Back in the '70s, when I first found friends in Ann Arbor and then moved out here, a group of us had an annual New Year's eve party. For many years, it was our Christmas-Among-Friends after we'd had Christmas with our families.

As the decades passed, it evolved into a party where the gang that lived in each other's back pockets in our twenties and early thirties got together once a year to compare notes and medical conditions.

The New Year's eve party was a big part of my solstice season, but Carol didn't always feel like attending either of the two parties I visited.

But, I always made it a point to be with her at midnight. That was our tradition - we would see the New Year in together.

So, I was always home by midnight. Or at least by quarter after midnight, if the roads were uglier than I'd expected.

With that tradition to haunt me if I stayed home on NYE, I was happy when the friend who hosted the party that we would usually attend decided to brave Covid and hold it this year. The party was a scaled down version with invitations that included a BYOVC (Vaccination Certification). (OK, no Certificates were checked, but everyone was Vaxxed and boosted.)

About a half dozen of us got together and discussed the politics of pandemics, the state of space exploration, foibles with cell-phones, and life events like cruises and retirements.