May 2005 be better than 2004 for all of us.

Last night we enjoyed a dinner of Thai food, then some tea at a friend’s apartment, then home for a quiet midnight and a glass of 18-year-old, single malt Scotch.

My most memorable new year’s eve was in Naples, Italy in the late 1980s. I was home from college and my family went to a party at a house that overlooked the Mediterranean. To welcome the new at midnight, the Neapolitans threw out the old…literally. Glasses, dishes, chairs, couches, dishwashers, unwanted grandmothers(*): they all went flying out of windows as fireworks flew into the air in long arcs that ended on rooftops, setting the city on fire.

Driving home was like driving through a war zone. It remains one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.

* not really