I hope everyone had a Happy and Safe New Year's

I have to say that for someone who has always lived a quiet, sedate (read 'boring') life, I could not wait to tell my New Year's Eve story from the 80's. I am glad everyone enjoyed it.

My family spent the evening channel surfing the television, trying to find something tolerable on. We watched America's Funniest Videos for awhile, and then I remembered (too late) Kathy Griffith was on with Anderson Cooper for a New Year's Eve countdown. I LOVE Kathy Griffith. Looked like she was pummeling Anderson pretty good. I'll bet he's got black and blue marks today.

Be forewarned, in the clip below Kathy uttered a bleepable word for a part of the male anatomy, but it was not bleeped. If you don't care for coarse language, skip this clip.

Around 11:45pm we HAD to turn on Chicago ABC Channel 7 and watch the drunken local anchors. Janet Davies is always entertaining to watch on the New Year's Eve show. Here she is "dancing" at some point (seems like fairly late in the evening). (I put dancing in quotes, because, well, when you see it, you'll know why.) Have another cocktail Ms. Davies!

Many thanks to NewsFan2 who posted that video on Youtube for all my guests to enjoy!

My 15 year old daughter wanted to go have a nap at 8:30pm so she could get up to celebrate with us at midnight with sparkling cranberry juice. It was no surprise that she completely slept through the night.

I have to say, living in the suburbs there is one thing that I don't miss. That is the midnight gunshots. I don't understand the logic in it, but no matter where I lived in Chicago, there were gunshots at midnight. Don't these people know that when you fire a gun into the air that the bullet HAS to come down somewhere?

There were some illegal fireworks last night, but thankfully, it was nothing like the 4th of July when we had some neighbors who had almost professional displays in their backyards.

We just finished some Hoppin John and cabbage. Everyone snickered when they found out I was serving cabbage, but I told them they HAD to eat some. Black eyed peas (which Hoppin John is made with) and cabbage are both supposed to bring good luck. Since we could use all the good luck we can get, I made sure everyone ate some. Last year we only had the Hoppin John, could that have been our mistake? Not taking any chances this year. The Hoppin John was delicious. I used Fresh Polska Kielbasa that I got from Jewel at the unheard of price of $0.99 a pound (just that location). If I had a freezer, I would have bought everyone they had. I have to say again, it was delicious! My son has already made several trips back to the pot on the stove.

I hope everyone had a fun and safe New Year's and I look forward to you all stopping by in the New Year.

Lola's Diner
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