You never know what to expect on New Year's Eve when working in a hotel. There is always the concern that people will rent rooms to have a party and end up disrupting everyone else around them. Luckily that wasn't the problem this year at my hotel, but the problem was people who partied elsewhere and then came back to the hotel. It is amazing what happens to people when they have had tooooo much to drink (not that I've ever been there, LOL). I spent over an hour trying to calm down a couple who had woken up 1/2 of the floor they were on. It's a long story, but it involved a door being kicked by the girlfriend while wearing a towel and her boyfriend was sitting in the bathtub under the running water. It was quite a night. I ended up working from 5:00 pm on the 31st to 7:00 am on the 1st, with only about 3 hours of sleep total from the day before. My lack of sleep began over the holiday weekend . . .
I drove back to NJ in my new car (more about that in another post) to visit with my Mother, my sister and her family. The visit was nice, it had been six months since I had last seen them and I was lucky enough to spend a short time with my nephew who I hadn't seen for a longer period of time than that. It's been a long time since I've been around kids on Christmas and it was fun to watch them opening gifts and the anticipation of waiting for Santa to arrive. My brother-in-law's son hosted us for dinner on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The food both nights was delicious - it's been a long time since I've eaten that well! Following some of the family's Polish traditions, Christmas Eve is a meatless holiday and our menu included lobster tail, scallops, shrimp and three kinds of pierogi. Yummmmm. The meal started with a bowl of homemade mushroom soup made by Ann - the recipe has been published and although I'm not much of a fan of mushrooms, the soup was DELICIOUS! After soup the kids get to open their presents which is for them the highlight of the night. The family also has a tradition of the kids making gingerbread houses - this year they were gingerbread trains and the they made it competition this year between the boys and the girls. Of course it ended up a tie...
Friday was spent with my Mother, Sister and Brother-in-law at their lake house in northern NJ. My brother-in-law has been doing some renovation work on the house and it all looks great. It is amazing the work they have done on this house over the years making it more and more comfortable. It was great to spend time together since it is hard to see each other very often living about 600 miles apart from each other.
Friday night I made my way down the Jersey Shore to meet up with a few friends from where I used to live. A small group of friends were out on Friday night at what I think is the new hangout, since our regular bar in Asbury Park closed on December 20th. It was great to see them as well and I really miss hanging out with them on a more regular basis, it takes time to build the type of friendships I had back in Jersey, but I'm sure in time I'll have some similar friends here in Charlotte.
Saturday was the start of my trip back to Charlotte. I had made plans to make the trip back with my best friend Jim, who had been up in Dutchess County, NY visiting with his family for Christmas. We planned to drive down to DC and spend a couple of nights and then drive to Charlotte and he'd fly home to Texas from Charlotte. Unfortunately, it seems like everyone decided to travel by car on Saturday. It usually takes about 4 hours to drive from central Jersey to DC, but this time it took 7 1/2 hours. Thank God I had such great company in the car with me or the trip would have been unbearable. I don't think I hit 30 mph at any point of the trip between the Delaware/NJ border and Baltimore. UGH! But I had Jim with me and the Christmas cookies his family had made - so it was bearable, very bearable!
I was really looking forward to visiting with Jim for these few days, it's been several months since he helped me visit him in Dallas. It didn't quite work out that way - to no fault of anyone really. My best buddy has a new boyfriend in his life who happened to also be in the DC area visiting family for the holidays. It ends up that he and I were both looking forward to spending quality time in DC with Jim. (He IS that special). The new bf and I both ended up getting mad at Jim to no fault of his. Jim and I did get to spend Sunday night together having dinner and then touring the sights of the National Mall at night, seeing the Jefferson Memorial, the little known George Mason Memorial, the WWII Memorial, the Washington Monument and the National Christmas Tree (and Menorah). We drove back to Charlotte on Monday, had a nice dinner, showed off my apartment and watched some tv before I dropped Jim off at the airport on Tuesday morning.
My mind has been working overtime since arriving back to Charlotte reflecting on the weekend. It had very high points and also some very low points - just like any holiday celebration. DC used to be a favorite vacation spot for me, but I doubt I'll be returning anytime soon since it is the place where my best friend and I let each other down just because of circumstances. Neither of us planned or wanted to hurt each other, but it happened, and I am sure that both of us want to work through this. And we will.
Well, it's time to get ready for work today ... thanks for reading and I'll be posting again soon.
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