How I spent my New Year's Eve....

Puking.

And it is fitting, I suppose, that I took the old year out doing pretty much what I spent a good part of it doing. Throwing my guts up.

Sighing. And it was going to be such a fun New Year's Eve and Day.

We planned on a monopoly game. All of us.

Nirand had prepared some Desi fondue and a delicious Indian flatbread called Tandoori Roti to dip.

Vince and Thuan supplied the champagne, a bottle of Krug, for the drinkers in our group. That would be them and Tinton.

Bing tattled on me that I was on pain killers, so a group decision was made for me that I would not be allowed to partake in the champagne, but would imbibe the white grape juice with Liv, Bing and Nirand. (Bing and Nirand are serious non-drinkers.)

We all planned to meet up in the dining room at 8 p.m. to play a die hard game of monopoly.

It was just after 7:30 when I started having tunnel vision and I knew that a migraine was on it's way. By 8, my left temple was throbbing and my left eye running. I looked as if I had guzzled the entire bottle of Krug by myself with my limping, holding my head and squinting at any light.

I left the happy group to head to bed and my private bathroom to puke every half hour or so...

I guess that Liv ended up going to bed almost right after me. She has caught Nirand's cold and told Tinton that she just wanted to go to bed. So, he ran a hot bath for her and then carried her into bed and tucked her in. All the men in the house took turns kissing her goodnight and like the fairies in Sleeping Beauty, telling her their wishes for her for 2009. Or as Bing told me:

God, you should have seen them fawning all over themselves jockeying for positions to tell her goodnight. By the time they all leave on Saturday, she will be spoiled rotten...

It made me smile....

The monopoly game was still on, though, with Bing, Nirand, Vince, Thuan and Tinton playing and drinking and stuffing themselves with bread and fondue.

Bing told me that when she went to bed at 11, it was anyone's game. She sweetly agreed to sleep on the pull-out sofa in the basement, since all our guest rooms are taken and sleeping with me would have been awfully hard with all the puking and moaning going on.

Nirand finally won the game around midnight. It was his first time playing and considering that he is soooo not into anything monetary, this was a surprise. He called it "beginner's luck"; the others swear that he was a bloodthirsty git who bought up all the good properties and then loaded them up with hotels licketty split.

"You should have seen him," Vince told me. "He comes on with all that hindu peacefulness and then suddenly WHAM! before we knew what hit us, he had all the good properties. It was like he kept rolling perfect dice. He must have landed on free parking about ten times at least."

Thuan reminded him, then, that they were all pretty hammered on champagne, except for Nirand, and Bing was already in bed, so they were easy pickings.

If I had been playing, I would given Nirand a run for the money, because as anyone who knows me will tell you, I am ruthless and a sore loser.

But, no...that would be me in the master bathroom upstairs, trying to silently puke....which is really, really hard. Try it sometime. Or not...

By daybreak, my migraine was still stubbornly clinging on, so I stayed in bed. Nirand brought me some tea and toast which almost set me off puking again, so he quickly backed out of the room.

I missed the Gator Bowl, where my Cornhuskers beat Clemson and everyone tells me it was the best damn game of the season.

Ugh. Pissed me off.

At least everyone else got to see it, including Liv, who is feeling much better today. And everyone made their own personal pan pizzas to watch the game with...well, except me. Because yeah...you know where I was: getting sore knees from kneeling on the bathroom floor over the toilet.

Any illusions that I harbored that I was one sexy mama are long gone. My face is still all splotchy and pasty looking. And I have showered, but I'm not feeling particularly alluring or even nice looking.

I was able to attend our nightly viewing of this. We bought the DVD set and are nearly half through it. Since everyone leaves on Saturday morning, we will have to do a marathon viewing tomorrow.

I am SO relieved to have 2008 out the door. It was not my best year. It was a year of change, fear, worry and pain. Happiness, too, of course. My life is not without it's goodness. But, the hard times often overshadowed the good times.

The good news is that I will (hopefully) be done with my meds in another month and maybe these headache/puking sessions will sift into the past.

I would like that.

I would also like a squeaky clean blood test and I intend to pull that one off.

I didn't make any resolutions, I'm no fool.

I just want to stop feeling like I'm treading water and start feeling like I am holding the reins of my life again.

Well, I will settle for the illusion of that, anyway.

As I said, I'm no fool.

I would like good health for my child in 2009, a happy year for her.

If I can have that, the rest is cake.

Oh, and a new chanel suit would be nice.

Winning the lottery would be peachy.

No big house repairs. Or car ones.

If I could convince Bing to clean up her piles and finish redoing the downstairs bathroom...ah...that would be heaven.

And to be well again.

But, if I am only allotted one wish...

Let me have good health and happiness for Liv.

What do you want in 2009 and how did you send 2008 off?