[caption id="attachment_1741" align="alignleft" width="500" caption="At home in Walla Walla "]<a href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/img_1384.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-1741" title="Walla Walla " src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/img_1384.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" /></a>[/caption]

I am at home waiting for 2010 to reach me.  I turns out that my Bulgarian friends have been enjoying the new year for slightly more than five hours and here I am in Walla Walla still waiting.  Now you don't have to feel too badly for me because I am at home feet up, enjoying a gin and club soda with plenty of lime, wearing my new purple fleece lined sweatshirt and trying to decide when it's okay for me to go to bed.<!--more-->

I've decided that I should try to make it until 9pm--that's 12 midnight in New York City so this seems acceptable to me.  I mean really this is just a night more or less like the ten other before them.  It's not like waiting up to welcome 2010 in is going to somehow bring me more luck, more love or more wealth than if I went to bed and greeted the new year in my dreams.

Don't get me wrong, I like to celebrate, to get dressed up, to sip a fancy cocktail and to dance but it's snowy, icy and cold in Walla Walla and I'm not feeling it.  I am doing just what I want to do (though I'd like to have on a slightly thicker pair of socks right now).  I just don't think that there's only one way to welcome the new year and I don't think that 2010 will be somehow less fun than it otherwise would have been had I gone out.

Probably I am now simply trying to justify my sweatshirt, glasses and hanging out with my parents on December 31st but luckily for me I like them, I like being comfortable and I am happy to be in Walla Walla for the holidays.  But I'll have you know that none of this guarantees that I'll be able to stay awake past 9pm.

Still, I am wishing each of you the best in 2010 no matter what time you celebrate.