The Year of the Oh-Sixers

Happy New Year to all of my friends and family!

I had a beautiful New Year's.

I met up with Yasmin - we decided to make dinner together. Yasmin said she wanted to make something with eggplant, so we looked up "eggplant" on epicurious.com (one of Y's favs) and found this recipe for Eggplant Rolls with Spicy Tomato sauce (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/108381).
We went shopping for all the goods and then went to Y's to make our feast. The hardest part of the recipe for us was slicing the eggplant so that it didn't tear. Anyhoo, we had a lovely dinner! The eggplant rolls were extremely YUM! I highly recommend this recipe... it's very healthy and very tasty, especially when you add extra red pepper.





After dinner, we got ready to go to Monica's, where we arrived circa de 11 pm. Gonzo, Sonia, Tyson, Peter and Matt were already there, hanging out. Apparently Y and I missed a key moment on TV where they caught Dick Clark making out with some blond chick. I don't know all the details... Monica had a theory that it was Hillary Duff. But I do not wish to start any CRAAZY rumors with my blog. Oh no. That would be wrong. But if anyone wishes to start rumors in my comments section, feel free.








Me and Gonzo






So, of course, the inevitable moment at midnight arrived, which we followed using FOX news, who was broadcasting from CST (one thing... ok... one of many things... that i miss about CT is that the ball drop is a bit more exciting being in the same time zone!). At approximately 00:00, we exchanged hugs and HAPPY-NEW-YEAR's. Then I got a chance to salsa with Tyson. I've read on Tyson's blog that he's this huge salsa-fiend, so I wanted to see what it was all about... and he is pretty good! Better than me - it was fun.

Then, me and Yasminawala left to go back to my place (I made her stop at all the intersections on the way home... we were both paranoid - rightly so, don't you think- about drunk drivers!!). Yasmin spent the night with me... we stayed up maybe till 2 just talking and me fixing her spazzed trapezius.

We got up at 6:40 to catch the sunrise at 7:15. I heard from Tibor that watching the sunSET from this random parking garage on Main St. is quite beautiful, so I figured maybe the sunrise would be nice from that location also. It was actually Yasmin's idea to watch the sunrise - that's how she wanted to start the new year this year. We made it over there just before 7 am... and we saw nothing but clouds in the sky! So we couldn't see the big ball of orange rising above the horizon, and there was thick fog that was blanketing the whole city!!!!

But it was still beautiful to see the new year's morning light, and see it outline the thick Houston fog and clouds with fiery orange lines. It was nice to spend the first morning of the new year with a dear friend and witness the power of the sun (AKA Surya Deva!) warming up the central time zone. Although the clouds were thick, Yasmin and I spotted clouds that were alligators, anteaters, smiley faces, stairs... we also saw birds that apparently wanted to catch the sunrise too. There was also a man walking by the bayou, walking his two dogs. We saw the train pass by several times, tooting its horn. We saw the Galleria and the downtown skyline in the distance. I saw a lit up Texas Children's also... a place of potential employment!! I saw my apt complex close-by and was thankful that it so far had provided me with 3.5 year of safe shelter. I saw a bird fly by and literally cut the air in front of us as it zoomed past us. I saw another bird walking along the edge of the wall, and it nearly lost its balance and fell. That kind of made me smile...




The view from atop the random parking garage on Main. You can see the ledge that the bird almost off from. And you can see Reliant where the 2-14 Texans play from. And you can see my apt complex (not very well) on the right.

So it was a nice New Year's Eve, and a nice New Year's Day morning. The morning of the year of my graduation. The morning of the year of my intern year. The morning of the year of the rest of my life. Sorry to be so dramatic, but hey, it's Jan 1, 2006. I'm allowed.