Bottle No. B 472997 JW

4 minutes to Egypt and the Pyramids crossing yet another threshold. Second glass of the most memorable warm-up liquid to any new year. Coltrane and Heinlein also close, and the damn Giants for once didn't give up the final TD drive.

This eve brings, as always, its reflections (3..2...1... Happy New Year, Cairo!) Still haven't memorized those poems, dissected that religious literature, run the 1/2 marathon, sought out the theatrical audition. Only now getting to that a-promised bottle. And, perhaps most hilariously, failed to avoid Europe's clarion call and making the return.

The past several days, I have thought up many new eclectic resolutions, beginning with the perfect surprise of the gratis Louis XIII. But rather than list them direct and watch them be slowly sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought over the coming months, let us follow a more natural course and note them as they pass. Imbue each day with thoughts of potentialities. Flights, fancies, delights. The unexpected. The world's marvels within the oyster's grasp. Yes, let that be your last wish of 2006. Not the most perfect of years, granted. But consider: the first glimpses of the Lincoln Memorial and the Smithsonian's gallery of firsts in flight on that windswept February day; walking for the first time amidst the magnetic Savannah Moss, not knowing that the lost camera was in the process of discovery and eventual return by the truest of Southern gentlemen; the first ascent of Maui's Haleakala, in the heaviest of fog, only guaranteeing a return; the mailing of the Munchen trenchcoat, after another stroll through Theresienweiss preparations two years on; another Oktoberfest with Gatts in Seattle and another drubbing of the G-men amidst daydreams in the brightest of suns outside Qwest; an Old Triangle turned German oompa band 17 hour St. Pat's...; Madison Square, Drowsy Chaperone, and a Shears NYC wedding (then there were fewer); Lucky Ron, the W club, Dueling Pianos; the first of many Krapp-like birthday tapes to come; attendance at my mother's mother's 80th in St. John's and father's fathers' 90th two weeks apart in St. John's and Windsor, NS, respectively - then the scare and valiant recovery of my marvelous grandfather that continues on; the job and call to the bar, never critical in the long-run but clarifying for now; and maybe as vital and revealing as all, ever more constant reminders of the inevitability of Samarkand. Soon.

Much awaits in 2007. That's the story for a new day, a new year. So what am I to do, to keep the sky so blue? Keep on keepin' on, is all. And keep those thumbs held.

Au revoir, 2006. Thanks for the memories.