Adieu to 2006, part 1

I think I went to sleep around 4:17 on 1rst January 2006, because I looked at my watch so I could write this when I was awake again, which turned out to be in between 8:15 and 8:30. Today is NEW YEAR'S DAY, 2007. We (the H whole H familly, and Mom and I and Mr. P and Miss Fortune) went to the Hotel California and the reason I ended up at the H family's house was because I needled and pleaded and rationalized Mom and Mrs. H into letting me sleep over. There were tons of red roses on the tables and counters. Dinner was a buffet and the deserts were REALLY good. Mom gave Mr. H the four pack of Martinelli's nonalcoholic apple champagne and G and I drank, on average, one bottle each. We had such a hard time getting anything that vaugely resembled a champagne flue or that was even made of glass, because the people behind the counter who know G said go to the bar, and so we went to the bar and we said, "can we have two champagne flues?"
The bartender went, "you can't have champagne."
"No, the glasses for it"
"You can't have champagne!"
"No, THE GLASSES"
So he handed us these stupid little flimsy plastic glasses - as if anyone in her right mind would drink out of a picnic cup on New Year's Eve, and at the hotel* for goodness sake - it's just not right! - and after that I left most of the arguing to G because the bartender wouldn't listen to me.
"Is this for you or your mom?"
"No, for us."
"We can't let you have glass glasses!" (This is all in Spanish mind you)
Meanwhile this really obnoxious guy was saying to me (in Engish)
"Ha ha you want champagne don't you"
"No. Non. Al. Co. Ho. Lic!"
"[I] Don't think they have nonalcoholic - face it you want champagne!" (Don't you hate it when people keep insisting on informing you as to what it is you want, when what you want is nothing of the kind?) (The fountain was full of ice and bottles of champagne - I couldn't help but wonder what they had done with the poor water plants)
"No we brought our own."
We continued in this vein for some time (I think both the bartender and the surfer looking guy I was talking to were well on their way to being thuroughly drunk) until just as the bartender was handing G the two glasses - I'd bet he pulled rank on him since his dad's the head chef - the guy said "Oh! You brought your own nonalcoholic champagne!"
"YEAH." I said loudly, "MARTINELLI'S."
As if that wouldn't be hard enough under normal circumstances, one of the two bands - they had Flashback and some reggae one from LP - were playing really loudly.

There were really cool firedancers and G and I got a really good place to watch but people's heads kept getting in the way - at one point I was leaning forward and would've overbalanced if not for the fact that I had my arms, camera in hand as usual, balanced and leaning precariously on an indifferent guy's shoulders.

**X-Files theme song plays.
Cat: Gee that's weird.
*X-Files theme song stops.
Cat: Thank you.*

There were a couple hundred balloons above the high bit of the courtyard in a great big plastic net thing that was released at 12:00 am (I got a video) and everyone started popping them (I don't know how everyone fit. They sold 300 tickets). I grabbed a silver one and a red one (the two colors they had) and started chasing G, muttering continually stuff like, " 'scuse me, pardon me, in pursuit of a homicidal maniac armed with baloons, should be considered armed and dangerous, chasing him now, 10-4 good buddy, sorry 'bout that civilian, I got places to go, people to see, homicidal maniacs to catch and beat about the head with balloons," (every time I caught up with him we had a balloon fight), "have you seen G perchance? That way? Thanks... GOTCHA! Hey! Geroff - oh! Homicidal maniac on the loose, should be considered highly dangerous to all balloons, DON'T DO THE 'ARMPIT'* !"
Also I saw the person I am denominating 'Dune Boy' because when I met him (he's around 5 yrs older than me) we discussed books and he mentioned he's reading Dune - all of which I have read, tee hee.

*If I'm saying the hotel as if everyone should know it, its the hotel Caaaaaaaaaaaaalifornia! that no one knows if the eagles stayed in or not, the old owners used to say they did, but the old owners also said it had been in the familly for generations PLURAL, which it hadn't. So I don't know.
**Squish the balloon under his arm. Ew.