2009? Present.

I'm here. In the new year. Still not reporting very interesting news. Our tree is still up. It was supposed to come down yesterday, but I was finishing up reading for work and then went to a friend's house in the evening. There was little notice about going to the friend's house, otherwise you betcha I would have planned accordingly and taken the tree down on Saturday. Or have done more reading on Saturday. So the tree is coming down today.

I walked to Brooklyn Heights last night (where my friend lives) and I passed the corpses of many a previously festive and decorated tree. Today is the first day of the city-wide tree recycling program. Trees get picked up at the curb and turned into yummy smelling mulch that will be used in parks throughout the boroughs. I wonder what it would be like to be a curbside tree spotter and collector? I haven't seen any of the trucks collecting trees yet. Our tree is dry as the Sahara but still nice and green. And it still smells nice. I kept some of the lower branches we cut off and put them in our living room windows. I think I'll leave those up a while longer since they look winter-y not Christmas-y. We are also going to leave up some of the white rope lights since they look nice any time of year.

We didn't have a wreath this year. If we did, it might have helped identify our apartment as ours and not the one next door. Two more people have tried getting into our apartment only to find Steve answering the door to tell them they are in the wrong building. Idiots. Most have been pretty late at night and alcohol was clearly involved, but one just a few days ago, was about noon. Sober. He was very embarrassed. The others have been too soused to be embarrassed. Yes, 377 and 375 look identical from the outside, and I presume the stairwell. Yes, the keys work for both. Isn't that genius? Our first outside door has the same key as 375's inside door. And our inside door matches their outside door. Grrr. Cheap. Luckily the actual locks on the individual apartment doors are all different.

We have no idea if other people in our building have had this problem with their 375 counterparts. Another thought: if we have had four people try to get into our apartment, how many people live in #5 at 375? Four? Or has someone been a repeat offender?

In other news . . .

I watched Mama Mia on Saturday. I spared Steve and gladly wished him well as he played computer games in the other room. What a mess of a movie, but fun and rescued by the campy and catchy ABBA music. The costumes were ugly (and I'm not just talking about the disco get ups). The location - the beautiful Greek isles - is barely used, and the signing. Oh help me, the singing. James Bond is not a but can rock a glam disco jumpsuit. I also thought everyone looked sweaty. And not in a good way. Eh. It was a fun movie, but not a good movie. It could have been done a lot better. At least the cast looked like they were having fun the whole time, especially Meryl Streep.

Now I'm supposed to be working but I'm in a bit of a writer's block. Ironic isn't it? I can write on this blog without any problem, but when I try to write a program proposal I'm stymied. Will go back and give it another shot.

David and Allison to visit this weekend. That will mean another trip to Grimaldi's. Yum.