Just Thinkin About New Year's Eve

Hello all. Just thinking about New Year's Eve. Here in bucolic Joshua, Texas--just 12 miles south of south Fort Worth and 23 miles from the nearest place where you can buy a drink of whiskey--it's 6:16 Pm. Long past Australia's New Year's celebration but long before New York's.
And wouldn't it be fun to be in New York tonight. I used to take the kids and Chepa to Central Park around 10:30 PM and we'd make our way to 96th street or so for the 10K midnight champagne run and Fireworks's display. I could never do the run but I sure did enjoy the champagne. Then we'd come home, wintery cold, and I'd make cocoa and Toll House cookies. And we'd watch a movie and that was one great night.
Here in Joshua, I've gotten into the habit of buying fireworks. Not cherry bombs or ash cans--just loud and dangerous and their six-second fuses were often enough only 4 seconds, leaving a lot of friends of mine with half-fingers where they used to have whole ones--but lots of roman candles and rockets and artillery shells: the beautiful shells that explode 200 feet overhead in multi-colors and noise and make your neighbors call up to say "You woke me up, you son of a bitch. Nice one!"
And we blew a couple of bucks on the same this year. Gonna be fun if nobody gets hurt.
And I'm making a steak in the next hour. Big steak. Felt like being a pig and I am already apologizing to god and the cow. This is a four pound chuck steak, Angus, that I'm slicing in half and cooking like a t-bone. And while the T-bone has a certain magic from it's buttery-ness, the good chuck has a flavor that cannot be beaten in a pan sear. It's just that well-marbled. To go with it there is spinach, carrots, sliced potatoes, fresh beans, sliced tomatoes sauteed in a bit of olive oil and then topped with grated parmesan, fresh black pepper and a touch of fresh basil, and the de rigeur Peruvian asparagus steamed then cooked lightly in a mix of olive oil, a touch of butter and balsamic vinegar.
It's mostly veggies but I'll still gain a pound. Oh, well.
So what happened this year? Anything worthwhile? I think so. I'll stay out of politics, as I make my living discussing that. and I get tired of it--mostly because I'm not enough of an Alpha Male to change the world. But on personal notes? I've had a new niece born, who is beautiful. And healthy. My son Italo is playing on a soccer team as good as you get before signing with the pros. My second son, Marco, graduated high school and has a job and a girlfriend. And while we occasionally step on his used condoms, she's not pregnant. My baby Madeleina reached 10 and thinks like a 30-year old.
Sierra, my ex-wife Chepa's baby, is nearly two-years-old and fantastic. More than that, I'm in love with her and get to spend a bunch of time with her. And while that can only end in disaster for my heart, I'll live with it. A few years ago Ayahuasca finally taught me that you must take the love when it's offered. So I'll take this beautiful baby's love and when it's gone, when mom is gone with the baby, she and I will have had a good time together, rather than me running away in fear that my heart would be broken. Thanks for that lesson, Ayahuasca.
(Ayahuasca is a medicine from the jungle that I've been using to learn things from for two-and-a-half decades. You'd think, if life were fair, that after 25-years I'd be a master. Turns out that after 25-years of study they're finally letting me into the first grade!!!!!)
And this year too I got a lot of love from my baby Madeleina, now 10. More than I deserve but I'll take it all. Thanks white light or god or spirits or all of you. And thank you, Madeleina.
And thank you Skunk Magazine for giving me a column, Drug War Follies, that allows me to spout off on the wrongheadedness of the Drug War. And thank you Marc Emery, owner/publisher of Cannabis Culture, for having the bravery to face extradition to the US for selling cannabis seeds to US undercovers who entrapped you illegally with all of the elegance and decency with which you are facing that extradition and possible life-sentence here in the criminally wrong US. You are a lesson to us all.
And thank you Fort Worth Weekly to allow me to ply my trade of investigative journalism week after week. I hope I have helped settle a few scores, stopped a few bad men, overturned a few bad decisions and made some people rethink their political positions on a few issues.
On the other hand, for those of you I've hurt, forgive me. I'll try to do better. For those of you who have cheated me this year of more than $50.000, money I for once thought I had earned, I forgive you. But don't do it again, guys, cause I'm not going to be so forgiving the second time. Take that to the bank.
For you, Gasdalia, who wanted me despite being an old fat white guy with a completely broken stomach, thank you. I was embarrassed to shower for my appearance and yet you made me feel like I wasn't repulsive. You made me feel loved. Thanks.
For all my workers who put up with being cheated by me when I was cheated by others and couldn't do the trips I promised, thank you for remaining loyal. We'll do better this year.
And for all of you readers who have taken the time to read this blog--time you could have surely spent better elsewhere--thank you for allowing me to feel like I was part of your family.
Thanks for letting me saddle up to the bar and have my say.
I hope that all of you, and all of the people and animals and vegetation of this world, somehow manage to have a wonderful, wonderful New Year.
Thanks, everybody. I'd much rather be alive than not. Thank you from my heart.