically empty plane and landed at empty airports. It was the best flight, ever!

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14 months after this picture was taken, we were living here…

Nowadays, we have a simple dinner – tonight it was chicken parmesan – and follow Parisian New Year… The New Year strikes in Paris at 6pm eastern time. Therefore, if we stay up until 9pm, we’re 3 hours into the new year. I really have no desire to try and stay awake for another ball-drop.

So… Happy New Year. And don’t call. We’ll be asleep!