We're pressing our time to make it to midnight with the bigger little. The little little crashed hours ago.

Today was low-key, mostly hanging out at home.

We started by celebrating that it had been 2021 for a few hours in the Marshall Islands. We were there in 2017, over New Year's Eve. We all fell asleep earlier, but I'd awaken with the fireworks and took this weird photo to share with the people at work. I'd fallen off blogging then, with the new little and all that went with it, so here's what it looked like on that dark evening so long ago.

We didn't go anywhere this year, of course, because of the pandemic and all of that. We had some on-line messaging and texting and such with friends and family. The new normal kind of sucks for celebrating the little orbital accomplishments. Hopefully the normal normal will return soon.

The missus ordered a dinner for delivery from a favorite fancy restaurant. Delivery doesn't do well for many of these, and this was no exception. The food was fine, but the temperature was tepid at best. Even a little reheating didn't do justice. What would have been fantastic hot out of the kitchen at a table in the restaurant, was not as good as anything we would have made and served within 30 minutes of it being cooked.

We don't have decent Asian delivery around here, so really the only winner is pizza. The pizza delivery places have really figured out how to make pizza done 10-30 minutes after it leaves the oven. I used to deliver pizza when I was in my 20s, and we tried really hard to keep that 10-minute rest time the same as the delivery time, and even with just the insulated sleeves.

We made note of the New Year change in UTC. I tried having a little discussion about how and why time zones exist. The rotation of the planet part piqued a little interest, but not enough to make it really interesting for anyone else.

After dinner we made a long drive to take a short drive to see some holiday lights at the Aboretum. Normally a walk-through event, where they have large displays of lights all over the gardens, they instead lined the roads with things. The line was slowly chugging along, and stopping was discouraged. It was pretty enough, but the drive home started pushing the limits of the day.

We watched Soul after the trip. It started eeking into bedtime, so we might have to watch it again to get the full effect. It was cute. About a musician, but not a musical. About the before and after life, where souls come from and go, without pushing any more serious idea than "souls come from and go somewhere." And some strict accountant trying to keep the one that went awry back in order. It is really more about growth, introspection, and mentoring. A good tale about discovering who you are, and what you're ready for.

After, the little crashed, pretty quickly. The big wants to stay up to see midnight. I think she's using it as an excuse to watch her shows longer. She's discovered the treasure trove of Nickelodeon shows on our CBS streaming service, so lots of early and teen dramas, mostly humorous, but they are giving her a weird look at being a young person.

We watched the ABC New Year's Eve celebration in New York. Hundreds of people showed up, a few acts doing their things. They interspersed retrospective shows with some live action, and it was all oddly cut and poorly arranged. On the top of the hours leading up to it, they'd show a clock counting down, and do a little meek "that was cool." In previous years, they might have cut to someone else's celebration, but I don't think there are any this year, especially since London's was hours ago. After the midnight drop in New York, they abruptly ended, and returned to repeating some of the retrospectives. Nothing on any other channels.

About a half-hour to go. We're poking through some of the late shows, all repeats from before, it seems. I suppose everyone's on vacation.

This is why we're usually asleep at the usual times on NYE.

Everyone's healthy. Tired, but healthy.