Happy New Year!

Christmas always comes before New Year's Eve. It's a fact. The more things change the more things stay the same. Yup. We can rely on Christmas coming before January 31st.
Well, this gave me a problem this year and it makes me wonder why we can't celebrate Christmas after January 1st.
Here's why: I was invited to a New Year's Eve Ball on the 31st of December and found the most divine sleek, classical black satin gown (strapless) for the occasion. All it needed was a choker of classically chunky diamonds to set it off as the last word in high fashion. Little pause for thought there as my bank account couldn't quite stretch to accommodate a set of Fink's chunky diamonds, but no problem, rhinestones work quite well, and you don't have to worry about highway robbers. But I digress.
 The dress fit like snakeskin - sleek, smooth and satiny with tiny buttons down the back disguising a zipper that would presumably keep it all together and hold everything up. Trouble was I first tried it on two weeks before Christmas and it fit like snake skin. Four weeks later, after a few Christmas parties, a sip of eggnog here and there, a martini one night and Christmas dinner combined with a trip to San Francisco and more than a few sips of Sonoma and Napa wines - not so much.
 I began to worry about the dress on the way home from San Francisco. I got onto the plane with my hand luggage bulging with left over truffles and chocolate Santas and my jeans bulging - with me. How could this be? These jeans used to be the most comfortable pants I owned. Did the California water shrink them? Probably not.

When I got home, I couldn't look the skinny dress in the face without daggers of guilt piercing my  bulges and did my best to avoid eye-contact with it as I anxiously finished up the chocolate I'd unpacked and started on the Virginia Peanuts and and leftover walnuts in the fridge. This was not good - but the more I thought about it, the more I munched 'til on the morning of the big dance I came to my senses and raced off to Zumba to loose five pounds in one hour. Didn't happen. I tried starving myself all day and at the last moment I took the dress down and tried it on ... drum roll...
Twenty minutes later, with two people tugging and sucking and squeezing, the zipper shot up my back. "Yessss!" I squeaked, because that seemed to be the only sound I could make. I tried to let out a sigh of relief only to find out that sighs are driven by air and I had precious little to spare in my lungs which appeared to be somewhere in the vicinity of my Adam's apple. Or was that my boobs? Whatever, they were quite spectacular in this trussed up mode.
 But breathing was definitely a source of concern. I rode to Roanoke to the dance, flattened out in the front seat of the car like a python who's eaten too much - go figure... stretching my lungs out to help with inhalation.
My emergency dress was in the back seat. 

The emergency dress was in the back seat in the event that the Old Year went out with a Bang! and I popped out of my sleek black satin like a watermelon pip sometime during the evening.Or worse still, that the zipper split and that silky smooth gown slithered elegantly down my legs pooling in a puddle of elegant black satin around my feet.
"We'll just tell everyone you're part of the entertainment," My date Jim said. "We'll say we couldn't afford a cake so you popped out of your dress instead."

Bad joke. I could feel myself hyperventilating. Smelling salts - I needed smelling salts. Jim didn't think CVS carried them.

***

I needn't have worried about any of this, as it turned out. My posture was perfect (had to be or - Pop!) as I tottered into the ballroom on Jim's arm. The chunky rhinestones sparkled, and I took small wispy breaths and everything was fine.
 I must write a note to the 3M company (or whoever makes these wonderful zippers) thanking them profusely for their craftsmanship and wishing them a Happy New Year.

Happy New Year to you too. Let's all hope that 2013 exceeds all our best hopes for a really good New Year. The blog is coming back and when it does, there are two new books to tell you about. In the meantime, Love, health and happiness to us all! Chocolates are out for a while, though.