Well, here we are.

Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, we stand on the precipice of history.

Tomorrow Barack Obama will be sworn into office as the 44th President of the United States of America. He will also be the nation's first black president.

Obama got my vote because I thought that he was the better candidate. He is, by far, the most charismatic orator this nation has seen since Reagan, and is one of the best orators of the last century.

Is that enough? Who knows?

People were hopeful when Bush I was sworn into office, but he only lasted one term. People were ready for a change after eight scandal-laden, tax-and-spend years under Clinton. And most people were ready for a change in 2004 after one term of Bush II, but apparently not enough, as we had to endure four more years of his war-mongering shenanigans.

But that ends today. I say, with no small amount of joy, that TODAY IS GEORGE W. BUSH'S LAST DAY IN THE OFFICE OF PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

It has been a long, trying, taxing road. This country has been attacked and gone to war, and entered into the worst economic situation since the Great Depression (and it's only a matter of time until those in power who decide such things finally come out and declare THIS a depression, too.)

We need a change. We need something different.

Will it be Obama? I don't know. I DO know that it wouldn't have been McCain, that's for sure.

Obama makes me hopeful. I am intelligent enough to understand that NO president will be able to undo all of the ills of the last administration in one term. Anyone who puts THAT much faith in ANY president is a fool. Hell, it took FDR 12 years AND a war-time economy before the Great Depression finally came to an end. And Obama does not have the luxury of a war-time economy... that sort of thing doesn't exist anymore in a country where the large majority of manufacturing jobs are outsourced to other nations.

It's going to be a long road ahead of us. The next four years are going to be hard, they're going to be trying, and they're going to hold a great many changes -- some pleasant, some unpleasant -- for all of us. And, in four years, we may be calling for Obama's head on a plate. Only time will tell.

But for now, I can rejoice, if only a little, because at least THIS lunatic is finally out of office.

Where are you, Christmas?

So, today is January 6th, also known as the Epiphany, or Little Christmas.

Which, of course, means the end of the holiday season.

The fruit cake is almost gone. I devoured both stollens. The cookes are eaten, and as I write this I'm finishing the last of the sausage, and am savoring the final tasty morsels of the black-eyed peas.

Tomorrow, I'll take down my decorations. I'll replace the Christmas glasses and plates with my usual ones. And everything will be packed away in my storage unit once more, waiting for next December.

This time of year always makes me a little sad. One day, when I'm disgustingly rich and have a big mansion, perhaps I'll keep up a Christmas room year 'round. You know... right next to my Star Trek room, and my super-hero room, and my armory, and my library...

*sigh*

New Year's Eve

So 2008 is gone and done, and I couldn't be fucking happier. Between all the deaths, the financial hardships, "Star Trek" being pushed back to May of '09, and the overall general misery, I bid it adieu with a sigh of relief.

The last several years I've gone to Helena's for NYE, and this year was no exception. It's always a good time, and there's plenty of liquor to be had, so it seemed like the logical thing to do.

And boy, was there some alcohol. Besides beer galore, a 70-year old bottle of Scotch (which was so fucking smooth it made a baby's ass seem like sandpaper), a ten year old bottle of lemonciallo, and the obligatory champagne, we also had Malibu mango rum, Tequila Rose, DiSaronno amoretto, sour mix, OJ, and THIS little gem:

That's right, kiddies... NYE '08 marked my first foray into the wonderful world of absinthe. I've had a $90 bottle of Pernod Absinthe sitting on my shelf for a while, but I still can't bring myself to crack that bitch open, so I settled on a $55 bottle of Lucid. It was good, it was tasty, but it needed a lot more than one sugar cube. Made me feel right happy, though, it did.

For members of my family, NYE (and, let's face it, just about every other holiday, even Arbor Day, if we're feeling up to it) has always been about a celebration of food, and I've done my best to impart that tradition to others. Thus, for the party, there were ships aplenty, tons of baked macaroni and cheese, pigs in a blanket, shrimp cocktail, pepperoni, cheese, crackers, and bacon-wrapped scallops. My contributions? Firstly, this:

Yes, that's right... tasty, tasty black-eyed peas. It is a long-held belief on my mother's side of the family that eating black-eyed peas for New Year's will bring you good luck, and who am I to tempt fate? Sure, '08 was generally shitty, but I'm afraid to think how bad it WOULD have been had I not eaten these beans. I fried up a pound of bacon, removed the bacon and then fried a whole white onion and four stalks of celery in the bacon fat. While they were frying, I added garlic powder, hot sauce, salt, pepper and this stuff:

...which Mom had picked up for me on her trip to New Orleans several years ago. (Naturally, she bought it because it had my name in it, as she was wont to do.) When the onions and celery were done frying, I added the entire thing to six cans of black-eyed peas, and let the whole thing cook in my crock pot for about 8 hours. I made EVERYONE sample some, for good luck, though there were a few of us who really went to town on them.

A long-standing Berenato family NYE tradition has also been to have sausage and pepper sandwiches ready for midnight. I grew up that way, as did my father, and I assume his father, and so on, all the way back to time immemorial (or at least until the invention of sausage). It had been several years since I'd actually observed the tradition (probably '02 into '03, actually, which was the last NYE I spent with my mom), and this year on the 31st I got a wild hair up my ass and decided that I must make sausage. A half hour and $25 after I made that decision, I walked out of Bagliani's with two dozen rolls and four pounds of sausage. I started cooking them around 10:30 p.m., and by 11:45 p.m. this was the result:

11:58 came around, and it was time to tune into Dick Clark. I know he's not as spry as he used to be, but that son of a bitch really hasn't aged for the last 50 years, which leads me to tell you exctly WHY I watch him every year. See, I think he struck some kind of deal with Satan to stay young forever. That stroke he had a couple of years ago? That was a warning that the contract was almost up. I am convinced -- CONVINCED -- that one of these years, at the stroke of midnight, Lucifer is going to appear in a cloud of smoke and flame, and take Dick Clark with him to hell. And I want to watch that LIVE when it happens, not in newscasts later.

Sadly, this was not the year that would happen, and the ball dropped, unimpeded.

Right after the ball, and the champagne, it was off into the field, to say goodbye to 2008 properly. It's a long-standing tradition with Helena's crew to do this -- to stand around in a circle, and pass around the champagne bottle, and tell what was good and what was bad with the year that just ended. This year was a little tougher, what with the cold weather and ALL THE DEATH, but it continued on, nevertheless.

Back inside, where it was time to eat, drink and be merry. So, naturally, it was time for me to photograph everyone.

There were those who had no idea they were being photographed...

...some who were too drunk to notice they were being photographed...

...and some who simply did not WANT to be photographed.

But everyone had a good time, and we called it quits around 2 a.m.

And that was NYE '08. 2008 was bad, yeah, but it could have been worse. I have a job, I have a home, and -- to the best of my knowledge -- I have no warrants out for me, so I must have been doing something right.

Here's to hoping that 2009 is at least as good... and hopefully better.

Felice Anno Nuovo!