On the road again... certainly a great song and a perfect description of the long holiday weekend. Farewell 2005 and welcome 2006! The end and beginning rolled into a ball of celebration, recollection, and hope.
It was clearly all preparation and cleanup for me throughout the holiday weekend. Not to say that it wasn't equally busy for all. However, Friday was indeed a hugely burdensome day for me.
With the party 24 hours away the task of cleaning up the frontyard and driveway were a large part of the hectic schedule. At the last moment, we decided on a canopy tent for the yard. That threw a minor wrench in the timing but so did other unexpected events.
I planned the day to include some time to enjoy the yearend festivities at work. It was a good year and the party was in appreciation of that accomplishment. As it turned out I would have no time to attend or celebrate with friends and colleagues. Perhaps, it wasn't meant to be as the sum of tasks laid before me that day kept me tied up way into the night.
In addition to the other tasks I also needed to pick-up ice from the dock and the frozen food from my sister's workplace. She ordered 40lbs of chicken drummettes, a case of king crab legs, a box of tiger shrimp, and 10lbs of chunked ahi. On the way down I got a call requesting swapping of the coolers. The one used at work had apparently started to leak and they needed to swap out the contents asap.
Traffic was bad all day and I wasn't getting very far. I was much closer to work then to the dock so I decided to turn around and head for work. They met me in the loading zone to do the swap but with a smaller cooler. The timing was terrible I couldn't afford to wait for a cooler to cooler swap so I used a smaller one instead.
I took a different route and decided to get the food items first. Arriving 45 minutes late I transfered the frozen goods to my truck. They were packed in large boxes which probably couldn't have been accomodated by the original large cooler I had just returned. I placed what I could in the smaller cooler and left the boxes stacked to reduce defrosting then picked up the ice which was on the way back.
A final stop at work was made to obtain the now empty "leaky" cooler. It was obvious I would need it for all the frozen food and had no choice but to get it. By the time I got home and finished properly icing down the food it was well into the midafternoon.
The timing really sucked but I had to finish the clean up before I could setup the canopy. I still had hope that I could attend the party but it slowly faded with the sun. With help from my nephew we got the canopy up then started securing it. It, along with the yard and driveway would finally come together in the late evening. Final touches such as lighting, table dressing, etc. would finish it off well into the night.
There was some final food preparation made before I hit the sack. The next day would be my long awaited hike and I wanted to no excuses to deal with. As the day long preparations came to an end I wondered if it would be worth the sacrifices then got some rest.
In retrospect, I guess it was worth it. The party was a success if guaging was necessary. We hadn't used the frontyard in years, maybe even decades so to the younger family members it was like a dream. Setup was very nice with the stereo, tv, and karaoke in one corner, the margherita bar in another corner, and the poker table in the other.
Lots of family, friends, and of course food! Menu went something like this: ahi poke (w/ onion and w/ limu kohu), tako poke, chicken drummettes (fried and teri), tempuras (shrimp, vegetable, mahi, and sweet potato), fried noodles, luk fun (plain, shrimp, and char siu), sweet sour spareribs, sashimi, kabob (shrimp, bacon, and veggie), soups (pork & cabbage and pork & black eyed peas), salsa, tomato & basil, potato & egg salad, chinese salad, shrimp kataifi, char siu, siu chi yuk, turkey tail, spicy shrimp with green beans, hotdogs, hamburgers, lava flow?, chocolate drop cookies, chocolate brownies, et al. And of course all the damn alcohol!!
I was pretty beat after the hike and after all the prep stress so I just went with the flow. It was a nice celebration. Though I don't have the drunken blues I'm still pretty bruised and probably gonna take a while physically to recover. A thoroughly rough hike and an endless stream of food to cap off and welcome the new year.
Happy New Year!!!
